COMPANION TO THE FLORAL MAGAZINE. 
35 
Nursery, as a Jew of spending his day at a pork-butcher’s, or a wooden¬ 
legged man of deriving enjoyment from a protracted sojourn in a boot- 
and-shoe shop ! And now I was positively bewildered with admiration. 
I should have liked to transfer the whole stock to my garden, and did in 
my ignorance suggest the immediate removal of a portion, to the sur¬ 
prised amusement of the owner, who suggested that, as I might wish the 
trees to survive for another season, November would be a wiser date. 
Meantime, he would cut me a bouquet to soothe me in my disappointed 
impatience. And I carried a bunch of Roses home on horseback about 
the size of a tree-peony, scornfully declining to notice the sarcastic in¬ 
quiry of a friend, whom I met on the road ,—“ Holloa, John Thomas ! 
whatever are you doing, away from the back of the carriage ? ” 
Had my new-born, or rather, I should say, my newly-revived love re¬ 
quired a further confirmation, it would have received it from the pleasant 
perusal which I enjoyed, soon after my restoration, of Rivers’s Guide 
to us amateurs of the Rose. For as lovers will “ read no books that are 
not tales of love,” so was I happiest now in poring over this little 
volume, prompted by the heart and penned by the hand of one who, 
more than any man living, has taught English florists to appreciate the 
beauties of the Queen of Flowers. From the duchess,—yea, from royalty 
itself,—admiring the delicate tints and perfume of some conservatory 
Rose, to the artisan gazing at some hardy perpetual in his small garden- 
plot, just away from the busy town, gratitude is due to that man, who, 
by a simple, unaffected, earnest commendation of an innocent and de¬ 
lightful pursuit, reproduced, wherever the book was read, something of 
the zeal which prompted him to write, and so brought Rose-trees by the 
thousand to gladden our hearts and homes. 
I read this most charming of all manuals (the first copy wdiich I bought 
is before me now, faded, and thumbed, and pencilled,—a sorry contrast 
to edition the seventh, which glows hard by in brilliant magenta cloth, 
and which came “ from the author to his rose-loving friend”) until I had 
serious thoughts of rushing off to Sawbridgeworth; and assuredly had I 
then foreknown the hearty welcome always proffered there to him who 
can enjoy its feasts of Roses, I should have sought the sooner that friend¬ 
ship which I now esteem so highly. 
Autumn brought the catalogues, of which, if my memory is true, there 
w r ere at that time four only, emanating from Messrs. Rivers, Raul, Lane, 
and Wood. Ah ! had I studied my books at Oxford with half the zest 
with which I devoured these catalogues, what pre-eminence I might have 
won ! I might by this time have been a .bishop attacking the Christian 
faith, or any other high and noble personage; for I read, re-read, com¬ 
pared, and annotated those pages, until my sisters asked sneeringly, 
“ What could I see in those stupid lists ?” and prophesied an early soft¬ 
ening of my brain. The youngest, I remember, to whom in an incau¬ 
tious moment I had exhibited my Masonic apron, “ felt sure that they 
