lady over several acres, had a similar taste for colossal port¬ 
raiture ; but his flowers are disposed with infinite grace and 
poetic beauty. He very sweetly alludes to the Marigold 
closing at night, and partially hiding its golden petals within 
the green calyx, by saying that the ladie wound uj) her 
yellow locks, and hid them in a green caul or cap. 
The “ garden-queen,” the Rose, outvies even the dainty 
Violet in the number and enthusiasm of her laureates; she 
is indeed unrivalled, both in popular and poetical fame; nor 
has she yet lost much of her renown, for a rarity in litera¬ 
ture would he that poem, if of any length, vvhich should fail 
to offer its homage at her fair and fragrant shrine. This 
favourite of gods and men, the emblem of love and beauty, 
and the mute but expressive monitress that “ all that’s bright 
must fade,” has been in all ages the unwearying theme of 
the Poets, from the gay odes of Anacreon to the c[uaint 
moralizing songs and sonnets of our old English writers; 
and from them, through a long and glorious vista of names, 
illustrious among the mind’s nobility, down to the present 
time, with its few great and countless lesser lights. 
Spenser’s sweetest allusion to the Rose is in this “ lovely 
lay” from his Faerie Queen; it is very beautiful. 
The whiles some one did chaunt this lovely lay :— 
“ Ah 1 see, whoso fayre thing doest faine to see. 
In springing flowre the image of thy day ! 
Ah ! see the virgin Rose, how sweetly shee 
Doth first peep foorth with baslifiill modestee, 
That fairer seems the lesse ye see her may. 
Eo! see soone after, how more bold and free 
