AT A ROSE-SHOW. 26/ 



and shady. They are like Melrose Abbey — sunlight does 

 not suit them. "The gay beams of lightsome day" are 

 not becoming to countenances long estranged from pillow, 

 razor, and tub. They have come to meet the Queen of 

 Flowers, as Mephibosheth to meet King David, not having 

 dressed his feet, or trimmed his beard, or washed his clothes 

 from the day the king departed. And this reminds me 

 that we, the clerical contingent, appear upon these occasions 

 especially dishevelled and dim. Sydney Smith would un- 

 doubtedly say that we " seemed to have a good deal of 

 glebe upon our own hands." In the thick dust upon our 

 black coats you might write or draw distinctly ; — (I once 

 saw traced upon the back of a thirsty florist, of course a 

 layman — to be kept dry ; this side tip) ; — and our white ties — 



*' Qui color albus erat, nunc est contrarius albo " — 



are dismally limp and loose. The bearded brethren re- 

 mind one of St Angus, of whom we read that, perspiring 

 and unwashed, he worked in his barn until the scattered 

 grain took root and grew on him. 



By-and-by, when the exhibition is open to the public, we 

 shall be as spruce as our neighbours, and as bright as soap- 

 and-water — he is no true gardener who loves not both — can 

 make us. Meanwhile let me assure the new-comer amone 



