174 
ROSES AND VERSES. 
The return of the rose reminds us — although, indeed, we had not forgotten it — 
that a daintily-bound volume, the contents of which are not less charming than its 
exterior, has awaited notice for nearly a year. Not want of will, but want of 
space, has prevented us from calling attention to the new edition of J^os Rosarum* 
— “dew of the ever-living rose, gathered from the poet’s garden of many lands,” — 
as the author prettily describes it. The Hon. Mrs. Boyle — more familiarly known 
by her initials “E. V. B.” — has had no difficulty in filling a volume with references 
to the rose ; her task has been one of selection, and the very abundance of material 
must have made choice difficult. Many ages and many tongues have been laid 
under contribution, so that it is not wonderful if we miss many familiar quota- 
tions, such, for example, as “ it was roses, roses, all the way,” which might not 
unfitly appear on the title page of a new edition. 
In the “ Epistle to the Reader” the author gives a delightful chat about her 
subject. We find ourselves in hearty agreement with her when she refers to the 
roses of the rose-grower as “ most often scentless, or else, when fading, we wish 
they might be. The poet,” she truly adds, “ had in his thought something 
widely different from these when he praised ‘ the patient beauty of the scentless 
rose.’ ” Certainly our flower-shows give us too many of these gross over-fed 
blossoms, not only in roses, but in other things ; the worship of wealth seems to 
have permeated even our floral exhibitions, and the most opulent flowers are most 
held in honour. But such are not the roses dear to “ E.V. B.” — dear, also, to the 
lover of beauty and fragrance, of form and delicate hue, who will find in this 
charming little book a fitting companion to the “ pot pourri ” of which the 
author speaks so lovingly. 
Roses, too, play their part in The Saltotistall Gazette,^ another volume which 
has lain too long unnoticed. The readers of The Day-Book of Bethia Harfacre, 
which was noticed in Nature Notes for 1896, p. 74, will know what to 
expect from this volume, which we owe to the same author, and their expectations 
will not be disappointed. At the same time we confess that, whether because the 
novelty of form has a little worn off, or because Mr. Peter Saltonstall is a less 
discriminating chooser of extracts than Bethia Hardacre showed herself to be, 
we find the Gazette, save in one particular, less attractive than the Day-Book. 
The jokes which are introduced into the advertisements are too small to be worth 
printing, and the contrasts between the characters as brought out in their various 
letters are too violent, although at times these self-portrayals are amusing enough. 
The extracts are, many of them, pleasant reading, though we should have been 
glad if the author, in an appendix or elsewhere, had enabled us to trace them 
to their source ; and Selbornians will find much to their taste, as, for example, 
the passage from Plutarch, which tells how the “ gentlenesse shewed unto brute 
beastes commeth from the very fountaine and springe of all cortesie and humanitie 
which should never drye up in any manne living.” 
In one particular, however, as we have said, this volume yields nothing 
to its predecessor, but rather surpasses it — we mean in the numerous beautiful 
verses which are scattered up and down its pages. We should like to see a 
selection of these, with some from the Day-Book, and others which Mrs. Maitland 
may have in reserve, made into a little book by themselves. Separated from the 
body of the Gazette, with which they have no especial connection, and daintily 
printed, they would make a charming little pocket volume, and in that form 
would attract a new circle of readers. Most of them are connected with the 
flowers and the seasons of the year, with their various suggestions and associa- 
tions ; often as these subjects have been treated in verse, Mrs. Maitland has 
added now a note of her own, now an echo from an older singer, which presents 
them in a new, or at any rate a charming, light. Here are two verses from 
* Elliot Stock. Price 5s. 
t The Saltonstall Gazette, conducted by Peter Saltonstall, Esq., and written 
by various hands, by Ella Fuller Maitland. (Chapman and Hall). Price 7 *- 6d. 
