TEE SIX OF SPADES. 115 



the ploughboy, who sticks it in his coat o' Sundays, 

 and seems to his younger brother, learning his collect, 

 the embodiment of earthly bliss, as to a junior at Eton 

 his gorgeous fraternity in the Life Guards ! Hurrah 

 for the flower, which in all history, sacred and secular, 

 maintains priority of praise ; which the Greeks 

 named TO av6os the flower, and of which all their 

 poets, heroic, pastoral, sentimental, comic Homer, 

 Theocritus, Aristophanes, and "burning Sappho" 

 sang ; which the Eomans strewed before their 

 victorious chiefs, chose first to ornament their homes 

 and feasts, and even offered to their gods ; which all 

 nations, emancipated from barbarism, have ever 

 fondly cherished ; which displays its charms, as our 

 English girls their loveliness, with an infinite variety 

 of form, grace, and complexion, now petite as some 

 pocket Venus (Anglice, "a little duck"), and now 

 beautiful abundantly 



" A daughter of the gods, divinely fair, 

 And most divinely tall " 



(colloquially, " a glorious girl, sir ") ; which, only 

 requiring in ordinary gardens the smallest share of 

 attention to insure an ample bloom, may be induced 

 by a patient and careful love to reveal its glories 

 under adverse skies which finally, my brothers, is 

 the Queen of flowers, Eosa Mundi, perfect, peerless ! 

 " Truie," says the French proverb, " truie aime mieux 

 bran que roses " the sow would rather have its nose 

 in the swill-tub than smelling the sweetest posy ; and 

 he is a hog who does not love the rose. 



There ! The hunter has had his gallop round the 



