STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 191 



polat^on or patchwork — part Shakspeare and part Italian ; but as 

 the play proceeds we have Mercutio, Friar Lawrence and the rag- 

 ged apothecary, Juliet's grief and Romeo's despair at the separa- 

 tion, their fidelity to each other in life and death, and gem after 

 gem immortal in quotation, which bear the genuine stamp of the 

 great master's mind. 



To change the scene, here are Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew 

 Aguecheek waiting in Olivia's garden, in Twelfth Night, to pun- 

 ish the supercilious Malvolio with Maria's device about the forged 

 letter. There is nothing particularly horticultural about this, only 

 in the location of a very practical joke, which all but the victim in 

 yellow stockings and cross garters can enjoy ; but it reveals the 

 garden as a good place for social fun ; and when Malvolio who has 

 been captured by the snare laid for him, loftily reads in the letter : 



" Some men are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have great- 

 ness thrust upon thtm," 



We realize that the greatness that is thrust upon him is no 

 boon, and we can moralize that if we are born great it is our 

 inheritance, if we achieve it, it is our just due, but if thrust upon 

 us, we had better refuse it as an ill-fitting garment of little com- 

 fort and no honor. 



In poor old Scotland the garden does not seem to flourish as 

 well in literature. There is more of clanging swords and waving 

 banners, the pibroch scream, and the defiance of clans echoing 

 from glen to cliff. Yet even here the rose in her highland home 

 is Queen of Scots, and she is the mother of our best and hardiest 

 garden pets of the rose family. Here too the yellow rose was once 

 the highest badge of honor that could be conferred by king or 

 queen. I think there must be Scotch blood in my veins, for noth- 

 ing else in the rose garden pleases me so well, nothing else is so 

 stately in its form of growth, or contrasts so well with surrounding 

 color as the Scotch yellow rose, parent of its close copy the Yellow 

 Harrison, and, too, nothing else is so hardy. Then the wild stock 

 of the garden is all hilarious in Scotish poetry — the birds, the trees 

 and the flowers; and who can think of them without recalling 



'' The fragrant birch and hawthorn hoar" 

 that sheltered " Highland Mary." Take out 

 * * * " the mavis singing 

 His love song to the morn;" 



the '' bonnie lark " 



" When upward springing, blithe, to greet 

 The purpling East;'' 



