CONCERNING ROSE- SHOWS. 203 



show. And yet, then as now, whatever might be its posi- 

 tion, the Rose was the favourite flower ; then as now, the 

 visitor, oppressed by the size and by the splendour of 

 gigantic specimen plants, would turn to it and sigh, " There 

 is nothing, after all, like the Rose." 



Year by year my enthusiasm increased. I was like An- 

 drew Marvel's fawn, when 



" All its chief delight was still 

 On Roses thus itself to fill ; " 



and my Roses multiplied from a dozen to a score, from a 

 score to a hundred, from a hundred to a thousand, trees. 

 They came into my garden a very small band of settlers, 

 and speedily, after the example of other colonists, they 

 civilised all the former inhabitants from off the face of the 

 earth. Nor were they content with the absolute occupation 

 of that portion of my grounds in which they were first 

 planted. The Climbing Roses peeped over the wall on one 

 side, and the tall Standards looked over the yew hedge on 

 the other, and strongly urged upon their crowded brethren 

 beneath (as high and prosperous ones had urged before 

 upon their poorer kinsfolk, pressing them too closely) an 

 exodus to other diggings, to " fields fresh and pastures 

 new." So there was a congress of the great military chiefs, 



