2o8 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES 



they are as disagreeable as the Growings of contigu- 

 ous cocks to the game bantam ; and he feels it to be 

 his solemn duty to roll those knights in the dust. 



I offer my services as his esquire, and my advice as 

 a veteran how to invert and pulverise his foes. By 

 foes I mean those miserable knights who presume to 

 grow and to show Roses without a careful study of 

 these chapters. Not thinking exactly as we do, they 

 are, of course, heretical and contumacious. They 

 must be unhorsed. Then, perhaps, lying peacefully 

 on their backs in the sawdust, they may see the error 

 of their ways, and come to a better mind. They may 

 rise up, sorer and wiser men, and, meekly seeking 

 the nearest reformatory, may gradually amend and 

 improve, until at last they become diligent readers 

 of this book, and respectable subjects of the Queen 

 of Flowers. Be it mine, meanwhile, to teach the 

 virtuous amateur how to buy a charger, and how to 

 ride him — what Roses to show, and how to show 

 them ; first reminding him that he must have a good 

 stable, good corn, and good equipments in readiness 

 for his steed — must be armed, before he competes, 

 with those weapons which I have named as essential 

 to success, and which I must once more ask leave to 

 commend. He must have an enthusiastic love of the 

 Rose — not the tepid attachment which drawls its 

 faint encomium, ' She's a nicish girl, and a fellow 



