50 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. 



perfect; and yet let their owner, than whom a 

 more earnest and successful florist never tended 

 flowers — let Charles Turner declare, as I know he 

 would, that though the Dahha may be ** Queen 

 of Autumn," the Rose is the Queen of Flowers. 



The tall, proud, stately, handsome Hollyhocks, 

 of Chater, of W. Paul, — yea, even those of the 

 peer, peerless in this branch of floriculture, Lord 

 Hawke, — must bow their high heads to the Rose; 

 and the Lilies, the lovely Lilies, from Japan and 

 elsewhere, which have come as beautiful strangers 

 into our gardens, to beautify them henceforth for 

 ever — for they are hardy, having due attention — 

 and to see them, amid our evergreens, holding up 

 their golden and jewelled cups to catch the soft 

 showers of June, is an ecstasy, — these stand next 

 to, but may not mount, the throne. No, not even 

 in combination and alliance can all the flowers of 

 the garden compete with the Garden of Roses — 

 not the flowers of spring on the terraces of Clieve- 

 den or Belvoir's sunny slopes, not the summer 

 splendors of Archerfield and beautiful Hardwicke. 

 Let the artistic '* bedder-out" select his colors 

 from all the tribes and families of plants ; his 

 blacks and bronzes and dark deep reds from the 

 Coleus, the Oxalis, Amxaranthus, Iresine, and Beet; 

 his yellows from the Calceolaria, Marigold, and 



