OUR QUEEN OF BEAUTY. 5 1 



high heads to the Rose. Not even In combination and 

 alliance can all the flowers of the garden compete with 

 the garden of Roses — not the flowers of spring, or the 

 terraces of Clieveden, or Belvoir's sunny slopes, not the 

 summer splendours of Archerfield and beautiful Hard- 

 wicke. Let the artistic " bedder-out " select his colours 

 from all the tribes and families of plants : his blacks 

 and bronzes and dark deep reds from the Coleus, the 

 Oxalis, Amaranthus, and Iresine ; his yellows from the 

 Calceolaria, Marigold, Tropseolum, Viola ; his scarlets 

 from the Verbena and Pelargonium ; his whites from the 

 Cerastium, Centaurea, Santolina, Alyssum ; let him have 

 all that flower and foliage, arranged by consummate 

 taste, can do, he can never produce a scene so fair, because 

 he can never produce a scene so natural, as he may 

 have in a garden of Roses. It may be more brilliant, 

 more imposing, but there will not be that unity, that 

 perfect peace, of which the eye wearies never. It is like 

 a triumphant march of organs, trumpets, and shawms, 

 but the ear cannot listen to it so long, so happily, as to 

 some plaintive horn in the calm eventide, or some sweet 

 simple song. The gorgeous dame of fashion, the loud 

 undaunted woman of the world, prismatic, brilliant, flaunt- 



