Read April and June 4, 1816.
The beauty of the Rose is so trite a theme, that it would be almost impossible to praise it in any other terms than have already been used for the same subject: — but beautiful as it is, the genus has long been involved in confusion and obscurity. Born with the same senses, the same tastes as other men, the botanist will feel its beauties even more strongly than they do, in proportion as those tastes and senses have been more exercised towards similar objects. But the difficulties attending the investigation of these plants are at least equal to the charms of their appearance and fragrance: even their commonness has perhaps contributed to our ignorance of them. Educated with Roses always before our eyes, it is long ere we learn to consider them as objects of science; and the excitement of novelty is lost while we are yet incapable of accurate examination. For my own part, if I had not been stimulated by the strikingly different appearance of the genus in the hedges of Westmoreland from that which it assumes in the southern counties, I should probably never have exposed my insufficiency in this attempt to discriminate the species: but the almost uniformly villous leaves and the colour of the flowers, generally either a white (sometimes almost pure, sometimes with a spot or two of full red), or else a much deeper red than in any of the Roses in the neighbourhood of London, attracted my attention.
