I70 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES 



plants, the cleanness and lightness of food, the 

 exercises of working or walking, but above all the 

 exemption from cares and solicitude, seem equally 

 to favour and improve both contemplation and 

 health, the enjoyment of sense and imagination, 

 and thereby the quiet and ease both of the body 

 and mind.' And again he speaks of 'the sweet- 

 ness and satisfaction of this retreat, where, since 

 my resolution taken of never entering again into 

 any public employments, I have passed five years 

 without ever going once to town, though I am 

 almost in sight of it, and have a house there ready 

 to receive me/ 



Even so to his garden may every true gardener 

 say, as Martial to his wife Marcella — 



* Romam tu mihi sola facis,' 

 * You make me callous to all meaner charms/ 



* Let others seek the giddy throng 

 Of mirth and revelry; 

 The simpler joys which nature yields 

 Are dearer far to me/ 



And let there be, by all means, among those joys 

 included a bed of the Common Moss-Rose — a ' well- 

 aired ' bed of dry subsoil, for damp is fatal — in 

 which, planted on its own roots, well manured, 

 closely pruned, and pegged down, it will yield its 



