Only a twopenny Rose; but as I carried it in my coat, and gazed on it, and specially when, waking next morning, I saw it in my water-jug - saw it as I lay in my dingy bedroom, and heard the distant roar of Piccadilly instead of the thrush's song - saw it, and thought of my own Roses - it seemed as though they had sent to me a messenger, whom they knew I loved, to bid me "come home, come home." Then I thought of our dinner-party overnight, and how my neighbour thereat, a young gentleman who had nearly finished a fine fortune and a strong constitution, had spoken to me of a mutual friend, one of the best and cheeriest fellows alive, as " an awful duffer," "moped to death," "buried alive in some dreadful hole " (dreadful hole being a charming place in the country), because he has no taste for stealing or being robbed at races, can't see the wit of swearing, and has an insuperable partiality for his own wife. And I arose, reflecting; and though I had taken my lodgings and arranged my plans for three more days in London, I went home that morning, with the Rosebud in my coat.

Ah, my brothers! of the many blessings which our gardens bring, there is none more precious than the contentment with our lot, the deeper love of home, which makes us ever so loth to leave them, so glad to return once more. And I would that some kindly author, who loves books and gardens too, would collect for us in one book (a large one) the testimony of great and good men to the power of this sweet and peaceful influence - of such witnesses as Bacon and Newton, Evelyn and Cowley, Temple, Pope, Addison, and Scott. Writing two of these names, I am reminded of words particularly pertinent to the incident which led me to quote them, and which will be welcome, I do not doubt, even to those gardeners who know them best.

"If great delights," writes Cowley, "be joined with so much innocence, I think it is ill-done of men not to take them here, where they are so tame and ready at hand, rather than to hunt for them in courts and cities, where they are so wild, and the chase so troublesome and dangerous. We are here among the vast and noble scenes of nature, we are there among the pitiful shifts of policy; we work here in the light and open ways of the divine bounty, we grope there in the dark and confused labyrinths of human malice; our senses here are feasted with the clear and genuine taste of their objects, which are all sophisticated there, and for the most part overwhelmed with their contraries. Here is harmless and cheap plenty; there guilty and expensive luxury".

And Sir William Temple, after a long experience of all the gratifications which honour and wealth could bring, writes thus from his fair home and beautiful garden at Moor Park: "The sweetness of air, the pleasantness of smells, the verdure of plants, the cleanness and lightness of food, the exercises of working or walking, but above all the exemption from cares and solicitude, seem equally to favour and improve both contemplation and health, the enjoyment of sense and imagination, and thereby the quiet and ease both of the body and mind." And again he speaks of "the sweetness and satisfaction of this retreat, where, since my resolution taken of never entering again into any public employments, I have passed five years without ever going once to town, though I am almost in sight of it, and have a house there ready to receive me".

Even so to his garden may every true gardener say, as Martial to his wife Marcella: -

"Komam tu mihi sola facis,"

"You make me callous to all meaner charms".

"Let others seek the giddy throng Of mirth and revelry; The simpler joys which nature yields Are dearer far to me".

And let there be, by all means, among those joys included a bed of the Common Moss-Rose - a "well-aired" bed of dry subsoil, for damp is fatal - in which, planted on its own roots, well manured, closely pruned, and pegged down, it will yield its flowers in abundance, most lovely, like American girls, in the bud, but long retaining the charms of their premiere jeunesse before they arrive at rosehood. When the soil is heavy, the Moss-Rose will grow upon the Brier; and I have had beautiful standards of Baron de Wassenaer, a pretty cupped Rose, but wanting in substance; of Comtesse de Murinais, a very robust Rose as to wood, but by no means so generous of its white petals; of the charming Cristata or Crested, a most distinct and attractive Rose, first found, it is said, on the walls of a convent near Fribourg or Berne, which all rosarians should grow, having buds thickly fringed with moss, and these changing in due season to large and well-shaped flowers of a clear pink colour; of Gloire de Mousseuses, the largest member of the family, and one of the most beautiful pale Roses; of Laneii, for which, on its introduction, I gave half-a-guinea, and which repaid me well with some of the best Moss-Roses I have grown, of a brilliant colour (bright rose), of a symmetrical shape, and of fine foliage, free from blight and mildew, those cruel foes of the Rose in general, and the Moss-Rose in particular; of Luxembourg, one of the darker varieties, more remarkable for vigour than virtue; of Marie de Blois, a rose of luxuriant growth, large in flower, and rich in moss; of Moussue Presque Partout, a singular variety, curiously mossed upon its leaves and shoots; and of Princess Alice, nearly white, free-flowering, and much like Comtesse de Murinais. But, as a rule, they soon deteriorate on the Brier, and the amateur will best succeed in growing them as I have advised with reference to the Common Moss. Celina and White Bath I have not included in the preceding list, never having grown them as standards, but they deserve attention - the first for its exquisite crimson buds, the second as being our only really white Moss-Rose, but of very delicate habit.

Of the Moss-Roses called Perpetual, and deserving the name as autumnal bloomers, Madame Edouard Ory and Salet are the only specimens which I have grown successfully in my own garden, or admired elsewhere. The former is of a carmine, the latter of a light rose, tint.

All the Roses which I have selected in this chapter are desirable in an extensive Rose-garden. To amateurs of less ample range or resources I would commend, as the most interesting, the Common and Miniature Provence, with the Common and the Crested Moss.

S. Reynolds Hole.