THE ROSE OF ENGLAND 61 



the little wild bush rose, rosa spinosissima, which you find 

 mostly by the seaside. Nature herself, too, has strewn the 

 hedgerows with varieties that are scarcely varieties, differing 

 capriciously in this quality and that : dog-roses with thorns 

 almost straight, in place of the vicious hook which has given 

 this rose its name. The gardens of the nurserymen are full 

 of odd varieties impure in pedigree, some of which make very 

 poor standards for the budded rose. But the rose that has 

 parented one of the most pleasing new roses of recent history 

 is the sweetbrier, the favourite of all our native roses. Like 

 mint or currant it is endowed in all its parts with its pecu- 

 liar and delightful lemon fragrance. The fruit is at least 

 as fragrant as the dainty leaves, and you can extract the 

 scent from the bark. It is not, in the words of Bacon's 

 division, ' fast of its smell,' but breathes it out, especially into 

 the evening air, so that its neighbourhood is as odorous as 

 a shut room with bowls of lilac. Its sweetness secured its 

 place even in the most luxurious of tamed gardens. But the 

 gardeners were not content ; and at last one of them, in the 

 garden of Lord Penzance, wedded to the sweetbrier flowers 

 as bright and various in colour as even the English gardener 

 could desire. The making of the Penzance Brier, of Anne 

 of Geierstein, and the rest, joined the garden to the hedge- 

 row. The bushes are at least as lusty as any dog-rose, 

 tremendous with thorns, and from the centre branches send 

 out as sweeping boughs as the 'rose of the field' would boast. 

 The scent pervades leaves and fruits, and fills a whole garden 

 on a June evening with the subtle odour. But the flowers, if 

 single, are garden flowers, pink and russet and bronze ; and 

 in place of the brevity of the wild roses, a few blooms will 

 succeed one another for many months of the summer season, 

 indeed until the heps are red. 



The flower of June is the rose ; but the months are now 

 E 



