244 EVERSLEY GARDENS 



three weeks before mine are, down in the low 

 land of Eversley. And in one corner there 

 used to be a huge bush of the double yellow 

 Persian Briar, of prodigious size and age. In 

 our childhood, tradition used to say that it had 

 been brought from Damascus a hundred years 

 before ; and the size of its knotted stem made 

 for belief in the tradition. Certainly there 

 never grew a sweeter Rose, or one more worthy 

 to blow " along the river brink, with old 

 Khayyam," in the far gardens of the East. 

 Many hundreds of blossoms I have gathered, 

 and gather still, from its descendants. For it 

 was the parent of a hardy tribe, each sucker 

 growing and thriving in the poorest soil ; and 

 during June every cottage garden in the parish is 

 glorified by a wealth of their golden blossoms. 

 Whether Bacon ever visited Bramshill is not 

 known : but as one looks at the house from the 

 troco ground, one cannot but think its builder 

 must have profited by the essay on building in 

 designing its stairs "upon a fair and open 

 newel," its " embowed windows . . . for they 

 be pretty retiring places for conference, and, 

 besides, they keep both the wind and sun off." 



