ROSES 179 



one of 'the flowers and plants that do best perfume 

 the air,' 'yield the sweetest smell in the air,' a fact 

 which Pliny also noticed : ' The eglantine will cast 

 a sweet and pleasant smell, although it reach not farre 

 oflF' (Holland's trans.). The plant seems to have a 

 special fascination for great lawyers. Bacon, in the 

 sixteenth century, names it five times among his 

 favourite plants, and it seems to be equally acceptable 

 to a great judge of our own day. Many may have 

 been surprised, and perhaps a little amused, to find 

 that at the Eose Conference in 1889, Lord Penzance 

 read an excellent paper, not on the woes of 'the ag- 

 grieved parishioner,' but on the delights and capabilities 

 of the sweet-brier. 



From Europe we get the white rose, which has been 

 so long naturalised in England that it is sometimes 

 admitted into the English flora. It is the white rose 

 of York, and if we could believe the elder Pliny's 

 derivation of Albion, oh rosas albas quihus abundat, it 

 would be our oldest cultivated rose. In its semi-double 

 state it is a favourite cottage rose, and deservedly so, 

 for the flowers are a very pure white, and the bush, 

 though large, is never untidy, and requires little or 

 no management. We also get from the south of 

 Europe the alpine rose, and its pretty red-leaved 

 variety. This is distinguished from nearly all roses 



