4 
THE FLORIST. 
over all other floral potentates, Turbans and Crowns-Imperial, supreme. 
The glove which I throw down in challenge may by the fastidious be 
considered dirty, but it has slain its thousands (of the aphis), and has 
braved the lance of Briareus, with all its hundred points. Silence, 
fair ladies and gentle men, who cometh forth to take up my gage, and 
to do battle with the Knight of the Rose ? 
And “ silence holds her solitary reign,” until there ariseth a mighty 
shouting, of many voices but as from one heart, “ Long live the Queen 
of Flowers! ” , ' 
Happy Rose-growers, you may well be loyal! Before me, as I write 
in mid-November, the sere leaves shivering down, the Queen of 
Autumn dethroned (delicacy forbids me to describe the treatment which 
she receives from her subjects, when her coronation robes begin to look 
shabby, how she is dragged from her throne, denuded, and cast into a 
dreary prison) before me is a beautiful bouquet of Souvenir de Mal- 
maison, Gloire de Dijon, and Geant des Batailles, and for nearly seven 
months we have been basking in the sunny presence of our queen, 
have had 
“ Posies of Roses 
To gladden our noses,” 
ever since the dear little Banksise, which surely must have suggested to 
Gerald Massey his touching lines upon “ Our wee, white Rose,” came 
forth like the star of even, ere all “ earth’s firmament ” was flooded 
with light. 
Ah, my brothers, though this has not been one of our most successful 
years, for suns have scorched and rains have drenched us more than 
in ordinary seasons, yet what happiness we have had in our gardens, 
ever since Geant des Batailles (no connection with Mr. Benjamin 
Gaunt) rode out in his scarlet uniform to herald the advent of our 
sovereign, with (sweetest of suites) her lords and ladies. Who shall 
essay to tell how welcome to the Rose-grower is the first Rose of 
• summer ? welcome as the first sight of the sun to one who, like the 
gallant Kane, has wintered drearily in dark Arctic regions :—“ I saw 
him once more,” he writes, “ and upon a projecting crag nestled in the 
sunshine. It was like bathing in perfumed waters.” 
A Rose garden in its early bloom puts me in mind most pleasantly 
of one of the most cheering scenes of my youth,—the re-assembling of 
under-graduates at Oxford, after the long vacation. There were the 
joyous and 7-osy faces of dear old friends; there was Frank, by whose 
side we jumped the Evenlode, and then had the hounds to ourselves ; 
Jack, the captain of our boat, awful in our eyes as the Ancient 
Mariner ; Charley, who was “ in ’• two hours against the IMarylebone ; 
and Evelyn, with whose pretty sister we danced at the Commemoration 
ball, and with whom a sudden thought has struck us to swear eternal 
friendship. Somewhat aloof, stand the freshmen, the untried ones 
(some of whom, just as with the Roses, we have been asked by friends 
to notice) shy, and excessively uncomfortable in their academic costume 
and in the consciousness that we, their “ potent, grave, and reverend 
seniors,” are engaged in a supercilious survey, speculating, with 
remarkable ease and frankness, who look like good fellow’s, and who 
like muffs. 
