VICTORIA MEDAL OF HONOUR. 



575 



had greatly added to the enjoyment of a day which he should 

 always regard as one of the brightest of a long and happy life : 

 so long, indeed, that he thought he could claim the title which 

 was coveted in the great University of Cambridge, next to that 

 of Senior Wrangler, and style himself Senior Medallist ; and so 

 happy because it had been spent largely in scenes which they 

 all loved most, and with men like themselves, whose tastes and 

 habits were in such complete accord with his own. If there was 

 such a thing as righteous pride, and if it was justifiable to put on 

 a little " side," he though they had a right to wear it that day, 

 and he w T as not sure that they should not be permitted to assume 

 the demeanour of that gentleman whom Theodore Hook saw 

 swaggering along one day and interrogated, " Sir, are you any- 

 body in particular ? " For himself, he had been for some days 

 in training and preparation for this supreme event. On Thursday 

 it was his privilege to entertain her Royal Highness Princess 

 Christian at the Deanery, and on Saturday it was his privilege 

 to attend the Prince of Wales as Grand Chaplain ; and now to- 

 day he had the distinguished privilege of paying honour to two 

 Queens — the Queen of Flowers — the Rose — whom gardeners 

 loved, and the Queen of England, whom all England revered. 

 But it was not pride which was uppermost in their thoughts that 

 day. On the contrary, it was a very humble thankfulness that 

 they had been permitted to enjoy the purest of human pleasures, 

 and that they had been allowed to transmit to others the method 

 and fruition of their success. It was impossible for an old 

 man — in a retrospect of the years that had gone — not to have 

 sweet solace in the thought that he had been permitted in 

 some degree to help in brightening the lives of others by means 

 of a healthful and harmless occupation among things pleasant 

 to the eye, and good for food. The Society of which Sir Trevor 

 LawTence was President — the right man in the right place — with 

 its Council of experts and its unwearying Secretary, had done 

 excellent work for a long time past in many places by promoting 

 the science of horticulture ; and although, of course, he was pre- 

 judiced on the present occasion, he ventured to say that the 

 institution of the Victoria Medal would prove a grand encour- 

 agement in quickening the ambition and energies of those men 

 who would excel hereafter in botanical science and in horticul- 

 tural skill. 



