212 FROM A MIDDLESEX GARDEN 



not be re-read, for the flowers breathe the words : an echo 

 from Milton comes 



" Where choice 



Leads thee, or where most needs, whether to wind 

 The woodbine round this arbour, or direct 

 The clasping ivy where to climb ; while I, 

 In yonder Spring of roses intermixed 

 With myrtle . . ." 



Or does Dante whisper 



" Vola con gli occhi per questo giardino, 

 Che veder lui t' accendera lo sguardo 

 Piu a moutar per lo raggio divino." 



Of all the favourites of the garden's occupants, perhaps roses 

 have held us most in enthralment during the summer. Sir 

 Edwin Arnold says of this ilower of flowers in his " Seaside 

 Garden " :- 



" Wild roses ! That leads us back to yonder splendid 

 and sumptuous white Devon Queens of the Garden, hanging 

 their scented heads in garlands of beauty round these windows. 

 If we could only do as much by education for the races of 

 man as the gardeners since Adam have done with the common 

 dog rose, what would not be the progress of humanity by 

 now ? . . . The finest rose-bush in its origin has really 

 been a mere road-side briar, from which the botanist slices 

 away its exuberant shoots and crowns, leaving a bare stock, 

 with a stout twig or two, whereon he makes incision, 

 to graft therein a tiny bit of the bark and buds of 

 some high-class full-developed glory of the parterre, to the 

 nourishment of which the rugged, primitive forces of the 

 lowly briar are thenceforth loyally and lavishly given. Once 

 and again the peasant mother throws forth a sturdy shoot or 



