CONCERNING ROSE-SHOWS. 21/ 



set at defiance the heated atmosphere of the 

 Hall." 



Yes, they defied this adversary, they defied 

 and defeated with their delicious perfume the foul 

 smell which at that time invaded London from 

 the Thames ; but there was one opponent, one 

 only, whom they could not subdue. They had to 

 fight that day, not only the wars of the Roses, the 

 civil war for supremacy among themselves, but 

 they had to meet a rival, against whom they con- 

 centrated all their powers in vain. 



A few months before the Rose-show, I made 

 the acquaintance, afterwards the dearest friendship 

 of my life, of John Leech, the artist ; and in the 

 first of two hundred precious letters which I now 

 possess from his pen, he etched the prevision of a 

 combat between Flora and Venus, which subse- 

 quently appeared, more correctly but less prettily 

 delineated, in Punch, with the explanation infra* 

 v/hich I v/rote, on his request. 



* In the days of the Great Stench of London, the Naiades ran 

 from the banks of Thamesis, with their pocket-handkerchiefs to their 

 noses, and made a complaint to the goddess Flora, how exceedingly 

 unpleasant the dead dogs were, and that they couldn't abide "em — in- 

 deed they couldn't. And Flora forthwith, out of her sweet charity, 

 engaged apartments at the Hall of St. James, and came up with 

 10,000 Roses to deodorize the river, and to revive the town. Rut Venus 

 no sooner heard of her advent than (as if to illustrate the dictum of 

 ihe satirist: " Women do so hate each other") she put on her best 

 bonnet, and went forth in all her loveliness to suppress "that con- 

 ceited flower-girl," who had dared to flirt at Chiswick, the Regent's 



