CAUSES OF FAILURE 5 



these cases there has been an entail and inheritance 

 of talent and success. And though the same can- 

 not be said of those amateur exhibitors, of those 

 victorious knights, who tilt no more in our tourna- 

 ments, such as Hedge and Pochin, Baker and Hall, 

 that they are succeeded by their heirs and assigns, 

 some of those who were coeval with them still 

 compete, and it is long since the conquerors in this 

 brigade of the Royal Army first won their spurs. 

 Nevertheless there has been no declension, but rather 

 an annual development, owing to the introduction of 

 new varieties, in the beauty of our exhibitions ; and 

 we must pass from the public Rose-show to the 

 private Rose-garden to see in its saddest phase the 

 difference between what is and what ought to be — 

 the feeble harvest of good Roses from the broad 

 acres of good Rose-trees. These collections remind 

 us of Martial's description of his works, ^ Sunt bona, 

 sunt quaedam mediocria, sunt mala plura.' We can 

 hardly say of them, as an Edinburgh Reviewer (was 

 it Sydney Smith ?) of a volume of sermons, criticised 

 in the first number of that work, * Their character- 

 istic is decent debility.' As a rule, the amateur 

 Rosarian has made about as much progress as 

 George HI. with his fiddle. After two years* 

 tuition, the King asked his tutor, Viotti, what he 

 thought of his pupil : ' Sire,' replied the professor, 



