6 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES 



^ there are three classes of vioHnists ; those who 

 cannot play at all, those who play badly, and those 

 who play well. Your Majesty is now commencing to 

 enter upon the second of these classes.' There is 

 not a garden nowadays of any pretension, which has 

 not its collection of Roses, and yet there is not one 

 garden in twenty where the flower is realised in its 

 beauty. I have scarcely known at times whether 

 to laugh or weep, when I have been conducted with 

 a triumphal air by the proprietor to one of those 

 dismal slaughter-houses which he calls his Rosary. 

 The collection is surrounded by a few miserable 

 climbers, justly gibbeted on poles or hung in rusty 

 chains, and consists of lanky standards, all legs 

 and no head, after the manner of giants, or of 

 stunted Mwarfs,' admirably named, and ugly as 

 Quilp ; the only sign of health and vigour being 

 the abundant growth of the Manetti stock, which 

 has smothered years ago the small baby committed 

 to its care, but is still supposed to be the child 

 itself, and is carefully pruned year after year 

 in expectation of a glow of beauty. There is 

 no beauty, and there never will be, for the florist ; 

 but to the entomologist what a happy, peaceful 

 home ! There can be no museum in all the 

 world so exquisitely complete in caterpillars, or so 

 rich with all manner of flies. What cosy chambers 



