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THE SWEET BEIAE. 



^ROSA RUBIGINOSA.) 



Rosier Rouille. 



WHO knows not the Sweet Briar ? the Eglantine, 

 that plant of song, the rhyme of which jingles 

 so prettily that nearly all our poets, even love- 

 stricken rustics, have taken advantage of its sweet 

 sound. 



I mil give to my love the Eglantine 



has been often the beginning of a country lover's 

 song ; but, in sober truth, every one must love this 

 simplest and sweetest of flowers, for what odour 

 can surpass that emanating from a bush of Sweet 

 Briar in the dewy evenings of June ? It pleases 

 not the eye, for the Single Sweet Briar bears 

 flowers, in comparison with other roses, quite in- 

 conspicuous : but it gratifies in a high degree by 

 its delicious perfume, and gives to the mind most 

 agreeable associations, for it is so often (at least 

 in Hertfordshire) the inhabitant of the pretty 

 English cottage garden such a garden as one 

 sees nowhere but in England. 



The Single Sweet Briar is a native plant, 

 growing in dry and chalky soils in some of the 

 southern counties : from it the following varieties, 

 with some others, have been originated, more or 

 less hybridised. The Carmine Sweet Briar, with 



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