198 A GARDEN OF PLEASURE 



bordered with flowers and gooseberry and 

 currant bushes, roses and columbines, 

 with a thousand other less familiar 

 plants beside. But the old - fashioned 

 roses are the glory and the charm of 

 the garden. Long before La France was 

 born, or Gloire de Dijon's name was 

 heard, these beautiful gay damasks and 

 York and Lancasters, grew and flourished 

 here. And strange to say, here their 

 old titles also have survived. 



Two tall sweet briers guard the entrance 

 of the brier cross-walk. To-day they are 

 covered with little pink roses, like nothing 

 I have ever seen since Masaccio's fresco 

 in the Ricardi palace at Florence, where 

 rose-crowned angels kneel in a row beside 

 a low rose hedge. One knows not on 

 which side to look, so splendid on either 

 hand is the array of roses, red and white ; 

 heavy-headed cabbage roses, roses of 

 Provence and pink moss roses in the 

 wildest profusion. The crimson damask 

 are so 'brode'as old garden -writers say, 

 so vigorous, so replete with colour and 

 with fragrance, they literally glow like 



