POSITION. 55 



and when he finished the struggle, with beads on 

 his brow, the sultan told him, *' that although he 

 had heard the most renowned performers of the 

 age, he had never met one who — perspired so 

 freely !" Nor could I, with my heart as full of 

 charity's milk as a Cheshire dairy of the cow's, 

 think of any higher praise of the plot before me 

 than that it was an admirable place for ferns ; 

 and therefore, when my commentary was received 

 with an expressive smile of genteel disgust, as 

 though I had suggested that the allotment in 

 question was tJie site of all others for a jail, or had 

 said, as Carlyle said of the Royal Garden at Pots- 

 dam, that ** it was one of the finest Fog-preserves 

 in Europe," then, without further prevarications, 

 I told the truth. And the truth is, that this 

 boundless contiguity of shade is fatal, and every 

 overhanging tree is fatal as an upas-tree, to the 

 Rose. As Ireland has been said to be too near a 

 great country ever to achieve greatness for itself 

 (I do not myself attribute its humidity or its indo- 

 lence, its famines or its Fenianism, to the vicinity of 

 England) ; so the Rose, in close proximity to a 

 forest-tree, can never hope to thrive. In a two- 

 fold sense it takes umbrage; robbed above and 

 robbed below, robbed by branches of its sunshine, 

 and by roots of its soil, it sickens, droops, and 



