92 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. 



soft impeachment. If the man had been a Roman 

 emperor he would have erected the most magnifi- 

 cent temple in honor of Sterculus, the son of 

 Faunus, that Rome ever saw. Because Sterculus, 

 the son of Faunus — so Pliny tells — discovered 

 the art and advantage of spreading dung upon 

 the land ; and he should have appeared in the 

 edifice dedicated to him, graven larger than life 

 in pure gold, riding proudly in his family chariot, 

 the currus Stercorostis i^Anglice, muck-cart), with 

 the agricultural trident in his hand. As it is, I 

 always think of him with honor when I meet the 

 vehicle in which he loved to drive — have ever a 

 smile of extra sweetness for the wide- mouthed 

 waddling charioteer, and am pained at heart to 

 find the precious commodity fallen, or, as they say 

 in Lancashire, *' slattered," on the road. Ah! 

 but once that fastidious reader will be pleased to 

 hear, the man brought himself to sore shame and 

 confusion by this wild passionate affection. Re- 

 turning on a summer's afternoon from a parochial 

 walk, I inferred from wheel-tracks on my carriage- 

 drive that callers had been and gone. I expected 

 to find cards in the hall, and I saw that the horses 

 had kindly left theirs on the gravel. At that 

 moment one of those 



