52 



THE SWEET BRIAR. 



(rosa rubiginosa.) 



Rosier Rouille. * 



Who knows not the Sweet Briar ? the Eglantine, 

 that plant of song, the rhyme of which jingles 

 so prettily that nearly all our poets, even love- 

 stricken rustics, have taken advantage of its sweet 

 sound. 



I will give to my love the Eglantine 



has been often the beginning of a country lover's 

 song ; but, in sober truth, everyone must love 

 this simplest and sweetest of flowers, for what 

 odour can surpass that emanating from a bush of 

 Sweet Briar in the dewy evenings of June ? It 

 pleases not the eye, for the Single Sweet Briar 

 bears flowers, in comparison with other roses, 

 quite inconspicuous : but it gratifies in a high 

 degree by its delicious perfume, and gives to the 

 mind most agTeeable associations, for it is so often 

 (at least in Hertfordshire) the inhabitant of the 

 pretty English cottage garden — such a garden as 

 one sees nowhere but in England. 



The Single Sweet Briar is a native plant, 

 growing in dry and chalky soils in some of the 

 southern counties : from it the following varieties, 

 with some others, have been originated, more or 

 less hybridised. The Carmine Sweet Briar, with 



