1/6 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. 



and improve both contemplation and health, the enjoyment 

 of sense and imagination, and thereby the quiet and ease 

 both of the body and mind." And again he speaks of "the 

 sweetness and satisfaction of this retreat, where, since my 

 resolution taken of never entering again into any public 

 employments, I have passed five years without ever going 

 once to town, though I am almost in sight of it, and have a 

 house there ready to receive me." 



Even so to his garden may every true gardener say, as 

 Martial to his wife Marcella : — 



" Romam tu mihi sola facis," 



" You make me callous to all meaner charms." 



" Let others seek the giddy throng 

 Of mirth and revehy ; 

 The simpler joys which nature yields 

 Are dearer far to me." 



And let there be, by all means, among those joys included 

 a bed of the Common Moss-Rose — a " well-aired " bed of 

 dry subsoil, for damp is fatal — in which, planted on its own 

 roots, well manured, closely pruned, and pegged down, it 

 will yield its flowers in abundance, most lovely, like 

 American girls, in the bud, but long retaining the charms 

 of their premiere jeimesse before they arrive at rosehood. 



