THE SHRUBBERY 91 



young, I used to beg and pray our dear old 

 George Chaplin, coachman, gardener, and 

 tutor in general to us children, to spare the 

 Lilacs that grew among Filberts and Portugal 

 Laurels between the road and the stable-yard. 

 For some unexplained reason he hated them ; 

 destroying them ruthlessly when he got a 

 chance, and "cutting them over" when he 

 could do no worse, so that they seldom 

 flowered. This, perhaps, made them extra 

 precious in our eyes ; and I used to gaze with 

 envy and admiration on the glories of other 

 people's Lilacs glories apparently unattain- 

 able by us. But dear old George God rest 

 his faithful soul would not have despised the 

 modern developments of the Lilac, endless in 

 their variety. These, of course, must have a 

 place in the perfect shrubbery. A bush of 

 Charles X. is a never-ending delight to me in 

 May, at the corner of a mass of odds and ends 

 I planted to break the swirl of the east wind 

 on the northern side of the house. A huge 

 bush of Syringa which we are now told to 

 call Philadelphia stands behind it ; and as the 



