GARDEN ROSES. 1 83 



bloom in summer and autumn too ; now that several 

 divisions formerly recognised are gone from the catalogues, 

 and others include but two or three able-bodied Roses on 

 their muster-roll — it would be advisable, I think, to ignore 

 altogether these minor distinctions, and to classify as sum- 

 mer Roses all those which bloom but once. Not without 

 a painful sigh can we older Rosarians witness the removal 

 of our old landmarks — not without a loyal sorrow do we 

 say farewell to friends who have brightened our lives with 

 so much gladness ; but we cannot long remember our 

 losses, surrounded as we are by such abundant gains, and 

 the tears of memory must pass away as quickly as the dew 

 in summer. We ring out the old with funeral bells ; we 

 ring in the new with a merry peal. Pensive upon our for- 

 mer favourites, and poring over ancient lists, we are as 

 wanderers in some fair burial-ground, half garden and half 

 graves (would that " God's acre " were always so !), reading 

 mournfully the names of the departed. Let us rejoice the 

 rather to leave the shade of melancholy boughs for the 

 sunlit ground, which is garden all of it, and let us return 

 to the summer Roses, demanding and deserving admission. 

 The white and red Roses of my childhood have long left 

 the garden in which they grew. I see the former some- 



