SWEET-BRIAR. 3 



beautifully and with perfect clearness; in his description of 



the bank 



" Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, 

 With sweet musk roses and with eglantine," 



so that we see that long before the time of Milton the 

 name and individuality of each plant was well established. 

 In another well-known passage of Shakespeare the sweet- 

 ness of "the leaf of eglantine" is again referred to. 

 With Keats it is " the pastoral eglantine ; " with Mant 

 " the fragrant eglantine ; " and Scott speaks of a scene 



where 



" Nature scatter'd free and wild 

 Each plant and flower, the mountain's child. 

 Here eglantine perfumed the air, 

 Hawthorn and hazel mingled there." 



The sweet-briar was one of Scott's favourite shrubs, and 

 we not long ago met an interesting proof of this fact 

 in one of his letters. The note in question was written 

 by him from Edinburgh to William Laidlaw, his friend 

 and agent at Abbotsford, soon after that property had 

 come into his possession. In one part he says " You must 

 get some one to stick in a few wild roses, honeysuckles, 

 and sweet-briars in suitable places, so as to produce the 

 luxuriance we see in the woods which Nature herself plants. 

 We injure the effect in our planting, so far as beauty is con- 

 cerned, by neglecting underwood/' We find in the account 

 sent in that the " few sweet-briars " numbered two thousand. 



The flowers of the sweet-briar are somewhat smaller 

 than those of the dog-rose, and are often a deeper pink, 

 though this strength of colour differs in various plants, 

 some being richer in tint than others. The fragrant odour 

 of the foliage is itself so distinctive of the plant that 

 no lengthy description is here necessary. The sweet- 



