I 10 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. 



loved the cool grot for contemplation made, or the sunny- 

 walk through the glossy evergreens in which the throstle 

 sang. They welcomed their flowers as He sent them who 

 " hath made everything beautiful in his time ; " they did 

 not upbraid Nature, nor essay to wake her when she slept 

 her winter sleep ; they forgave her deciduous trees. They 

 followed her in all things as their teacher. They copied 

 her lines, which were rarely straight, rarely angular ; 

 and her surfaces, which were rarely flat. Said to me a 

 house-painter, whom I watched and praised as he was 

 cleverly graining one of my doors in imitation of oak, 

 " Well, sir, I must say I do think myself, that I'm following 

 up Natur close," and he ran his thumb-nail up a panel 

 swiftly, as though he would catch her by the heel. So did 

 they reproduce her graceful features. " It is the peculiar 

 happiness of the age" (this was written in 1755) "to see 

 just and noble ideas brought into practice, peculiarities 

 banished, prospects opened, the country called in, nature 

 rescued and improved, and art decently concealing itself 

 under her own productions." "I am now," wrote the 

 Czarina to Voltaire in the year 1772, "wildly in love with 

 the English system of gardening, its waving lines and gentle 

 declivities ; " and so was all the gardening world. Sixty 



