A DAY IN THE ELYSIAN FIELDS. 93 



segipans, who ushered into the presence of the assembled 

 deities the spirits of Roses recently departed from the 

 planet Earth. The mystery was this : Flora, in answer 

 to the petition of the Queen of Flowers, seconded by the 

 half-stifled moans of sundry of her ill-used subjects ex- 

 isting on a little island called Britain, had summoned a 

 council of the deities, and Charon had been charged to 

 land the deputation in the Elysian Fields. 



"La Reine" having introduced the deputation, 

 " Brennus," a fine old Hybrid China, with a good deal 

 of the blood of the Gaul (R. gallica) running in his 

 veins, rose to address the assembled deities. He had 

 been chosen to state the case of his brother Roses, 

 because, as he had suffered least, it was assumed that 

 he would be able to speak without prejudice. He had not 

 been starved or worried from the planet Earth in the 

 same way as many of his brethren, but had been stubbed 

 up by his master, who was rather fanciful, because he was 

 only a Summer Rose ! (Expressions of surprise.) The 

 complaint of his brethren was this : An attempt was 

 being made, and had in some sort succeeded, to ignore 

 the claims of their natural foster-mother, the Dog Rose, 

 in favour of a stranger known as the Manetti, drawn 

 from the sunny plains of Italy. There the latter grew 

 and kept her leaves nearly the whole year round, and 

 unfortunately could not rid herself of this habit in 

 England ; the consequence was, they were kept awake 

 late and aroused early in the year when the climate 

 demanded that they should be sleeping, and weaned, and 

 debilitated, they became an easy prey to the greatest 

 enemy of Roses in England Messrs Autumn and Spring 

 Frost. (Hear, hear, from Robigus.) But this was not 

 all. Having liberally nurtured her foster-children during 

 the first year of their existence, the Manetti seemed to 

 become jealous of their growth, and ever afterwards to 

 struggle for their abasement and destruction. Too often 

 she succeeded, as some of the spirits now before them 



