APRIL. 
121 
immediately we have (to use a noble Oriental phrase) a bobbery in 
the bazaar.” Where there is zeal, there must be some speculation ; 
especially when the buyer is so far from his market; and the importer 
but too often falls “ a victim to misplaced confidence.” We amateurs 
ought to commiserate rather than to condemn on these occasions, for 
the disappointment is a common one, and the loss eventually is 
borne by the original purchaser. I shall never forget a lot of 
Rose trees which I once saw unpacked at a nursery, on their arrival 
from France. Three of them, at twenty-five francs each, were on thin, 
knotted, withered-looking briars, between five and six feet high, and 
just showed in one or two eyes that they were not dead—only moribund! 
Supposing life to have continued, each tree would have required two 
strong men to hold it in a gale of wind; but as the Rose bore about the 
same proportion to its stock as a crow’s nest to a full-grown Poplar, I 
consider such a supposition too wild for the most sanguine to dwell upon. 
But the Rose trade is not merely a matter of £> s. d.; and I pity the 
amateur who thinks that it is so. He can never have read that most 
pleasant little book, by Thomas Rivers, which replaced the Rose on her 
throne, as the queen of flowers, nor the larger volumes by Paul and 
Curtis, which prove that the heart is in the cause—he can never have 
strolled in the Gardens of Berkhampstead, or have driven to “ the 
Common,” with worthy Mr. Lane in his gig—he can never have 
smoked the pipe of peace among the Roses (we florists must fumigate, 
whatever the Lancet may say) with nurserymen, when work was done, 
aud heard them speak, as I have, their love of our royal mistress. 
And surely we ought ever to recall with gratitude, what glorious 
Roses have recently been brought to our gardens by the zeal of the 
importers. Go back ten years, and who had heard of Geant des 
Batailles! He appears for the first time in Mr. Rivers’s catalogue for 
the autumn of 1847. Whose eyes had been gladdened by the magni¬ 
ficent Paul Ricaut, or those most beautiful Roses, Auguste Mie, Baronne 
Hallez, Caroline de Sansales, Generals Brea, Castellane, and Jacque¬ 
minot, Jules Margottin, Lord Raglan, Louise Peyronny, Mesdames 
Guinoisseau, Martel, Masson, Place, and Rivers; Prince Leon, Reine des 
Fleurs, William Griffiths, or Gloire de Dijon? What twenty from 
among the old Roses would “ A. R.” show against these ? 
Here, too, I may mention another proof of progress. In Mr. 
Rivers’s catalogue for 1847, fifty-two Hybrid Perpetual Roses are 
enumerated. How many of these are now thought worthy of notice? 
Eight only ! What a tremendous reflection for the fairer sex ! Forty- 
four ladies, once in full bloom and leaders of fashion, now not even 
permitted to be “ wall flowers,” but expelled from the beau monde. 
And such must be the fate of all who have not true excellence of petal, 
I mean of principle. Rouge and crinoline may cheat us for a time; but 
realities alone win our lasting love. 
The dealers are quite as anxious to send us these realities as we can 
possibly be to receive them. But they are not omniscient. The Rose 
they see blooming so beautifully near Paris, may degenerate in our 
colder clime ; or if it succeed in Hertfordshire, it may fail in the Mid¬ 
land and Northern counties. 
