DECEMBER. 369 
happy to eat. Were he less so, he would hesitate where to begin, like 
some schoolboy, whom you tréat at the’ confectionér’s, and bid, in Leah's 
words,’ take all.” “But now he has youth's gladness without its appe- 
tite, and he is'racing off again, head down and heels in the air, as though 
about ‘to rehearse’ a ‘series’ of somersaults for the edification of some 
favoured hippodrome.’ | ; 
(Alike joyous consternation, a like embarrasment of happiness are 
mine, my friends, when released from the introductory part of my lec- 
ture, from my allegorical snaffle, I find myself free to expatiate upon a 
field—of Roses; turned out as it were into the “rosea rura Velini,” into 
those’ Rose ‘fields near Ghazepoor, which the great Bishop ‘Heber tells us 
extended over many hundred-acres, or into that * beautiful plain covered 
withinnumerable Roses, ” of which we read in the more récent “Wander_ 
ings of an Artist.” So let. me.haye a metaphorical gallop to relieve my 
exuberance of delight ; or rather, since the Rosarium is not good galloping 
ground, let me, like some nightingale just arrived in a Rose nursery, 
and who ¢an ‘‘scarce get-out his notes for joy,” take a preliminary fly 
over he premises, with obligato and irregular music, ere I settle down 
to sing in a, more measured time andin a more usual key. 3 
_ Hurra then, for the royal Rose! for a Queen who, like our own 
Victoria, reigns the wide world over in loving hearts. Hurra, for old. 
England’s emblem, emblem true ofa happy land, whose sons flush 
quickly with a righteous anger to, resent injustice and to defend the 
right, and whose daughters blush with a roseate, beauty, with the, 
“shame, which is ‘a glory and a grace.” Hurra for thé precious, 
perfumed flower, which, for seven months of our fickle and inclement 
year, give its welcome beauty to high and low, admired and loved by 
us all, from the patrician, who sees it in the golden epergne of the 
banquet, to the ploughboy, who sticks it in his coat o’ Sundays, and 
seems-to his younger brother, learning his Collect, am embodiment of 
earthly bliss, just as to a junior at Eton a gorgeous fraternity in ‘the 
Guards appears tobe a demigod (principally demme) in whom perfection ° 
culminates. « Hurra:for the’ flower, which ‘in: all history, sacred :and:: 
secular, maintains priority of praise ;-which the Greeks named ¢o anthos;: 
the) flower, and: which«all their: poets, ‘heroic, pastoral; sentimental, 
comic, Homer, Théocritus, Aristophanes, and‘‘ burning Sappho,’ sang’; 
which the Romans: strewed before their victorious: chiefs, chose first to’ 
orndment ‘their ‘homes: and: feasts; and» even offered’ to their Gods 3: 
which all: mations;:emancipated’-from barbarism, have ‘ever fondly, » 
cherished ; which displays its charms, as/our’ English girls their loveli-'| 
ness, /with’ ian ‘infinite ‘variety of form, grace, and» complexion;> now | 
petite as: some) pocket Venus! (anglicé};““a ‘little duck”) ‘and ‘now: beau+;» 
tistkrabundantlyhis .2se9 of BR pais | 5H JOBS 
oe eid eatecoe A daughter of the gods, divinely fair, 
cow tfbteoneseein And most divinely tall... madi 
(colloquially, ‘a glorious girl, Sir”) ; which, only, requiring, in ordinary « 
gardens the smallest share.of attention to ensure, an ample bloom, may ‘ 
be. induced, by,,a..patient, and careful love, to, reveal. its, glories, under, , 
adverse .skies--was) there,,not,,at),.the,.Third National ,, Rose..Show,,, 
in the Crystal. Palace, a, basket of beauties, ‘f grown within three miles. 
FOIL AN; BDSSLVRS < oundisil tobrret cansoy ot To tiooB Big toe ps 
