APRIL. 97 



THE GLADIOLUS. 



(Plate 150). 



If we, of " Perfide Albion," and they of " La Belle France,'' 

 do fondly cherish certain little political animosities toward 

 each other, and if we are otherwise slightly at cross pur- 

 poses upon minor moralities and social ethics, we at least atone 

 for all these and other differences, as members in common of 

 the great floral republic. There we all, with one consent, 

 fling our animosities to the winds, and rush into each others 

 arms like men and brothers. Though the cup we pledge each 

 other in may be that of a Tulip, and instead of greetings across 

 the table (though we often supplement our meetings in that 

 pleasing manner), we exchange a bunch of Gilliflowers or a 

 root or two of Polyanthus, we are none the less friends ; and 

 as such are always ready to rally round the standard of our 

 common faith — horticulture. And if our good confreres across 

 the Channel in heralding a new candidate (a plant, be it 

 understood) for popular favour, do sometimes a leetle too highly 

 colour the good qualities and pretensions of such candidates, 

 we who are in these matters as immaculate as arctic snows, 

 know very well how to excuse, or at least to palliate, the 

 exuberance of a playful fancy, warmed by a southern sun. 

 We who have never been guilty of any shortcomings (or rather 

 overdoings), in that way, know what is due to an erring friend, 

 and can generously forgive if not forget. There are, thank 

 the gods, no floricultural Barnums among us. Humbug is 

 not known in the English horticultural vocabulary. We can, 

 every mother's son of us, to any such insinuation, lay our 

 hands upon our hearts, cast up our eyes, and exclaim, without 

 as much as causing a flutter in our respectable bosoms, 



" Let the galled jade wince, our whithers are unwrung." 



But, exclaims the gentle reader (query, why are readers 

 always gentle ?), " What has this to do with the Gladiolus ? " 

 Nothing, good Sir, nothing ; we are coming to that. But the 

 bare subject would be as dry as one of its own corms (we 

 believe that is the correct term), in a pot of sand in December, 

 and we must perforce liquify it a little. And moreover, 

 although we admit the desirableness of the qualification in a 

 writer, we never can plunge in media res, which we believe 

 means that we never can begin writing about what we intended 

 to say, without saying a good deal of what we didn't intend 

 to say. 



This ordeal over, then, here we are ; and, like 'cute M'Quade, 

 when he woke up with his feet in the stocks, where his respect- 



VOL. XII., NO. CXXXVI. H 



