8 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. 



There is no beauty, and there never will be, for 

 the florist ; but to the entomologist what a happy 

 peaceful home ! There can be no museum in all 

 the world so exquisitely complete in caterpillars, 

 or so rich with all manner of flies. What cosy 

 chambers they make for themselves, what spacious 

 nurseries for their delightful offspring, in .the 

 cracks and the cankers, the broken bark, the moss, 

 and the lichen, of those ancient standard trees ! 

 For me there is no solace in these charms. I stand 

 sorrowful and silent, like Marius among the ruins, 

 until my companion wishes to know whether I 

 can tell him why that wretched Charles Lefebvre 

 behaves so disgracefully in his garden ? On re- 

 flection, perhaps I can. Charles Lefebvre is 

 placed, like Tityrus, " sui? tegnimc fagi,' under 

 the drip and shadow of a noble beech-tree, whose 

 boughs above and roots beneath effectually keep 

 all nourishment from him. And do I know why 

 Charles Lawson, Blairii 2, and Persian Yellow 

 never have a flower upon them ? Simply because 

 they are pruned always, as no man v/ith seeing 

 eyes could prune them twice, so closely that they 

 make nothing but wood. The single standards, 

 again, are grassed up to the very Brier, except 

 where a circular space is left for "just a few bed- 

 ding-out things," — leeches draining the life-blood 



