4 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES 



we beautiful Roses in proportion to this great 

 multiplication of Rose-trees? The printer will 

 oblige me by selecting a brace of his biggest and 

 blackest capitals, with which I may reply emphati- 

 cally, NO ! It is indeed, at first sight, a marvel 

 and perplexity, that while the love of Roses is 

 professed so generally — while the demand for Rose- 

 trees has increased so extensively, and the flower 

 itself has every year disclosed some new and pro- 

 gressive charm — Roses should be so rarely seen in 

 their full and perfect beauty. Queen Rosa, in 

 common with other potentates, has greatly enlarged 

 her armies, but her most illustrious heroes are, with 

 few exceptions, veterans, or the sons of veterans, 

 and names, which were famous when, in 1858, w^e 

 commenced the second series of the ^ Wars of 

 the Roses,' such as Rivers and Paul, Cant, Turner, 

 Prince, and Veitch, are still familiar in our mouths 

 as household words. Though some of her greatest 

 generals have left us, as full of years as honours, 

 including my Past-Master,^ Mr. Rivers of Sawbridge- 

 worth, who did more than any other man to evoke 

 and to educate a love of the Rose, Mr. Charles 

 Turner of Slough, and Mr. Prince of Oxford, in all 



1 I have a copy of the last edition of his * Rose Amateurs' Guide,* 

 in which he wrote, * Once your master, now your pupil ; ' but he had 

 forgotten more than I ever knew. 



