garden, a bog-garden, nooks and corners, grottoes and bowers, wherein children may play their happy games, and young men and maidens may dream Love's young dream, and old men may see visions of eternal peace, such an arrangement is to my mind the most perfect of all the plans which I have

seen.

"There are writers of great distinction, who have made it an argument for Providence, that the whole earth is covered with green rather than with any other colour, as being such a right mixture of light and shade, that it comforts and strengthens the eye instead of weakening or grieving it. For this reason several painters have a green cloth hanging near them to ease the eye upon after too great an application to their colouring;" and I once excited the ire of an arrogant gardener, who asked my opinion of a gorgeous but monotonous display of scarlet geraniums and yellow calceolarias, at which the carriagehorses shied as they approached the house, by replying, that I should like to retire into the kitchen garden, and cool my eyes on the parsley!

Sir Isaac Newton tells us, "All colours that are more luminous overpower and dissipate the animal spirits that are employed in sight; those, on the contrary, that are more obscure do not give the animal spirits sufficient exercise; whereas the rays that produce in us the idea of green, fall upon the eye in such a due proportion, that they give the animal spirits their proper play, and by keeping up the

struggle in a just balance, excite a very pleasing and agreeable sensation."

A green lawn not only delights the eye, but it invigorates the body, and promotes the social intercourse of those neighbours who delight to behold what a good and joyful thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. Here tennis exercises the muscles and croquet the temper of the young, while the elders look on, or roll the biassed bowls, as calm and as hopeful of victory as our great Admiral Drake, who, holding "the Jack" in his hand, when the announcement was made to him, that the Spanish Armada was in sight, quietly remarked, "We will finish the game, gentlemen." and beat the Shomiards too. Here, too, are convened the assemblies recently, but most successfully organized, and known as garden-parties, which enable the hospitable to invite a multitude of guests at a small outlay; and economy, I can assure you, has become not only acceptable but imperative in this our day of diminished income. The English hostess, whether she likes it or not, must follow the example of Mrs. John Gilpin, who

"Though on pleasure she was bent,
Yet had a frugal mind."

And they may be dedicated, these grass-plots and gardens, to a higher, happier, holier intention. They may help us to obey the Divine injunction, "When thou makest a feast, call the poor." To their children, who live in the uniform houses of uniform streets,

and learn the same lessons in the same uniform schools, to young men and women in factories and stores, and to poor old men and women, who rarely go beyond their humble homes, a beautiful garden is a new heaven and a new earth. God cheers their hearts, and I thank Him as I see it in their smile. They are dazed awhile, like horses brought up from the gloomy mine, and turned into the open, sunny pasture-field. At first, they cannot believe in their freedom, and even when they are convinced of its reality, their embarras de richesses, their ecstasy of doubt, whether they should browse on the green grass, or gallop over it, is as delectable as the oscillations of a divided affection, now intent upon the fair surroundings of the garden, and now on the abundance of the feast. The boys soon lose their shyness, and old Jacob's benediction, "Bless the lads," is in our thoughts, as they scamper away, and Hood's lines on our lips

""Twas in the prime of summer time,

An evening calm and cool,

And four and twenty happy boys

Came bounding out of school:

There were some that ran and some that leapt,
Like troutlets in a pool.

"Away they sped with gamesome minds,

And souls untouched by sin;

To a level mead they came, and there
They drave the wickets in:
Pleasantly shone the setting sun
Over the town of Lynn.

"Like sportive deer they coursed about,
And shouted as they ran,-

Turning to mirth all things of earth,
As only boyhood can."

Among their elders I have seen young women from London who never were in a garden before, and I remember one girl saying to her friend, who was about to sit upon the daisies, "Sally, you mustn't sit down there, all on them beautiful flowers;" and another exclaiming, as she saw some red peonies on the tea-table, "Oh, look at the pickled cabbage!"

Thus much of flowers generally. I must speak specially, as some of you will expect me to speak, concerning the Queen of them all-the Rose.

XVI.

ABOUT ROSES.

Confession of failure

A memorable conversation Flora autocratic and capricious-Love the first element of success -Pure air-Shelter, not shade - Soil-Form-Standards and bushes-Stocks-Manetti and briar varieties-Exhibition and garden roses-Summary of experience-Where to purchase.

MANY years ago, in the palmy days of the Garrick Club, when Dickens, and Thackeray, and John Leech, and A'Beckett, and Douglas Jerrold, and Shirley Brooks, and many other bright stars no longer visible in this firmament, were its constant inmates, I was engaged there one evening, like a good gardener, in the act of Fumigation-I was destroying a weed. I had two companions, and a conversation arose between them concerning a work which had been recently published, and had created a great interestBuckle's "History of Civilization in England." The dialogue ultimately resolved itself into an argument as to the future achievements of science and philosophy one of the speakers, who was then among the most brilliant writers of The Times newspaper,