The Magazine of horticulture, botany, and all useful discoveries, Volume 23 page 263 (June 1857)
The Rose.--No. 5
Prof. C. G. Page, Washington, D. C.
It cannot be thought chimerical to look forward for roses combining the qualities of constant-blooming, strong-growing, fine forms, colors and odors, entire hardiness and even thornless branches, where art shall reverse the lover's lament by stealing the thorn and leaving the rose. This latter quality has been fully attained in the hybrid perpetuals, Delphine Gay and Blanche Vibert, and nearly so in William Griffith, one of the most perfect roses grown. I have seen vigorous shoots of it, six feet high, without a thorn.