184 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. 



times by old farmhouses and in cottage plots, wildly vigor- 

 ous as a gypsy's hair, and covering huge bushes with its 

 snowy flowers profusely, like a Guelder Rose, recalling the 

 suggestion of the elder Pliny, that once upon a time the 

 land we live in was named, after its white Roses, Albion — 

 ob albas rosas* But the latter, the Damask, with its few 

 rich velvety-crimson petals, is a memory, and that is all. 

 Nor do I ask a restoration in either case ; only that they 

 may be replaced by better Roses — the White by Blanche- 

 fleur, very pretty, although the blanche is decidedly a 

 French white ; by Madame Hardy, a true white, and a 

 well-formed Rose, but, alas ! "green-eyed," like ''jealousy " 

 — envious, it may be, of Madame Zoutman, who, though 

 not of such a clear complexion, is free from ocular in- 

 firmities ; or, with more reason, of Princesse Clementine, 

 before described (see p. 172) as one of our best white 

 Roses ; by Princesse de Lamballe, which most resembles 

 the Alba of my boyhood, producing an abundance of 

 Roses, distinct and pretty, but undersized ; and by Tri- 

 omphe de Bayeux, whose praise has been sung at p. 157, 

 supi^a. 



* "Albion insula sic dicta ab albis rupibus quas mare alluit, vel ob rosas 

 albas, quibus abundat." — Hist. Nat., iv. 1 6. 



