GARDENS OF CELEBRITIES 



plants and yet it is not over -crowded and while all sorts of plants 

 seem to do well, it is pre-eminently a rose-garden ; every rose 

 there is a magnificent specimen, and many have taken prizes. 

 There are roses new-fangled, and roses old-fashioned ; and they 

 vary in tint from white and pale-blush, nearly to black. I am not 

 learned in flower-lore and know next to nothing of the nomen- 

 clature of roses, but I learnt from the label attached to it, that 

 the beautiful white rose-bush that appears in the immediate 

 foreground of the drawing, is designated " John Craig." Who 

 that individual was I do not know, but he has given his very 

 matter-of-fact name, to a rose with small green leaves that is 

 picturesque in its manner of growth, as well as lovely in its 

 individual blossoms. 



Mrs. Gillman seems to have been an excellent gardener ; she 

 kept the house bright with geraniums and myrtles these being 

 Coleridge's favourite plants. In a letter to his hostess, written in 

 1827,. the poet says : " The rose is the pride of the summer, the 

 delight and beauty of the garden the eglantine, the honeysuckle 

 and the jasmine, if not so bright and ambrosial, are less transient, 

 creep nearer to us, clothe our walls, twine over our porch, and 

 haply peep in at our chamber window with the crested wren or 

 linnet within." There is much more in the same strain, extolling 

 the virtues of the geranium, singing enthusiastically, in somewhat 

 high-flown and stilted language, the praises of the myrtle. " Oh, 

 precious," he exclaims, " in its sweetness is the rich innocence of 

 its snow-white blossoms," and he points out that when these 

 have fallen, " they survive invisibly in every more than fragrant 

 leaf. As the flashing strain of the nightingale to the yearning 

 murmur of the dove, so the myrtle to the rose ! He who once 

 possessed a prized and genuine myrtle, will rather remember it 

 under the cypress tree than seek to forget it among the roses 

 of a Paradise." Thus does Coleridge rhapsodize over his floral 

 favourites, and Mrs. Gillman no doubt thought it all very fine 

 poetry ; she was very proud of her guest, whose innate love of a 

 garden, had had time to grow, and his taste for flowers to specialize, 

 during the fourteen summers that he had already spent at the 

 Grove. 



That shelter so happily provided, he seldom quitted for long. 

 '' His luxuriant white hair was like a crown of honour," says one 



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