buds reflecting the gleams of December
sunshine ! The biferi rosaria Pæsti merit their
repute of more than two thousand years ;
for, after all, we stand most in need of
flowers which will carry a cheerful face under
adverse circumstances. Any plant, or man,
can be full of bravery during the hey-day of
summer and prosperity ; but our strongest
sympathies are with whatever will make a
goodly show, and even bear blossoms, in
spite of the insults of the north-wind and
the disdainful looks of the sun. Amongst
the most unflinching bloomers is the Stanwell
Perpetual, a spinosissima, or Scotch rose,
with small double flowers of a very pale
blush, which assumes for its motto, Never
say die ! Another stout-hearted flower,
belonging to quite a different race, is Aimée
Vibert, with its bright and almost evergreen
foliage, and its thick clusters of pure white
blossoms.

Perhaps, though not the most continuous
in its succession of blooms, yet for lateness,
as well as for the combined perfections of
form, scent, hardiness, and colour, the best
autumnal rose yet raised (certainly in the
Portland or Quatre-Saisons class), is a
turncoat flower whose history I blush to relate.
But it averts your censure like other fair
offenders; for, if to its lot some floral errors
fall, look in its face, and you'll forget them
all. It made its appearance during Louis the
Eighteenth's time, and was named Rose du
Roi, or the King's Rose, in compliment to
him. But when Bonaparte came over from
Elba, and put the legitimate king to flight,
the proprietor, thinking that his new rose
with any other name would bring in more
money, deemed it good policy to rechristen it
Rose de l'Empereur, or the Emperor's Rose.
But the hundred days were a limited number
—fate did not choose to make them a hundred
and one — and the Battle of Waterloo
again changed the aspect of political affairs.
The rose ratted once more, and was re-styled
Rose du Roi. It is known in England as the
Crimson Perpetual — I should have called it
the Crimson Weathercock. To complete its
diplomatic education, it only wanted to have
passed for a time as the Rose de la République
Rouge, or the Red Republican Rose. No
autumnal rose-garden is complete without the
two Desprez, the red (or Madame), and the
yellow, or rather the salmon-coloured. The
Géant des Batailles is also a hero whose
prowess and whose manly beauty insure his
gracious reception by the ladies. None of
these are what the nurserymen call new;
most of them are quite antiquated; but they
will hold their own, and maintain their
ground, long after Louis Philippes and suchlike
loose ragged things have been swept
clean away by the breeze of forgetfulness.

I think that if you can make only one
voyage of rose-discovery during the summer,
it is better, more sentimental, and
altogether more poetic, to defer it till the
robin has commenced uttering his autumnal
notes. One out-of-the-way rose-garden that
I wot of is a gem in its own peculiar style.
To get to it, you put your square-built old
pony into your rumble-tumble four-wheel ;
you drive through high-hedged lanes and
over breezy commons till you reach the
turnpike-road, which traverses a rather secluded
district of the county ; you pass gentlemen's
seats on the right and the left, with their
verdant parks and noble timber-trees ; you
drive through a village, with the prettiest of
gardens before each cottage — no two of the
cottages or gardens being exactly alike—
while overhead is a flickering bower of cherry,
plum, and walnut-trees, chequering the road
with sunshine and shade ; you pass a brick-kiln
or two (symptomatic of the soil) ; and,
after peeping over clipped quickset hedges at
the brightest of pastures and the richest of
crops, you reach a solitary way-side inn — the
Merman. The pony knows where he is as
well as you do, and stops. From out a stable-
door steps a hale young man, with one hand
partly bound in a cotton handkerchief, and
the other covered with scratches more or less
recent. He has been budding roses these
many days past, and, as our noble allies
say, Il vaut souffrir pour les roses (Roses
are worth a little pain) ; nevertheless, he
unharnesses old Smiler, who straightwith
proceeds, snorting and whinnying, into the
well-known stable. You enter the house, and
find everything clean, countryfied, and
wayside-inn-like, without the slightest pretensions
to metropolitan adornments. You are met
by a tall, gaunt, dignified woman, certainly
not handsome, and assuredly never better-
looking than she now is. She is the mistress
of the house, and the rose-grower's wife. She
looks as if she thought it would be a sin to
smile more than once a-week ; but she is an
admirable cook — and did you ever know a
good woman-cook who did not look dreadfully
cross at times ? You order dinner for five
precisely, and step into the garden by a side-door,
invisible from the road. The master,
the enterprising horticulturist, has heard the
sound of your rumble-tumble's wheels, and is
coming to meet you — with slow step, unfortunately,
for he has lost a leg since he began to
grow roses. You have before you a tall,
stout man — stouter since his loss — not
handsome, but with an honest, open face, which
prepossesses you at the very first glance. Between
brother enthusiasts, preliminary ceremonies
are short ; so you walk up and down amidst
hundreds and hundreds of roses — tall, middle-
sized, short, and level with the ground,
climbers, dwarfs, standards, pot-plants, white,
blush, cream-colour, straw-colour, pink,
crimson, scarlet, slate-colour, spotted, edged,
striped, and blotched. You investigate the
character of the early summer roses, whose
bloom is past — you inquire into the prospects
of the newest new varieties, and often get a
shake of the head as the only response of the