Rose Georgina Kingsley

“ Powell's glass-works; bustling wharves; huge warehouses; of yelling railway trains, whistling and thundering over the great iron bridges that span the Thames; of penny steamboats; of heavy barges on the muddy river all defiled by the great city that presses down to its banks. St. Paul's dome, the grand old Tower of London, and the towers and spires of Sir Christopher Wren's "fifty new churches," pierce the smoke and the haze, and rise above the roofs of the busiest part of the city. The only trees to be seen are the planes on the embankment, along that waterside where the bride met the queen. ”

“ The beautiful green Rose Beetle or Rose Chafer does harm in both stages. As a grub it feeds underground on the roots; and as a beetle eats the foliage and the petals and anthers of the flowers. I find it is particularly fond of the delicate blossoms of the Yellow Persian Briar.
The Cock Chafer also eats the foliage, and its large white grubs devour the roots of the roses to such an extent that they often kill the plant. As the grubs remain for three years in the ground the damage they can do is incalculable; and they attack other plants besides roses. ”

“ We mount the wide steps at the extreme east end of the ambulatory, that form a sort of vestibule of deepest shadow under the massive archway which joins the Abbey to Henry the Seventh's Chapel. The black and white marble floor gleams cold, and the sun streams in through the southern windows upon the brass of Henry the Seventh's tomb as we look through the great bronze gates. But we will not enter them. We will turn to the left, where an open doorway leads us out of the dark entry at the head of the steps into the quiet light of the north aisle. ”

“ The Boursault Roses, R. Alpina,
are hardy, vigorous climbers, flowering in large clusters. They were raised from the single red Alpine rose. This, by the way, might be more generally cultivated for its own sake; its smooth red stems and handsome reddish foliage, which turns a fine colour in autumn, and its single deep pink flowers with long green bracts, succeeded by small brilliant hips, make it a charming object both in summer and autumn. M. Boursault, a famous Parisian rose amateur, gave his name to the group, the first variety, a double red, being called after him. ”

“ The mosaic pavement of 1260 is under our feet. Henry the Fifth's shield and helmet hang aloft on a bar above his chantry. All round us are the splendid monuments of the kings. Richard the Second, Edward the Third and Queen Phillipa, Henry the Fifth under his beautiful chantry, Henry the Third in his gorgeous tomb inlaid with marbles and mosaic, Good Queen Eleanor, and her husband Edward the First—they all are there! "The greatest of the Plantagenets," as he has been called, lies beneath an enormous monument of solid gray stone, absolutely plain, without carving, brass or mosaic. ”

“ Among roses that are little known in English gardens are Baronne de Hoffmann, a vigorous grower, vivid copper-red, with yellow base; and the invaluable M. Tillier, which I first saw in the Paris Exhibition of 1900. I have grown it largely since, and every one is attracted by the bushes, set thickly with medium-sized imbricated flowers of carmine and brick-red, borne on upright stems in such numbers that they make a brilliant mark in the garden from a distance. It is perfectly hardy, and I have gathered good blooms at Christmas. ”

“ We make our way round, above the Confessor's Chapel, and see his coffin lying in his shrine. We pass great rooms where all sorts of débris from the building are kept—old oaken chairs, bits of stone carving, paraphernalia for the coronation or for any great ceremony. We walk under the painted glass windows that we have watched, shining like jewels at the end of the apse, when we are at service in the choir. Then comes another door, another narrow stair, and we find ourselves in the strangest place of all. We are on the roof of Henry the Seventh's chapel. ”

“ The Soil,—which is far more important than even the position of our garden. If we are so lucky as to be able to choose the soil as well as the position, then let us choose a rich brown loam; for that is the soil roses revel in and need but little else to nourish them. Such a soil as this we find in the famous rose-gardens of Essex, Hertfordshire, Oxfordshire, and Kent. I have even seen roses growing superbly, without manure of any kind, in an open field of this rich loam on one of the most exposed ridges of Warwickshire. ”

“ The Virginian creeper climbs over the house, and veils the stone mullions of the deep embayed windows in a delicate tangled tracery of stems and leaves. Groups of tall red brick chimneys rise above the gables of the roof. And crowning the splendid western front—above the great entrance through a triple arched porch, above the exquisite oriel window that hangs out from the walls of the chapel-room—the Prince of Wales's three feathers, the badge that Edward the Black Prince won at Cressy, are carved in stone. ”

“ Of all the many toils and anxieties that beset the path of the amateur rosarian, I think we may safely say pruning is the chief. The rules to be observed are few. The idiosyncrasies of each rose are many. And the demands upon one's own judgment and initiative are constant.
Two things have to be considered before we begin the puzzling task. Are we growing our roses for exhibition, or at all events for a very few very perfect blooms? ”

“ Below the screen, which is wrought with exquisite carving into niches and canopies, stands a curious old chair. This is the Coronation Chair, in which all English sovereigns have sat at their coronations since it was made in Edward the First's reign. But more curious than the chair is the rough block of stone which it incases. That block is the mysterious stone of Fate which Edward the First captured at Scone in Scotland—the stone on which every Scotch king had been crowned from the days of Fergus the First—the stone on which every English king or queen has been crowned since. ”

“ They may be planted to cover an unsightly bit of bank, or to climb over a stump, to wreath themselves into the branches of a tree, or to form a dense covering of shining leaves and innumerable flowers on fence or trellis or screen. They are even more charming on pillars and arches, when the full beauty of their blossoms can be seen from all sides; for while many have a pendant habit, the main flower heads, of Dorothy Perkins for instance, are carried erect above the pink foam of the laterals that clothe the graceful hanging shoots below. ”

“ The praise of every British hero, the glory of every fight, was sung throughout the land; and the sound of the harp heard in every house. These singers of freedom chanted of joy in battle, of their country's liberty, of hatred of the Saxon oppressor. And they sang of their great prince, Llewellyn, "towering above the rest of men with his long red lance, his red helmet of battle crested with a fierce wolf; tender-hearted, wise, witty, ingenious." ”

“ Every gentleman's garden ought to have a large bed of Crimson Perpetual Roses, to furnish bouquets during August, September, and October; their fragrance is so delightful, their colour so rich, and their form so perfect. ”

“ For that Abbey is the record of the growth of our two great nations. Within its walls we are on common ground. We are "in goodly company;" among those who by their words and deeds and examples have made England and America what they are. America is represented just as much as England "by every monument in the Abbey earlier than the Civil Wars." [3] And within the last few years England has been proud to enshrine in her Pantheon the memories of two great and good Americans—George Peabody, the philanthropist, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the poet. ”

“ No monument is raised to his memory. But above his grave, Mary, Queen of Scots, with her proud beautiful face in scornful repose, lies under her splendid canopy, a fierce little Scotch lion crowned at her feet. And in the dim mysterious light that comes through the tiny diamond panes of the windows, we read words on her tomb that are indeed true of her great-grandson, Henry, Duke of Gloucester ”

“ But of late these faint shades have been successfully fought against; and while size has been preserved the colours are growing deeper and richer each year. So that we are surely drawing nearer the not impossible day when we may get Hybrid Tea roses as brilliant a red or yellow as Duke of Edinburgh or Maréchal Niel, as large as Frau Karl Druschki, and as fragrant, let us hope, as La France. As it is, it is difficult to imagine anything much more vivid than the orange, deep salmon-pink, copper-red, and rosy-apricot of some of the novelties of 1906-7-8. ”

“ WESTMINSTER ABBEY.—NORTH ENTRANCE.
At first sight Westminster Abbey is a little dwarfed by the enormous pile of the Houses of Parliament and their great towers. And St. Margaret's Church, nestling close to it on the north, mars the full view of its length. But when we draw near to it, all other buildings are forgotten. Crossing St. Margaret's churchyard where Raleigh sleeps, we seem to come into the shadow of a [Pg 13] great gray cliff. Arch and buttress and pinnacle and exquisite pointed windows tier upon tier, are piled up to the parapet more than a hundred feet over our heads. ”

“ The reason that this rose so often fails to bear blossoms is, that being an untidy grower it is pruned. And any one who has once tried to do so should be glad to know that pruning is as fatal to the rose as to the unhappy pruner, for it is armed with the most cruel prickles, like small fish-hooks, of any member of the rose tribe. The flowers, like those of the Banksia roses, being borne on the small twigs growing from the laterals of the second year, any pruning which destroys these destroys all chance of blossom. And this rule holds good with most of the Noisettes. ”

“ Morning service is just over. The choir boys have slipped off their white surplices, and are setting the music books in order. The crowd of sight-seers is beginning to wander about the Abbey. The monotonous voices of the vergers are beginning their explanations of tomb and chapel to the eager strangers. Let us get my good friends Mr. Berrington or Mr. Deer who show the tombs, to come quietly with us in their black gowns. Let us stand within the Sacrarium—the wide space inside the altar rails. ”

“ The older gardeners of the fifties would look in amaze on our glorious beds of Tea roses, flowering in some cases up to Christmas, and beginning again as happily as ever the next June. While to us of the present day, a rose garden without Tea roses would be no garden at all. [81]
It is not that the modern Tea rose is hardier than its ancestors; for some of the old ones, such as Souvenir d'un Ami, grow as cheerfully in the garden as a Hybrid Perpetual. ”

“ The tiny baby, wrapped in a mantle of crimson velvet, was carried with royal pomp into the Abbey. Some of the most splendid and famous personages of the day attended to do honor to the child, and the queen's majesty was godmother.
Who was this baby? Why was all this display and ceremony expended on an infant only five days old?
The little girl was of noble birth. She was daughter of John, Baron Russell, second son of the Earl of Bedford, one of that famous family which has given England some of her best statesmen for hundreds of years. ”

“ Rêve d'Or is one of the most useful and hardy of the race, a rampant grower, with buff yellow blossoms borne in immense numbers both in summer and autumn, while its rich red shoots and reddish-green foliage make it a beautiful object before and after it blooms. It strongly resents any pruning beyond shortening its vigorous summer shoots. ”

“ But now upon the old foundations rose the Abbey we all know and love. In every smallest detail the new church was to be incomparable in beauty. Foreign painters and sculptors expended on it all their cunning. Peter of Rome set to work on the Confessor's Shrine, where you may still read his name, and made it glow with gold, mosaics and enamels, the like of which could not be found in England. ”

“ Or are we growing them for quantity, for mere enjoyment, on the "cut and come again" principle, which enables one not only to fill the house without robbing the garden, but to fill the hands of every one who comes into the garden and looks at the masses of blossom with longing eyes? ”

“ First come the boys of Westminster School with their masters, and take their places right and left. Then the little chorister boys, walking two and two, the smallest in front—little mites who look as if they would hardly know their letters, but who march gravely to their seats, and sing the long service like sweet-voiced little birds. Then the "singing gentlemen of Westminster Abbey," as the men in the choir are called—many of them well-known professionals, whose names are seen during the week at the best concerts in England. ”

“ Hermosa, which is constantly mistaken for a very full, globular pink China, is an excellent rose for massing in the garden, as it is in continuous bloom from spring till late autumn, the dwarf, bushy plants being covered with flowers. The charming hybrid Tea rose, Camoëns, which resembles it in habit, but is a rather larger flower of a rich China pink, may also be used in the same way. A group of small beds arranged in a simple geometrical pattern, and planted with either or both these roses, is an extremely pretty feature in the garden. ”

“ Wales, stirred by their trumpet calls, had soon burst aflame to drive the Saxon from the land.
With a succession of victories for the Welsh prince, Llewellyn—the Lord of Snowdon—the hopes of his people had risen high. The dissensions of Henry the Third's reign had strengthened their hands. Llewellyn the younger, no longer calling himself Lord of Snowdon, but "Prince of Wales," had made himself sovereign of all the Welsh chieftains, and had also allied himself with Simon de Montfort during the great earl's revolt against the king. ”

“ Over Mary's grave King James erected a monument even more magnificent than Queen Elizabeth's in the north aisle. Yet not a thought did the selfish father give to the grave of his son.
But Prince Henry's memorial is a less perishable one than "brass or stony monument." He has left behind him a memory fragrant with all [Pg 221] that makes youth lovely and manhood noble—the record of a pure and good life, which will last, as the memory of every good life must last, when stone and marble has crumbled to dust. ”

“ The double arches and slender pillars which look so beautiful from the ground, are just as interesting when seen close. Hardly two of them are alike; the builders of those days did their work in no grudging spirit: but lavished fresh designs upon every yard.
It is a strange sensation up aloft in this wide gallery, looking down a sheer sixty feet into the Abbey, peeping at the stalls of the choir [Pg 111] peering down the pipes of the organ, watching the people wandering like flies over the pavement below us. But the strangest experience of all is an excursion such as I am describing at night. ”

“ On what used to be the altar step of the north aisle stands a baby's cradle—a cradle on real rockers. A gorgeous coverlet, all trimmed with rich guipure lace, falls from the corners of the cradle in splendid, rich folds. The arms of England, Scotland, and Ireland are carved on the back. And when you look under the head of the cradle you see that a baby lies sleeping in it. A darling tiny baby it is—its little wee face set in a close lace cap and lace ruff, under a kind of lace-trimmed hood that forms part of the pillow. ”