118 A BOOK ABOUT THE GAEDEN. 



those cheap Jacks of the floral market, who profess to 

 be so much more liberal than their neighbours. Buy 

 good razors, my friends, as ye love to enjoy your 

 breakfasts with a temper smooth as your chin : and 

 buy good rose-trees, ye amateurs, as ye hope to 

 look gladly on your feast of roses, when " the time of 

 roses " shall come. The prices charged by the best 

 growers are quite low enough (and you will believe 

 one who has bought and buys largely) to insure a 

 good article to the purchaser and a fair remuneration 

 to the seller. 



For ornamental purposes, as a cut flower, what 

 have we so effective as the rose, whether in the 

 bouquet of some ball-room belle, herself 



<( A Rosebud set with little wilful thorns, 

 And sweet as English air can rnake her," 



in the elegant vases of the drawing-room, or, as I 

 most rejoice to see them, in the cups of silver, won by 

 their ancestors, upon the dinner-table and with the 

 dessert ? When Horace invites the friends of Plotius 

 Numida to celebrate with appropriate honours the 

 return of that distinguished officer from Spain, he 

 bids them to have abundance of roses at their feast 

 (" neu desint epulis rosse >: ) ; and when he essays to 

 " cheer up Sam," in the person of Q. Dellius, he 

 recommends him to lose no time in giving an order 

 for roses (" flores amoenos ferre jube rosse "). Without 

 endorsing his other recipes for driving dull care away, 

 I may sympathise with him, I hope, in his love of the 

 rose ; and I like to fancy him, calling upon his friends 

 to pass the Falernian, and, having previously proposed 



