CONCERNING ROSE-SHOWS 203 



quaintance, afterwards the dearest friendship of my Hfe, 

 of John Leech, the artist ; and in the first of two hun- 

 dred precious letters which I now possess from his pen, 

 he sent me the accompanying sketch^ of a combat be- 

 tween Flora and Venus, which subsequently appeared, 

 more correctly, but less prettily delineated, in Punchy 

 with this explanation, which I wrote on his request : — 

 ' In the days of the Great Stench of London, the 

 Naiades ran from the banks of Thamesis, with their 

 pocket-handkerchiefs to their noses, and made a com- 

 plaint to the goddess Flora, how exceedingly un- 

 pleasant the dead dogs were, and that they couldn't 

 abide 'em — indeed they couldn't. And Flora forth- 

 with, out of her sweet charity, engaged apartments 

 at the Hall of St. James, and came up with 10,000 

 Roses to deodorise the river, and to revive the town. 

 But Venus no sooner heard of her advent than (as if 

 to illustrate the dictum of the satirist, " Wom^en do so 

 hate each other,") she put on her best bonnet, and 

 went forth in all her loveliness to suppress " that con- 

 ceited flower-girl," who had dared to flirt at Chiswick, 

 the Regent's Park, and the Crystal Palace, with her 

 own favoured admirer. Mars. So, awful in her 

 beauty, she came in a revengeful glow, and Flora's 

 Roses grew pale before the Roses on the cheeks of 

 Aphrodite, and the poor goddess went back to her 



' See illustration facing page i. 



