GARDEN ROSES. 1 8/ 



to the British public takes the exquisite freshness from 

 Charles Lawson's beauty, and too often produces in the 

 junior Miss Blair a transition from the blushing graceful- 

 ness of girlhood into the rubicund stoutness of middle age. 

 Again and again, charmed by their loveliness overnight, I 

 have given them a place in my boxes : as often I have been 

 obliged to confess that the impulse of the evening did not 

 satisfy the morning's reflection. On this subject I shall 

 have more to say ; meanwhile let us sniff — 



The Sweet-Brier ; and let no Rosarian lightly esteem this 

 simple but gracious gift. " You are a magnificent swell," 

 said a dingy little brown bird, by name Philomela, to a 

 cock-pheasant strutting and crowing in the woods, "but 

 your music is an awful failure." So may the Sweet-Brier, 

 with no flowers to speak of, remind many a gaudy neigh- 

 bour that fine feathers do not constitute a perfect bird, and 

 that men have other senses as well as that of sight to 

 please. Not even among the Roses shall we find a more 

 delicious perfume. The Thurifer wears a sombre cassock, 

 but no sweeter incense rises heavenward. 



In one of our most beautiful midland gardens there is a 

 circular space hedged in, and filled exclusively with sweet- 

 scented leaves and flowers. There grow the Eglantine and 



