128 



A BOOK ABOUT ROSES 



at leap-frog?' What were they all struggling to 

 see? There were long lines of lovely Roses — why 

 this pressure always at this special spot? It was 

 just as when, in our Royal Academy, and on the 

 first days of exhibition, the visitors all make for 

 one particular corner, because there hangs, so the 

 Times has told them, the picture of the year ; or as 

 when, so eye-witnesses say, the ladies at a Drawing- 

 Room, apprehensive that Her Majesty is about to 

 appoint a Royal Deputy, press towards the Throne 

 Room, with a vigorous zeal, which, while it suggests 

 great physical power and mental purpose in their 

 descendants, is hardly consistent with the graceful 

 dignity, the unselfish courtesy and forbearance 

 which we associate with noble and gentle birth. 

 There is a manifestation of obtrusive vigour, which 

 would quickly evoke in an ordinary crowd the angry 

 protest, * Now^ missus^ zvhere be you a-shoving ? ' 

 And what was the Rose? It was Cloth-of-Gold 

 Noisette — a box of it, sent by Mr. W. Cant, from 

 the neighbourhood of Colchester. Well, the most 

 jealous could not dispute its supreme beauty. It 

 was certainly the belle of the ball. In its integrity, 

 it is, I believe, the most glorious of all Roses. No 

 true Rosarian ever forgets the first perfect bloom 

 he sees of it. * Even at this distance of time,' writes 

 Mr. Rivers in 1867, *I have not forgotten the delight 



