POSITION a 



able for power than pathos ; and he went at the 

 instrument, and shook and worried it as a terrier 

 goes in at rats. His exertions were sudorific ; and 

 when he finished the struggle, with beads on his 

 brow, the Sultan told him, ^that although he had 

 heard the most renowned performers of the age, 

 he had never met one who — perspired so freely ! ' 

 Nor could I, with my heart as full of charity's milk 

 as a Cheshire dairy of the cow's, think of any higher 

 praise of the plot before me than that it was an 

 admirable place for ferns ; and therefore, when my 

 commentary was received with an expressive smile 

 of genteel disgust, as though I had suggested that 

 the allotment in question was tAe site of all others 

 for a jail, or had said, as Carlyle said of the Royal 

 Garden at Potsdam, that * it was one of the finest 

 Fog-preserves in Europe,' then, without further pre- 

 varications, I told the truth. And the truth is, that 

 this boundless contiguity of shade is fatal, and every 

 overhanging tree is fatal as an upas-tree to the 

 Rose. As Ireland has been said to be too near 

 a great country ever to achieve greatness for itself 

 (I do not myself attribute its humidity or its in- 

 dolence, its famines or its Fenianism, to the vicinity 

 of England), so the Rose, in close proximity to a 

 forest-tree, can never hope to thrive. In a twofold 

 sense it takes umbrage ; robbed above and robbed 



