130 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. 



behind him, who seemed, I must say, about to clamber up 

 the speaker's back, — " Pardon me, sir, but may I remind 

 you that we are not playing at leap-frog ?" What were 

 they all struggling to see ? There were long lines of lovely 

 Roses — why this pressure always at this special spot ? It 

 was just as when, in our Royal Academy, and on the first 

 days of exhibition, the visitors all make for one particular 

 corner, because there hangs, so the Times has told them, 

 the picture of the year. And what was tJie Rose ? It was 

 Cloth-of-Gold Noisette — a box of it, sent by Mr W. Cant, 

 from the neighbourhood of Colchester. Well, the most 

 jealous could not dispute its supreme beauty. It was cer- 

 tainly the belle of the ball. In its integrity, it is, I believe, 

 the most glorious of all Roses. No true Rosarian ever 

 forgets the first perfect bloom he sees of it. " Even at this 

 distance of time," writes Mr Rivers in i Z6y, " I have not 

 forgotten the delight I felt on seeing this Rose in full 

 bloom at Angers in 1843. Its flowers w^re like large 

 golden bells." Why, then, have I not given it precedence } 

 Simply because, were such a compliment offered, the Rose 

 would scarcely ever be there to receive it. Because in this 

 climate it is so rarely realised, that I do not remember to 

 have seen it, fidl-grown, more than three or four times in 



