42 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. 



ing itself, tells us, through ]\Ir Pope in TJie Gttardian, 

 how an eminent cook beautified his country-seat with 

 a coronation dinner done in evergreens, the Champion 

 flourishing in horn-beam at one end of the table, and 

 the Queen in perpetual yew at the other. '' But I, for 

 my part," writes Lord Bacon, *' do not like to see images 

 cut out in junipers and other garden-stuff: they be for 

 children." 



It is, however, enough to have shown that although the 

 floral light of these Greeks and Romans was dim and feeble, 

 it revealed to them the supreme beauty of the Rose ; and we 

 shall find, as we pass down the highways of history from 

 their times to our own, that against the Royal Supremacy 

 no voice has been ever raised. It has been reverently 

 acknowledged always ; but its great champions and 

 laureates have been found, of course, among the poets — 

 among those who love beauty most, and in whose hearts a 

 love of the beautiful rings the " manifold soft chimes " of 

 song. In all lands and languages they have sung the Rose, 

 and in none with sweeter service than our own. From 

 Spenser to Tennyson there is no great English chorister 

 who has not loved and lauded her. I have pages of extracts 

 in my commonplace-book, but they are, I doubt not, familiar 



