206 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. 



due share of public honors. I noticed that the 

 lovers of the Carnation had exhibitions of Carna- 

 tions only, and that the worshippers of the Tulip 

 and the Auricula ignored all other idols. I saw 

 that the Queen of Autumn, the Dahlia, refused 

 the alliance of each foreign potentate, when she 

 led out her fighting troops in crimson and gold, 

 gorgeous. The Chrysanthemum, alone in her 

 glory, made the halls of Stoke Newington gay. 

 Even the vulgar hairy Gooseberry maintained an 

 exhibition of its own ; and I knew a cottager 

 whose kitchen was hung round with copper ket- 

 tles, the prizes which he had won with his Roaring 

 Lions, his Londons, Thumpers, and Crown-Bobs. 

 Was the Queen of Summer, forsooth, to be de- 

 graded into a lady-in-waiting ? Was the royal 

 supremacy to be lost ? No — like 



*' Lars Porsenna of Clusium, 

 When by his gods he swore, 

 That the great house of Tarquin, 

 Should suffer wrong no more" — 



I vowed that her Majesty should have her own 

 again, and in a court of unparalleled and unas- 

 sisted splendor should declare herself monarch of 

 the floral world. 



Carrying out this loyal resolution, I forthwith 



