A FEAST OF ROSES.
THE instability of earthly things marks the crazes as visibly as the serious interests and occupations of mankind. It does not console us much to reflect on this truth, when the craze is at its height, and bores us frightfully, because it does not happen to be our own craze, or because our minds are too well disciplined to have one ; for it is equally true that it is only a case of replacement. Fashion turns her wheel, and brings up one toy after another, and everybody snatehes at the topmost trifle. One day Prince's will be as obsolete as Rauelagh, and Polo as the nobler games of which it is a feeble imitation ; but women will have some other resort whereat they may waste time, and display one absurdity of dress after another, to replace Prince's; and the men of the future who have more money than brains will find means as effectual to abuse God's good gifts of horseflesh, and exhibit their own forms in attire which relieves the decent monotony of every-day costume, as those which are afforded by Polo. A whisper is abroad that people are tiring of collecting china ; that " priceless " things are beginning to be priced, and at a surprisingly low figure ; that halls and staircases are denuded in many instances of the adornments which, where the fashion is carried out on a small scale, turned them into groves of plates and dishes, and, where it is carried out on the large, into the "Ceramic Art" department of one of those exhi- bitions which have also ceased to trouble. A happy time may be coming in which Satsuma jars, pate tendre, and even " Bristol " will have been gently deposed from an eminence which has been rather too oppressive, and our friends' houses shall cease to remind us painfully of the difficulties and dangers of a china-shop, without the consolatory application of the practical Italian proverb, "Who breaks pays !" Somebody buys the things which, if we are to judge by the lists of 'art' sales, everybody is selling, but they will at least be dispersed, and a few decades may be expected to pass before they will come up again, to divide general conversation into enthusiastic silliness on the part of the genuine "fanciers," and organised hypocrisy on the part of the vast majority who neither know nor care any- thing about "bits," or "fabrics," or "marks," but are mortally afraid of being found out in their ignorance. A very funny thing to see was the face of an anxious mother who found herself lately in a distinguished company of "collectors," when her pretty daughter abruptly asked a learned authority on "Worcester," who was bewailing the depravity of human nature a propos of the forgery of a 'Karl Theodor' mark,—"But who was Karl Theodor?"
The Rose-craze has been growing with great velocity, and is commendable. The growers may possibly be tiresome people, but they keep away, by the necessity of the case, and we, who only love and enjoy the beautiful products of their skill and care, are the gainers without any drawback. We associate poetical ideas with them, simple, pastoral. notions, disturbed by nothing more prosaic than cotton-wool, tobacco-smoke, and objurgation of the insect tribes, which are likewise partial to Roses ; but not even Mr. Locker could get poetry out 'of " Christie's " on a muggy day in June, though the ' craze ' under the hammer be ever so historical. A lively fancy might have conjured up John Churchill and Sarah Jennings, the other day, having a few words in the Duchess's own choice vernacular, respecting the dispersion of the Marlborough gems ; but one walked among the Roses at the Crystal Palace on last Satur- day, attended by a whole troop of the gentlest images, with- out a jarring sound, a commercial suggestion, or the slightest interruption of jargon. The Palace itself is the natural home of the Roses, the only place in which one is not sorry to see them cut and set primly in boxes. The space, the glass, the greenery, the constant song of birds, the air of grand parade, are all in keeping ; and at all events in the early hours, before the crowds came, and while the space around the bloom- ing beauties was clear, and they might have been holding a court, to which a few ugly but respectful human beings were admitted to do them distant reverence, nothing more beautiful could be desired. When the fountains plashed and sparkled, and the cooled air was filled with the perfume of the myriad flowers, each exhaling its own peculiar subtle fragrance, then one looked about for Nourmahal. She was not there ; she was poorly replaced by "tied-back" young ladies ; on the whole, though there was more than one face which might have inspired Waller's yerses,—and very likely not one of them had ever heard of her.
The best way in which to enjoy the Rose Show at the Crystal Palace is to look attentively at the catalogue, get well into one's mind which are the prize flowers, and who are the successful growers, to pick up as much information as possible about the latest novelties, to make a mental act of grateful admiration of the science, skill, industry, care, and taste of the individuals who devote themselves to the most charming of pursuits, and then promptly to dismiss the whole matter from one's mind, and de- vote one's-self to an unscientific, sensuous enjoyment of the Roses. Of course it is only right to learn their names. When one sees, as the oldest habitues saw last Saturday, the finest display the Crystal Palace has ever made, it is the correct thing to inform one's-self that such and such an one among the dainty darlings is new, a hardly yet sunned gem in the crown of the beautiful earth ; but after a while it is an interruption even to look at their names. There are nearly seventy more competitors than there were last year ; and as one passes on, lingeringly, sometimes shading one's face with one's hands to shut out the long lines of beauty on either hand, and to study as they deserve the marvels of form and colour in a particular box,—the gorgeous deep pink of La France, which seems to spread into the air around the flowers ; the golden yellow and rich bulk of the Marichal Niel; the intense carnation of the Alfred Colomb; the dusky dark- ness of the Charles Lefebvre, with its close-set leaves, like downy wings of a butterfly or humming-bird,—one's learned and pains- taking guide is constantly saying, "that is new," or "they have got that colour since last year."
The best Roses, according to scientific rules and the growers' estimation, are not always those which an unlearned visitor, a mere lover of Roses, looks at with most delight; there are mysteries of form and fullness which he knows nothing of, but some of the grandest flowers strike every one with wonder. Such a rose is the Marie Van Emile, which is of a reversed-bell shape (like a bell as the ringer jerks it upward for a good peal of joy), of the Tea order, its leaves of a pale yellow tint, edged with pink ; a supremely lovely flower, with the faintest suggestion of a tulip in it, and a breath of quite Peculiar sweetness. The French Roses bear away the palm of beauty, and the learned in them tell us they are more beautiful here than in their own country. The Gloire de Dijon, an "old" rose,—it has glorified many a land beside its own,—ia, to our taste, still unsurpassed; but the lustrous dark pink of the Marie Cointet runs its tender yellow close, and the Eugene Appert is very near the throne. Never has the Marquise de Castellane,—most aptly named of roses, for it is the very 'moral' of a grand court lady in her bravest attire, head up, stately, defiant of comparison,—flaunted such beauties in the sun of June as last Saturday at Sydenham. Visitors clustered round the boxes where these roses stood amid the moss, and an eager hum of admiration was always audible near them. Their splendour, and that of La France and Marie Baumann, were freely granted ; but if there was one rose rather than another which excited a strong and openly-expressed desire to steal it (the public sentiments -were very impartial in this direction, however, and disdained dis- guise), it was the well-named Madame Lacharnie. One specimen of this kind, of perfect form, of the most delicious colour—a spotless -white, deepening towards the heart of it into a faint but distinct pink tint—was set in a boxwhich contained several roses of various colours. It ought to have stood alone, and to have received a -separate homage. Great must have been the proprietorial pride of the lady who exhibited those beautiful Oxonians in the English seedling class ; but it is to be hoped the grower of the lovely Mademoiselle Eugenie Verdier was not within earshot when a -critical individual replied to the enthusiastic comments on that triumph of science and skill (by kind permission of Nature) made by a lady beside him : "Well, yes, very pretty; but I like the meaty roses best, myself."
Table decorations, wedding, opera, and button-hole bouquets were displayed in profusion. The Exhibition was most credit- able, all the combinations were tasteful and elegant, and if the reaction which has set in should banish ceramic monstrosities from dinner-tables and substitute such floral triumphs as these, there will be additional reason for wishing a long life to the Rose- -craze.
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