CAUSES OF FAILURE 7 



they make for themselves, what spacious nurseries 

 for their delightful offspring, in the cracks and the 

 cankers, the broken bark, the moss, and the lichen, of 

 those ancient standard trees ! For me there is no 

 solace in these charms. I stand sorrowful and silent, 

 like Marius among the ruins, until my companion 

 wishes to know whether I can tell him why that 

 wretched Charles Lefebvre behaves so disgrace- 

 fully in his garden? On reflection, perhaps I 

 can. Charles Lefebvre is placed, like Tityrus, ^ sub 

 tegmine fagi,' under the drip and shadow of a noble 

 beech-tree, whose boughs above and roots beneath 

 effectually keep all nourishment from him. And do 

 I know why Charles Lawson, Blairii 2, and Persian 

 Yellow never have a flower upon them? Simply 

 because they are pruned always, as no man with 

 seeing eyes could prune them twice, so closely that 

 they make nothing but wood. The single standards, 

 again, are grassed up to the very Brier, except where 

 a circular space is left for ^just a few bedding-out 

 things ' — leeches draining the life-blood of the Rose. 

 It is Mrs. Hemans, I think, who sings, — 



* Around the red Rose the convolvulus climbing;' 



and it sounds sweetly pretty, and would be the 

 loveliest arrangement possible, only that, unfortu- 

 nately, it is death to the Rose — death to that queen 



