GARDEN ROSES. 1 89 



a magnificent swell," said a dingy little brown 

 bird, by name Philomela, to a cock-pheasant 

 strutting and crowing in the woods, "but your 

 music is an awful failure." So may the Sweet- 

 Brier, with no flowers to speak of, remind many a 

 gaudy neighbor that fine feathers do not consti- 

 tute a perfect bird, and that men have other 

 senses as well as that of sight to please. Not even 

 among the Roses shall we find a more delicious 

 perfume. The Thurifer wears a sombre cassock, 

 but no sweeter incense rises heavenward. 



In one of our midland gardens there is a cir- 

 cular space hedged in, and filled exclusively with 

 sweet-scented leaves and flowers. There grovv^ 

 the Eglantine and the Honeysuckle, the Gilli- 

 flower, the Clove and Stock, Sweet- Peas and Musk, 

 Jasmine and Geranium, Verbena and Heliotrope — 

 but the Eglantine to me when I passed through 

 "The Sweet Garden," as it is called, just after a 

 soft May shower, had the sweetest scent of them 

 all. It is an idea very gracefully imagined and 

 happily realized, but suggested by, and still sug- 

 gesting, sorrowful sympathies, for the owner of 

 that garden is blind.* 



* The blind Squire of Osberton is (l^ad, but I retain this de- 

 scription of his Sweet Garden, iioping that the idea may be realized 

 elsewhere, for the comfort and refreshment of others similarly 

 afflicted. 



