I90 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES 



Year by year my enthusiasm increased. I was like 

 Andrew Marvel's fawn, when 



^ All its chief delight was still 

 On Roses thus itself to fill ' ; 



and my roses multiplied from a dozen to a score, 

 from a score to a hundred, from a hundred to a 

 thousand, from one to five thousand trees. They 

 came into my garden a very small band of settlers, 

 and speedily, after the example of other colonists, they 

 civilised all the former inhabitants from off the face of 

 the earth. As it was said of the pious Pilgrim Fathers, 

 they first fell, when they landed, on their own knees 

 and then on the Aborigines. Nor were they content 

 with the absolute occupation of that portion of my 

 grounds in which they were first planted. The 

 Climbing Roses peeped over the wall on one side, and 

 the tall Standards looked over the yew hedge on the 

 other, and strongly urged upon their crowded brethren 

 beneath (as high and prosperous ones had urged before 

 upon their poorer kinsfolk, pressing them too closely) 

 an exodus to other diggings, to ^fields fresh and pastures 

 new.' So there was a congress of the great military 

 chiefs, Brennus (Hybrid China), Scipio (Gallica), 

 Marechal Bugeaud (Tea), Duke of Cambridge 

 (Damask), Tippoo Saib (Gallica), Generals Allard, 



