^• 
 
 
 
 1*^ 
 
 tiSiis^ 

 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 MEMOIRS OF THE ROSE.
 
 MEMOIRS OF THE ROSE 
 
 COMPRISING 
 
 BOTANICAL, POETICAL, AND MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 UtcolUction^ 
 
 OF THAT CELEBRATED FLOWER. 
 
 IN A SERIES OF LETTERS TO A LADY. 
 
 " If on creation's morn the King of Heaven 
 To shrubs and flowers a sovereign lord had given, 
 O, beauteous Rose, he had anointed thee. 
 Of shrubs and flowers, the sovereign lord to be. 
 The spotless emblem of unsullied trutli ; 
 The smile of beauty, and the glow of youth ; 
 The garden's pride, the grace of vernal bowers. 
 The blush of meadows, and the eye of flowers." 
 
 Hymn of Sappho, by Boyd. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED FOR FRANCIS WESTLEY, 
 
 stationers' court, and ave-maria lane. 
 
 1824.
 
 LONDON : 
 R. Clay, Priuter, Devonshire Street, Bishopsgatc,
 
 fK 
 379/ 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The following Letters were originally writ- 
 ten for the gratification and amusement of a 
 beloved female friend, in whose happiness and 
 pursuits the Writer then felt, and now feels, an 
 affectionate interest. His fair correspondent 
 being a person of modest and retired habits, 
 whose taste and disposition led her to prefer 
 the society of Flora in the field and the flower 
 garden, before the solitude of dissipation in 
 the giddy circles of fashionable life, — he was 
 led to believe that the innocent gratification 
 of a large portion of her sex similarly dis- 
 posed, might be promoted by the publication 
 of this selection : this hope was the writer's 
 A 3 
 
 887093
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 motive, and must be his apology, for the pre- 
 sentation of this little volume to the public. 
 This, however, is certain ; — whatever multiplies 
 or diversifies the associations of intellect or 
 feeling with which we regard the objects of 
 creation, must, at the same time, heighten the 
 enjoyment of rational aud religious contempla- 
 tion ; and although these Letters are principally 
 devoted to the celebration of one particular 
 flower, yet the Writer is persuaded that every 
 lover^of the Rose, may derive from their pe- 
 rusal, new illustrations of the beauties of the 
 garden in general ; many of the incidents in 
 the history of this flower being very interesting, 
 and most of the poetical tributes exceedingly 
 beautiful. 
 
 This merit is asserted with the utmost free- 
 dom and unreserve by the compiler, because 
 praise is not claimed thereby for himself, but 
 the authors from whose works he has quoted. 
 For himself, he may adopt the sentiment of 
 Montaigne: " I have gathered a nosegay of
 
 PREFACE. VII 
 
 flowers, in which there is nothing of my own, 
 but the string that ties them." On the other 
 hand, he by no means pretends to have col- 
 lected all that is interesting, either as incident 
 or illustration, in the history of this celebrated 
 flower — it was neither within his ability nor 
 his intention to do this : on the contrary, he 
 believes there is hardly a reader, but will be 
 able to add to the instances in these Letters, 
 anecdotes or eulogies of the Rose. 
 
 To the intelligent portion of that amiable 
 sex, to whom these pages are most particularly 
 devoted, as well as to persons of taste in ge- 
 neral, no apology can be necessary for present- 
 ing these memoirs of a flower, so generally 
 and deservedly celebrated, and so universally 
 esteemed. " Milton and Euripides," says the 
 writer of The Philosophy of Nature, " de- 
 lighted in the Rose ;" Vitruvius acknowledged 
 it to be one of the best ornaments of a Corin- 
 thian capital; lovers in ancient times were ac- 
 customed to swear by it ; and such veneration
 
 VIll I'llEFACE. 
 
 had the Persians for this exquisite flower, that 
 it creeps into almost all their songs, fables, 
 and odes." 
 
 It may, perhaps, not be improper to antici- 
 pate an exception which may possibly be taken 
 to the familiar style of these Letters, by ob- 
 serving, that the writer is not unaware of its 
 validity; but when he resolved to transcribe 
 them for the press, the same motive which led 
 him to perpetuate the auspices under which 
 they had been written, induced him also to 
 preserve their internal character entire. This 
 pardonable weakness of affection and indivi- 
 dual feeling, will not, the Writer is persuaded, 
 render either less fragrant, or less acceptable, 
 this bouquet of poetical Roses. 
 
 May, 1824.
 
 MEMOIRS OF THE ROSE. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 " For THEB the Rose put sweeter purple on." Fentoit. 
 
 My dear Anne, 
 
 In the long friendship which you and I 
 have cherished towards each other, you have had 
 many opportunities of discovering my partiahty for 
 that beautiful flower — The Rose : nor has it been 
 without feelings of pleasure, that I have perceived 
 the affection which you also have manifested for 
 this favourite of the Muses. How often while 
 rambling in the fields, or resting in the garden, 
 have we amused ourselves with anecdotes and 
 poetical quotations about this queen of flowers ! 
 While the vernal zephyrs seemed to sing to its 
 folded buds : 
 
 " Rose ! Rose ! open thy leaves \ 
 
 Spring is whispering love to thee. 
 Rose ! Rose ! open thy leaves ! 
 
 Near is the nightingale on the tree."
 
 10 
 
 1 have often had thoughts of collecting my scattered 
 reminiscences on this subject, to form a little olio 
 of sweets, under the title of " Rose Leates" and 
 which might form a trio with Coleridge's " Syhilime 
 Leaves" and Leigh Hunt's " Foliage." For the 
 present, however, I have resolved to address my 
 little collection to you, as my dearest friend ; not 
 doubting but that you will find them interesting, as, 
 though neither brighter nor sweeter for coming 
 from me, yet many of them have a beauty arid a 
 fragrance, which circumstances can neither enhance 
 nor diminish. You may therefore expect to receive 
 a letter from me at every convenient opportunity, 
 until my memory and my memorandums are ex- 
 hausted. 
 
 I have often recommended to you the science 
 of botany, as an elegant and feminine recreation; 
 indeed the study of flowers seems peculiarly to 
 recommend itself to your sex, as adapted for woman, 
 who is herself represented by our favourite poet, as 
 
 " A flower of meekness on a stem of grace." 
 
 " The student in botany," says Sir J. E. Smith, 
 " has a rich source of innocent pleasure. He would 
 find himself neither solitary nor desolate, had he no 
 other companion than a ' mountain daisy,' that 
 ' modest crimson-tipped flower,' so sweetly sung by 
 one of nature's own poets. The humblest weed or 
 moss will ever afford him something to examine
 
 11 
 
 or illustrate, and a great deal to admire. Introduce 
 liim to the magnificence of a tropical forest, the 
 enamelled meadows of the Alps, or the wonders 
 of New Holland, and his thoughts will not dwell 
 much upon riches and literary honours. Whether 
 we scrutinize the damp recesses of woods in the 
 wintry months, when the numerous tribes of mosses 
 are displaying their minute but highly interesting 
 structure ; — whether we walk forth in the early 
 spring, when the ruby tips of the hawthorn bush 
 give the first sign of its approaching vegetation, or 
 a little after when the violet welcomes us with its 
 scent, and the primrose with its beauty; — we shall 
 always find something to study and admire in their 
 characters. The yellow blossoms of the morning 
 that fold up their delicate leaves as the day advances, 
 — others that court and sustain the full blaze of 
 noon — and the pale night-scented tribes which ex- 
 pand and diffuse their sweet fragrance towards 
 evening, — all have peculiar charms. The more we 
 study the works of the Creator, the more wisdom, 
 beauty, and harmony become manifest, even to our 
 limited apprehensions ; and while we admire, it is 
 impossible not to adore." 
 
 These sentiments, my dear Anne, are interesting 
 as coming from one of considerable eminence and 
 authority on this subject, and I hope you will hence- 
 forth be induced to pay a little more attention to the 
 cultivation of this beautiful science. I do not mean 
 that you should puzzle yourself with the difficult
 
 12 
 
 :in(l abstruse department of botanical physiology — 
 though your sex can boast of eminent names even 
 jjere ; — but 1 would advise you to obtain such a 
 general knowledge of" the principles of the system, 
 as may enable you to distinguish one flower from 
 another botanically. This will afford you endless 
 gratification and delight, in those rural walks, of 
 which I know you to be so fond, and in which I 
 have so often accompanied you, gathering and specu- 
 lating upon the flowers by the way -side; and 
 though 
 
 Ye botanists, I cannot talk like you, 
 
 And give to every plant its name and rank, 
 
 Taught by Linne ; yet I perceive in all 
 
 Or known or unknown, in the garden rais'd, 
 
 Or nurtur'd in the hedgerow or the field, 
 
 A secret something which delights my eye, 
 
 And meliorates. And much I love 
 
 To see the fair one bind the straggling pink, 
 
 Cheer the s^veet Rose, the lupin, and the stock, 
 
 And lend a staff to the still gadding pea. 
 
 So sings our favourite Hurdis ; and in such pursuits 
 you will never be without company, nor indeed 
 without conversation ; flowers speak a separate lan- 
 guage to the botanist, the poet, and the moralist ; 
 some there are yi(ho may disdain this elegant inter- 
 course, and I once recollect mentioning it to a lady 
 of some note for her writings, who observed that 
 she should ever prefer " the human face divine,"
 
 13 
 
 and the conversations of rational men, before the 
 presence and the language of flowers under any 
 circumstances; but she was one whose masculine 
 understanding, and intrepid nerves, fitted her for 
 the society of men. You, my dear Anne, are of a 
 more delicate organization, and would no doubt 
 find some portion of b.otanical knowledge very useful 
 when you watch the progress of flowers, as I know 
 is your custom, from the appearance of the first " coy 
 recluse," which ventures to peep forth vmder the 
 hedge, till the garden exhibits all its beauties, 
 
 " Till riper months the perfect year disclose, 
 And Flora cries exulting — See my Rose!" 
 
 Of all the flowers of the garden, none seems to 
 be such an universal favourite, or to have been so 
 much celebrated by the poets, as the Rose ; not only 
 among us, but in almost every country of the world, 
 from the oriental gardens of Iran — the sun-nurst 
 Persia — 
 
 " The land of the myrtle, the Rose, and the vine, 
 
 Where the fields ever bloom and the skies ever shine," 
 
 to the desolate regions of northern Lapland, where 
 blooming fields and shining skies are almost un- 
 known, but 
 
 " Where pure Niemis fairy mountains rise. 
 And fringed with Hoses, Tenglis rolls his strcuni."
 
 14 
 
 Indeed, as the editor of " Times Telescope" justly 
 observes, " There is scarcely a single object in the 
 whole vegetable world, in which so many agreeable 
 qualities are combined as in the Rose. In this 
 flower Nature certainly meant to regale the senses 
 of her favourite with an object which presents to 
 him at once freshness, fragrancy, colour, and shape." 
 It is only necessary, my dear friend, to name this 
 work, to recall to your mind the many delightful 
 hours which we have annually enjoyed, in the peru- 
 sal of its multifarious, but interesting contents, and 
 especially from the respect with which it has uni- 
 formly noticed our favourite flower — seldom indeed 
 without a poetical tribute : and however these were 
 in general our old friends, we were glad to meet 
 them among the summer beauties of these volumes : 
 among the tributes which we had not previously 
 seen, you will recollect, that we transcribed from 
 Bernard Barton's poem on flowers, the following 
 lines as hh eulogy of the Rose: 
 
 " Fruitless and endless were the task, I ween, 
 With every flower to grace my votive lay ; — 
 And unto Thee, their long acknowledg'd Queen, 
 
 Fairest and loveliest! And thy gentle sway, 
 Beautiful Rose, my homage I must pay, — 
 
 For how can minstrel leave thy charms unsung. 
 Whose meek supremacy has been alway 
 
 Confess'd in many a clime, and many a tongue, 
 And in whose praise the harp of many a bard has rung?
 
 15 
 
 Mine is unworthy such a lovely theme ; — 
 
 Yet could I borrow of that tuneful bird, 
 Who sings thy praises by the moon's pale beam, 
 
 As Fancy's graceful legends have averr'd, 
 Those thrilling harmonies at midnight heard 
 
 With sounds of flowing waters, — not in vain 
 Should the loose strings of my rude harp be stirr'd 
 
 By inspiration's breath, but one brief strain 
 Should reassert thy rites, and celebrate thy reign." 
 
 Bernard Barton is a member of the Society of 
 Friends, whose plainness and simphcity could hardly 
 find a greater contrast than in the rich and beautifiil 
 Rose : for assuredly, of all the imaginary epithets, 
 by which it has been or might be distinguished, 
 nobody would think of calling it " the Quaker Jlower." 
 I was called upon the other day, by a pretty quaker, 
 who praised and preferred the snowdrop, to give my 
 reasons for loving the Rose, which I did in the fol- 
 lowing stanzas : 
 
 I love the Rose, — it is a noble flower. 
 In colour rich, and opulent of leaves, 
 And when her summer garland Flora weaves, 
 
 She sees no fairer beauty in her bower ; 
 
 None which, so redolent of perfume, flings 
 
 A sweeter fragrance on the Zephyr's wings. 
 
 I love the Rose, — that simple, single one. 
 Which decks the hedges, delicately white; 
 Or blushing like a maiden's cheek so slight, 
 The eye looks anxious lest the tint be gone. 
 Ere it hath gaz'd enough, or ere the spray 
 Can from the parent tree be slipp'd away.
 
 16 
 
 I love the Rose, — that monthly one, which blooms 
 In cottage windows ; which is tended there 
 With maiden constancy by maiden care ; 
 
 Which through all seasons decorates the rooms, 
 
 Like her, whose opening charms appear to be 
 
 A lovely blowing bud on beauty's tree. 
 
 I love the Rose, — nor least when I perceive 
 The thistle's pride in Scotia's bonnet worn ; 
 The shamrock green on Erin's banner borne; 
 
 then, imagination loves to weave 
 
 Of England's emblem-flowers, a garland, meet 
 To place on beauty's brow, or lay at valour's feet. 
 
 1 love the Rose, — its presence to my eye 
 
 Like beauty, youth, like hope and health appears, 
 Recalling the gay dreams of early years ; 
 And when I smell its fragrance wafted by, 
 I think of virtue, love, benevolence, 
 Which moral perfumes round life's paths dispense. 
 
 I love the Rose, — for bards have ever lov'd 
 
 The queen of flowers, the flower of beauty's queen : 
 When in the hedgerow or the garden seen. 
 
 Or pluck'd and proffer'd by some friend belov'd 
 
 To gentle Anne, to be by her caress'd, 
 
 Then braided with her hair, or worn upon her breast. 
 
 I love the Rose, — what time the smiling year 
 Leads forth in summer glory, Flora's train; 
 When orchard, garden, woodland, bower, and plain, 
 Dress'd in their richest garments all appear. 
 Then — then I love the humblest flower that blows. 
 But chief of all the tribe — I love the Rose.
 
 17 
 
 This, my dear Anne, is a rambling letter, and 
 you must consider it as a specimen of what are to 
 follow; for I have no intention of affecting the ar- 
 rangements of a sermon or the formality of an essay 
 in my communications to you, and I know in these 
 annals of the Rose, you will pardon all the defects 
 in the style of 
 
 Yours, &c. 
 
 B 3
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 " Child of the Summer, charmiag Rose, 
 No longer in confinement lie ; 
 Arise to light; thy form disclose; 
 Rival the spangles of the sky. 
 
 The rains are gone ; the storms are o'er ; 
 
 Winter retires to make thee way : 
 Come then tlioii sweetly blushing liower; 
 
 Come, lovely stranger, come away." 
 
 My dear Anne, 
 
 As biographers in general think it right, to 
 set down something concerning the name and gene- 
 alogy of the family of the person whose life they 
 write, — so I shall, in this letter, proceed to give 
 you some of the botanical characteristics, as well 
 as other incidental particulars of the flower, which 
 is the subject of these memoirs ; and I doubt not, 
 but that you will derive new pleasure Jn your future 
 contemplations of the Rose, from a slight acquaint- 
 ance with this department of its history, and the 
 illustration and explanation of its technical terms. 
 You are aware, my dear Anne, that the celebrated
 
 19 
 
 Linnaeus, a Swede by birth, and whose system is 
 now almost universally adopted by botanists, has 
 divided the whole vegetable creation into twenty- 
 four classes, which are distinguished by the number 
 of stamens in the flower : these classes are again 
 sub-divided into orders under each class, determined 
 by the number of pistils in each flower ; these are 
 still further divided into genera or tribes, and the 
 tribes into species or individuals. In this arrange- 
 ment, the Rose belongs to the icosandria class, which 
 is the twelfth, including a great variety of fruit trees, 
 as the apple, pear, cherry, plum, nectarine, &c., the 
 blossoms of which have twenty, or more stamens ; 
 these stamens in the Rose, constitute that beautiful 
 array in the middle of the flower, which looks 
 somewhat like yellow flos silk, Drayton, in his 
 " Muse's Elysium," has fancifully alluded to these 
 filaments, as a part of the head-dress of his nymph 
 Tita: — 
 
 " But for a dressing for her head 
 I think for her I have a tyre, 
 That all the fairies shall admire ; 
 The yellows in thejull-hlown Rose, 
 Which in the top it doth enclose, 
 Like drops of gold ore shall be hung 
 Upon her tresses." 
 
 In this class, the Rose is a genus of the order 
 polygynia, in which the pistils — those little pointers 
 in the middle of the blossom, are more than twelve,
 
 20 
 
 and placed in the same flower with the stamens. 
 The leaves which compose the corolla, or the flower, 
 are denominated petals, of which there are five in 
 the wild Rose, which is considered the represen- 
 tative of the genus. The calyx or flower-cup, 
 which is usually a green empalement protecting and 
 enclosing the blossom, is in the Rose — urceolated 
 or pitcher-shaped, quinquefid, carneous or fleshy, 
 and straitened at the neck. 
 
 In the common rose-bud, there is a singular ar- 
 rangement of the armature or beards of the calyx 
 which you may not have noticed, and which is thus 
 stated in an admired scrap of monkish Latin: 
 
 " Quinque sunt fratres, 
 Sub eodem tempore nati ; 
 Duo barbati; 
 Ultimus (5 quinque ; 
 Non est barbatus utrinque." 
 
 These leonine verses, with an English version 
 which follows, I extract from the Monthly Maga- 
 zine for April 1822 ; to which work they were 
 sent by our favourite poet — you can guess whom. 
 The translator observes, that " the common hedge 
 rose has a calyx, which encloses the bud, consisting 
 of five leaves, long, lanceolate — narrow, two simplej 
 two pinnate, (barbati) and a fifth pinnate only on 
 one side {non barbatus utrinque.) The three leaves, 
 then, described in the above lines, are the two 
 which are pinnate, or bearded, and the one which
 
 21 
 
 is pinnate on one side only, or ' not bearded on both 
 sides,' as the verse rather ambiguously expresses it; 
 consequently the two leaves omitted in the descrip- 
 tion must be the two that are ' simple,' or without 
 any beard at all. He then gives the following 
 ingenious translation : 
 
 " Five brethren there are 
 Born at once of their mother; 
 Two bearded, two bare, 
 The fifth neither one nor the other, 
 But to each of his brethren /(^//brother.'' 
 
 You will find it interesting to notice this singula- 
 rity, which the translator tells me he never found 
 to vary in any specimen which he had examined, 
 and which is corroborated by my own observations 
 on many hundreds of rose-buds. 
 
 The seeds are numerous, hispid or prickly, and 
 affixed to the inside of the calyx. Although it is 
 very difficult to distinguish the species of the Rose 
 from the varieties, owing to many accidental differ- 
 ences, yet, according to the present Linnaean ar- 
 rangement, they stand divided into fourteen species, 
 as follows: — 1. Rosa Alba, the common white Rose, 
 — 2. Rosa Alpina, the Alpine inermous, or unarmed 
 Rose. — 3. Rosa Canina, the canine, or wild dog- 
 rose. — 4. Rosa Carolincnsis, or Carolina and Vir- 
 ginia Rose. — 5. Rosa Centifol'ia, or hundred-leaved 
 Rose. — 6. Rosa Cinnamonea, or cinnamon Rose. —
 
 22 
 
 7. Rosa Eglanteria, the eglantine Rose, or sweet- 
 brier. — S. Rosa Gallica, the Gallican Rose. — 9. 
 Rosa Moschata, the musk Rose. — 10. Rosa Pim- 
 2nnellifolia, or burnet-leaved Rose. — 11. Rosa Sem- 
 pervirens, the evergreen musk Rose. — 12. Rosa 
 Spmos'issima, or most spinous, dwarf burnet-leaved 
 Rose. — 13. Rosa Villosa, or villose apple-bearing 
 Rose. — 14. Rosa Virginiensis^ virgin Rose. — These 
 species, and some of the varieties which they com- 
 prehend, I shall notice more particularly in sub- 
 sequent letters. 
 
 Besides the above artificial arrangement, there is 
 another, also devised by Linnaeus for the greater 
 perfection of his system, and denominated the na- 
 tural method, divided into fifty-eight classes or 
 orders ; in this division, the Rose ranks under the 
 thirty-fifth or senticosiB, so called from sentis, a 
 thorn, and comprehending the bramble, the brier, 
 and others which resemble them in external struc- 
 ture. This, my dear Anne, is an humiliating classi- 
 fication for our peerless flower ; and when we recol- 
 lect, that thorns and briers were denounced to grow 
 upon the earth, in consequence of the Fall, a dilemma 
 seems to present itself, as to whether the Rose was 
 one of the flowers of Paradise; and if so, whether 
 the thorns with which it is beset, have invested it, 
 in consequence of the curse which accompanied the 
 guilt of our first parents. Milton seems to have 
 been aware of this inference ; for in his immortal 
 poem, where the keeping is in admirable consistency
 
 23 
 
 witli truth and nature, he states in one of liis tjlovvinff 
 descriptions of Paradise, where 
 
 " The flowery lap 
 
 Of some irriguous valley spread her store,'' 
 tliat there grew 
 
 " Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the Rose." 
 
 Although the propagation and culture of the Rose, 
 are subjects which belong rather to the horticulturist 
 and the florist, than to the botanist or the poet, 
 still a few remarks on these subjects, as well as the 
 uses and properties of the flower generally, will 
 neither be improper nor uninteresting. 
 
 The usual method of propagating the Rose, is 
 either by suckers detached from the root of the 
 parent tree, or by cuttings or slips. The former 
 are generally to be obtained in sufficient plenty 
 from the . common garden Roses ; but the moss 
 provence, and others which seldom send up these 
 suckers, must be increased by cuttings or layers; 
 in the latter method, the branches being bent down, 
 are fastened with a peg into the earth, and covered 
 with soil, vmtil they have struck root, which, with 
 those layed in May or June, will be about Michael- 
 mas. Slips of the monthly kinds, will take root 
 with great readiness, either in phials of water, or 
 in common earth. The more curious sorts of
 
 24 
 
 Roses, however, are generally produced and mul- 
 tiplied by inoculation, which is, as Cowper exactly 
 observes, in a beautiful simile, a 
 
 " bud inserted in the rind. 
 
 The bud of peach or Rose, &c." 
 
 The usual process by this method is, first to make 
 a transverse incision in the branch, and then, ano- 
 ther from it downward resembling a T ; the rind 
 is then opened, at the junction of the lines, and the 
 bud inserted ; the whole is then tied close, with a 
 string of matting : this is usually practised in Spring, 
 when the sap is rising freely. 
 
 " You see, sweet maid, we marry 
 
 A gentle scion to the wildest stock ; 
 
 And make conceive a bark of baser kind 
 
 By bud of nobler race; this is an art 
 
 Which does mend nature, — change it rather : but 
 
 The art itself is nature." Shakspeare. 
 
 The cultivation of Roses, although generally con- 
 fined to ornamental gardening, is nevertheless in 
 some instances pursued as a source of profit ; and 
 the leaves are not only purchased by the apothe- 
 caries in general throughout the country, but in 
 the neigbourhood of London, there are large gardens 
 devoted to their culture for the purposes of distil- 
 lation, &c. In all posies, however, they constitute 
 the beauty and the pride, and often fetch a good
 
 25 
 
 price in the metropolis. As I know, my dear Anne, 
 you like a garland, I shall conclude this letter, witli 
 the process of making one, from Drayton : it will 
 serve also as a specimen of his poetry. 
 
 " Here damask Roses, white and red, 
 
 Out of ray lap first take I, 
 "Which still shall run along the thread, 
 
 My chiefest flower this make 1 ; 
 Amongst these Roses in a row, 
 
 Next place I pinks in plenty, 
 These double daisies then for show, 
 
 And will not this be dainty? 
 The pretty posy then I'll tye 
 
 Like stones some chain enchasing ; 
 And next to them, their near ally, 
 
 Tlie purple violet placing. 
 The curious, choice clove July-flower, 
 
 Whose kinds hight the carnation, 
 For sweetness of most sovereign power, 
 
 Shall help my wreath to fashion. 
 Whose sundry colours, of one kind, 
 
 First from one root derived, 
 Them in their several suits I'll bind. 
 
 My garland so contrived. 
 A course of cowslips then I'll stick, 
 
 And here and there (tho' sparely) 
 The pleasant primrose down I'll prick. 
 
 Like pearls, which will show rarely : 
 Then with these marygolds I'll make 
 
 My garland somewhat swelling, 
 These honeysuckles then I'll take, 
 
 Whose sweets shall help their smelling, 
 c
 
 26 
 
 The lily and the flower-de-Us 
 
 For colour much contenting, 
 For that I them do only prize 
 
 They are but poor in scenting. 
 The daffodil most dainty is 
 
 To match with these in meetness ; 
 The columbine compar'd to this, 
 
 All much alike for sweetness; 
 These in their natures only are 
 
 Fit to emboss the border; 
 Therefore I'll take especial care 
 
 To place them in their order : 
 Sweet-williams, compions, sops in wine, 
 
 One by another neatly ; 
 Thus have I made this wreath of mine 
 
 And finished it featly. 
 
 Muse's El^/sium, 5th Nymphul. 
 
 I remain, yours, &c.
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 " No flow'r that blows 
 
 I9 like this Rose, 
 Or scatters such perfume: 
 
 Upon my breast 
 
 Ah ! gently rest, 
 And ever, ever bloom." Garruk. 
 
 My dear Anne, 
 
 The Rose most plentifully cultivated in our 
 gardens, most generally celebrated by the poets, and 
 most particularly selected for distillation, &c. is 
 Rosa centifolia, or hundred-leaved Rose, so called 
 from the multitude of its petals. It grows from 
 three or four to eight feet high, having pinnated 
 three and five-lobed leaves, and the flowers of very 
 different shades of colour in the varieties ; amongst 
 which are common red provence Rose, and pale 
 provence rose ; both of them having large and 
 somewhat looseish petals. Cabbage provence Rose ; 
 having the petals closely folded over one another 
 like cabbages. Dutch cabbage Rose ; very large, 
 and childing provence Rose. To these may be
 
 28 
 
 added, the great royal Rose, growing six or eight 
 feet high, and producing very fine flowers : all 
 these are very elegant and ornamental Roses. 
 
 These are all deciduous, and generally summer- 
 flowering. " Roses in June," is proverbially spoken 
 of pleasant things in season : and although in open 
 seasons, and favourable situations, they sometimes 
 bloom earlier, yet Thomson has been charged with 
 an anchronism, where, in his invocation to Spring, 
 he invites the " ethereal mildness," to descend 
 
 " Veil'd in a shower 
 
 Of shadowing Roses." — 
 
 In this, however, he has countenance of other poets. 
 Spenser, in his " Shepherd's Calender," in the 
 " Merry Month of May, " represents as being 
 ycladde 
 
 " the ground with grasse, the woods 
 
 With greene leaves, the bushes with blooeming buds, 
 
 Youngthes folk now flocken in every where 
 
 To gather May-busket and smelling brere ; 
 
 And home they hasten the postes to dight. 
 
 And all the kirk-pillours eare day-light, 
 
 With hawthorne buds, and sweet eglantine, 
 
 And girlonds of Roses, and soppes in wine." 
 
 Even in April, he makes Hobbinole say of Eliza, 
 that he would have 
 
 " Upon her head a cremosin coronet, 
 •Wjth damask Roses and daffodillies set."
 
 29 
 
 And old Peacham, the painter, in the description 
 which he gives of May, as it should be represented, 
 says that the figure should have " upon his head, 
 a garland of white, damask, and red roses." 
 ■ The demand for Roses in the metropolis, and 
 the high prices which they will sometimes fetch, 
 especially when out of season, renders their artifi- 
 cial cultivation worth the attention of the gardener. 
 Lord Byron says, that he should as soon 
 
 " Seek Roses in December, ice in June," 
 
 as expect merit from a certain literary quarter : ice, 
 however, as well as Roses, may be found in the 
 above months, in some conservatories. On the 
 garden bush and the hedgerows, he might, indeed, 
 look in vain for the Rose; but in the cottage 
 window, or the hot-house, it may be found bloom- 
 ing ; and in the latter situation very fine Roses 
 have been blown at Christmas. These, however, 
 have generally an exceedingly delicate, and almost 
 preternatural appearance, occasioned by the absence 
 of the sun and the dew ; they are, however, always 
 free from insects, and are generally turned to good 
 account by the growers ; as much as five shillings 
 having been given for one, to ornament the bosom 
 of some expensive belle on a dress occasion. 
 
 The production of Roses at an unusual season of 
 the year, seems to have engaged the attention of 
 the two most eminent English philosophers, Lord 
 c 3
 
 30 
 
 Uacon, and Sir Robert Boyle; the latter, in Vol. I. 
 p. 107, of Peter Shaw's abridgement of his works, 
 says, " It is delivered by the Lord Verulam, and 
 other naturalists, that if a rose-bush be carefully 
 cut as soon as it has done bearing in the summer, 
 it will again bear Roses in the autumn. Of this 
 many have made unsuccessful trials, and there- 
 upon report the affirmation to be false; yet, I am 
 very apt to think, that my Lord was encouraged 
 by experience, to write as he did. For, having 
 been particularly solicitous about the experiment, 
 I find by the relation, both of my own, and other 
 experienced gardeners, that this way of procuring 
 autumnal Roses, will, in most Rose-bushes com- 
 monly fail, but succeed in some that are good bear- 
 ers ; and, accordingly, having this summer made trial 
 of it, 1 find that a row of bushes cut in June, by 
 far the greater number promise no autumnal roses ; 
 but one that hath manifested itself to be of a 
 vigorous and prolific nature, is, at this present, 
 indifferently well stored with those of the damask 
 kind. There may, also, be a mistake in the species 
 of Roses ; for experienced gardeners inform me, 
 that the musk-rose, will, if it be a lusty plant, bear 
 flowers in autumn without cutting ; and, therefore, 
 that may unjustly be ascribed to art, which is the 
 bare production of nature." 
 
 This eminent philosopher likewise notices the fact, 
 that a red Rose becomes white, on being exposed 
 to the fumes of sulphur. This experiment and its
 
 31 
 
 result, had, however, been observed before the pub- 
 lication of Boyle's works. Drummond thus alludes 
 to it: 
 
 " Look now in May the Rose, 
 At sulphur's azure fumes, 
 In a short space her crimson blush doth lose, ' 
 And, all amaz'd, a pallid white assumes. 
 So time our best consumes, 
 Makes youth and beauty pass, 
 And what was pride turns horror in our glass." 
 
 The practice of obtaining an extract from the 
 petals of the red rose, by infusion, compression, or 
 distillation, is of ancient standing, as well for its 
 medicinal, as its cosmetic uses. Anacreon says, 
 
 " When pain afflicts, or sickness grieves, 
 Its juice the drooping heart relieves." 
 
 Hasselquist, who travelled in the East, tells us, 
 that the rose-water of Egypt is not drawn from the 
 red, but the white Rose, or the slight blush, and 
 which possesses a surprising fragrance. It grows 
 very plentifully in the province of Fayhum, bearing 
 flowers of the size of a man's fist ; so considerable 
 is the demand for rose-water in this country, that 
 he says he knew one apothecary at Cairo, who bought 
 annually a quantity equal to about one hundred cmd 
 eighty gallons ! 
 
 The Orientals in their visits, arc often greeted
 
 32 
 
 with odours ; it is usual for a slave to present be- 
 fore each gviest, a silver laver containing rose-water, 
 with which the latter perfumes his head and beard ; 
 a similar custom was also practised in ancient 
 Greece. Shakspeare, too, in his play of " Taming 
 the Shrew," the scene of which he lays in Padua, 
 makes a lord say, 
 
 " What is it your honour will command? 
 Let one attend him with a silver bason, 
 Full of rose-water, and bestrew'd with flowers." 
 
 Milk of Roses, is at least as old as the days of 
 the Spectator, when cosmetics were much used ; 
 and a distillation, the rose-water of the apothe- 
 caries, is a regular vehicle in prescriptions of every 
 physician. 
 
 There is, however, another article of perfumery, 
 much more precious and costly than any of the 
 preceding, which is also obtained from this fragrant 
 flower: you will guess that I here refer to the cele- 
 brated Otto or Ottar of Roses, originally brought 
 from the East — perhaps Persia, where it is called 
 Attar-gul. Homer mentions the beard of Jupiter 
 as diffusing odours when he nods ; Milton has trans- 
 ferred the notion to Raphael, whose presence is 
 indicated by the ambrosial scent of his wings ; and 
 Virgil refers to the fragrance of Venus as indicating 
 her origin. Perhaps some of our modern belles 
 may think they imitate her in their odours ; there
 
 33 
 
 is no affectation of the heau-monde, so offensive to 
 me, as tliis of scent ; and I know you are so much of 
 my opinion on this subject, tliat you will approve 
 of the following sentiment which I have somewhere 
 seen: " A rose in the girdle may shed a delightful 
 perfume over the bosom, but jessamine water in the 
 hair — 
 
 And Otto on the lace, 
 
 My dearest Anne, are mottoes of disgrace." 
 
 As some of your friends may nevertheless admire 
 this expensive perfume, you may communicate to 
 them the following receipt for making it: " Take 
 a very large glazed earthen or stone jar, or a large 
 clean wooden cask ; fill it with the leaves of the 
 flowers of roses, very well picked, and freed from 
 all seeds and stalks ; pour on them as much pure 
 spring water as will cover them, and set the vessel 
 in the sun, in the morning at sunrise, and let it 
 stand till the evening, then take it into the house 
 for the night; expose it in this manner, for six 
 or seven successive days, and at the end of the 
 third or fourth day, a number of particles, of a fine 
 yellow oily matter, will float on the surface, which 
 in two or three days more, will gather into a scum, 
 which is the ottar of roses. This is taken up by 
 some cotton, tied to the end of a piece of stick, 
 and squeezed with the finger and thumb into a 
 small phial, which must be immediately well stopped ; 
 and this is repeated for some successive evenings,
 
 34 
 
 or while any of this fine essential oil rises to the 
 surface of the water." It is said that an hundred 
 pounds weight of roses will not yield above half an 
 ounce of this precious aroma. 
 
 I remain, 
 
 Yours, &c.
 
 LETTER TV. 
 
 " Yes, ev'ry flower that blows 
 
 I pass'd unheeded by. 
 Till this enchanting Rose 
 
 Had fix'd my wand'ring eye. 
 It scented every breeze 
 
 That wanton'd o'er the stream, 
 Or trembled through the trees 
 
 To meet the morning beam." Cunningham. 
 
 My Dear Anne, 
 
 The Moss-Rose, or, as it used more generally 
 to be called, the Moss-Provence, was supposed by 
 Linnaeus to be only a variety of the Rosa Centi- 
 folia. Miller, however, a writer of credit and cele- 
 brity, considers it as a distinct species ; but as the 
 original country of this Rose is not known, and we 
 are only acquainted with the flower as brought under 
 cvdtivation, the question may probably remain un- 
 decided. It is, however, a very elegant flower, 
 and sometimes grows four or five feet high, erect 
 and branchy ; the branches and stalks are brownish, 
 and very closely beset with sharp prickles : it is a
 
 3G 
 
 fine delicate Rose, of great fragrance. But that 
 which renders it of such great estimation, is, as you 
 are aware, that singular and rough moss-like sub- 
 stance, which surrounds the calyx, and the upper 
 part of the peduncle or footstalk of the flower. This 
 curious investment has suggested to a German poet 
 one of the happiest little fictions imaginable, in which 
 he accounts for its production. 
 
 " The Angel of the flowers, one day, 
 Beneath a rose-tree sleeping lay, 
 That spirit — to whose charge is given. 
 To bathe young buds in dews from heaven ; 
 Awaking from his light repose, 
 The Angel whisper'd to the Rose : 
 * O fondest object of my care. 
 Still fairest found where all as-e fair, 
 For the sweet shade thou'st giv'n to me, 
 Ask what thou wilt, 'tis granted thee.' 
 ' Then,' said the Rose, with deepen'd glow, 
 ' On me another grace bestow.' 
 The Spirit paus'd in silent thought, 
 What grace was there that flower had not ? 
 'Twas but a moment — o'er the Rose 
 A veil of moss the Spirit throws, 
 And rob'd in nature's simplest weed. 
 Could there a flower that Rose exceed ?'' 
 
 Next after the Moss-Rose, I may mention the 
 Eglantine ; this, although a species of rose, is not 
 esteemed for its flowers ; but the peculiar fragrance 
 of its leaves renders it a very valuable shrub. This
 
 87 
 
 sweet " smelling brere," grows indigenously in some 
 parts of England and Switzerland. " It claims 
 culture in every garden, for the odoriferous property 
 of its leaves ; and should be planted in the borders, 
 and other compartments contiguous to walks, or 
 near the habitation, where the plants will impart 
 their refreshing fragrance very profusely all around ; 
 and the young branches are excellent for improving 
 the odour of nosegays and bowpots." There is a 
 very pretty variety of Rosa Provincialis, called the 
 Pompone Rose — or Rose de Meaux, from a town 
 of that name, in France, from which the Rose may 
 have been brought : this sort seldom grows above a 
 foot and a half high, and the flowers are very small, 
 resembling a bachelor's button. America has some 
 varieties of the Rose, generally designated from the 
 places of their culture, as the Carolina, Virginian, 
 and Pennsylvanian sorts ; none of these, however, 
 differ materially from the roses in our own country. 
 This last paragraph reminds me of an adventure 
 which befel a New-Englandman, who visited this 
 country for the purpose of being able to ridicule 
 its claims to preeminence, in a work published at 
 New York. " The road," (from Worcester to 
 Hereford) says he, " was one of the roughest I 
 had yet travelled, but the country on either side 
 abounded in fruit-trees and flowers. The man who 
 drove my vehicle assured me I might gather a Rose 
 without being transported to Botany Bay, that para- 
 dise of English rogues. I ventured to pluck a 
 
 D
 
 38 
 
 beautiful one over the fence, and would you believe 
 it, brother, was neither shot by a spring-gun, caught 
 in a man-trap, nor prosecuted afterwards for tres- 
 pass ! This I record as the first miracle which has 
 happened to me in this country. I confess, how- 
 ever, a stout, square, rough-faced damsel did start 
 out upon me, and bawl out something, which luckily 
 I did not understand." 
 
 America, as I said, has its Roses; and Virginia 
 and Carolina have their appropriate varieties : in 
 the latter country is to be found, I am informed, 
 a small double wild Rose, which is thus associated 
 in my recollection : Our friend C. while resident a 
 few years ago at Charleston, walking out into the 
 vicinity of the town at Christmas, was surprised to 
 find Roses in full blow on the bushes. The sight 
 of his national flower, so unexpectedly encountered, 
 forcibly reminded him of home ; and Montgomery's 
 lines on plucking a wild Rose in October, rushed 
 into his mind, and he repeated them on the spot 
 with all tlie enthusiasm of one who knew and loved 
 the bard : apostrophising in the following lines, (ori- 
 ginally the conclusion of the above poem,) one 
 of the finest flowers, as he plucked it from the 
 bush : 
 
 " And thou, poor Rose ! 
 
 -I'll place thee near my soul ; 
 
 Not in my heart indeed, — but in my button-hole!" 
 With the Rose in his bosom he walked through
 
 39 
 
 the town, regardless of the gibes of those who 
 might construe into an imputation of rusticity, this 
 indication of the character of an Englishman. On 
 reaching his lodgings, he sat down, and wrote home 
 to his cher amie a letter full of affection ; and in 
 the corner of which he fastened one of the leaves 
 of the above Rose. This love-letter, with the rose- 
 leaf attached, is now lying before me ; I must not 
 tell how I came by it — but it will be no breach 
 of confidence to give you an extract : — " At this 
 hybernal season of the year, you are doubtless la- 
 bouring under the usual inclemencies of frost and 
 snow, two things almost unknown in this part of 
 the world. Nothing, perhaps, will convey to you a 
 more correct and sti'iking idea of the mildness of 
 this climate, than to inform you, that at this mo- 
 ment I have in the button-hole of my coat, a 
 beautiful wild Rose, which I plucked from a tree 
 whilst taking a walk this afternoon. It is just 
 such an one as blossomed on the tree which I 
 gave to you : I need not say, how much more 
 interesting such a walk would have been, could I 
 have had the happiness of planting the Rose in 
 your bosom, and have seen it blossom there." 
 He returned in safety to England, and honour- 
 ably discharged, by marrying the lady, that debt 
 of love, which her fidelity and affection through 
 years of absence had accumulated upon him. You 
 and I, who together were guests at their bridal, 
 can, T am sure, unite in saying — may the roses
 
 40 
 
 of liappiness strew all their paths through future 
 life ! 
 
 With a notice of one other Rose, I shall con- 
 clude this letter, — I mean that beautiful and domes- 
 ticated variety, so universally prevalent as a stand 
 or window flower, and in praise of which, as an 
 ornamental house shrub, it would be almost im- 
 possible to speak too highly. Its naturalization 
 in this country is comparatively of recent date, 
 probably within about fifty years. The following 
 notice of this charming flower, is from the Botan- 
 ical Magazine, where it is very accurately repre- 
 sented under the name of Rosa Semper Florens, 
 the ever-blooming Rose. " We are induced to 
 consider the Rose here represented, as one of the 
 most desirable plants in point of ornament ever 
 introduced to this country ; its flowers, large in 
 proportion to the plant, are semidouble, and with 
 great richness of colour unite a most delightful 
 fragrance ; they blossom during the whole of the 
 year, more sparingly indeed in the winter months ; 
 the shrub itself is more hardy than most green- 
 house plants, and will grow in so small a compass of 
 earth, that it may be reared almost in a coffee-cup ; 
 is kept with the least possible trouble, and propa- 
 gated without difficulty by cuttings or suckers. 
 
 " For this invaluable acquisition, our country is 
 indebted to the late Gilbert Slater, Esq. of Knots- 
 green, near Laytonstone, whose vmtimely death 
 every person must deplore, who is a friend to im-
 
 41 
 
 provements in ornamental gardening. In procuring 
 the rarer plants from abroad, more particularly from 
 the East Indies, Mr. Slater was indefatigable, nor 
 was he less anxious to have them in the greatest 
 perfection this country will admit ; to gain this point, 
 there was no contrivance that ingenuity could sug- 
 gest, no labour, no expense withheld ; such exertions 
 must soon have insured him the first collection of 
 the plants of India. It is now about three years 
 since he obtained this Rose from China ; as he 
 readily imparted his most valuable acquisitions to 
 those who were likely to increase them, this plant 
 soon become conspicuous in the collections of the 
 principal nurserymen near town, and in the course 
 of a few years will, no doubt, decorate the window 
 of every amateur. 
 
 " The largest plants we have seen have not ex- 
 ceeded three feet; it may no doubt be trained to a 
 much greater height ; a variety of it much more 
 robust, having usually several flowers on a footstalk, 
 of a pale red colour, and semidouble also, has more 
 lately been introduced, and, as far as we can learn, 
 from the same source." With the confident hope 
 that this interesting notice of the introduction into 
 this country of this beautiful Rose, will give you 
 pleasure, 
 
 I remain, 
 
 Yours, &c. 
 
 D 3
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 ■ See! in the morning blooms tlie Rose! 
 But soon her transient glories close: 
 She opens with the rising day. 
 And with the setting, fades away." 
 
 Duiicombe's Ausonius, 
 
 My dear Anne, 
 
 Rosa Alba, the common white Rose, so very 
 nearly resembles the other common varieties in its 
 general character, that it is unnecessary to state the 
 slight differences ; this is the flower, which, as you 
 are aware, distinguished the partisans of the House 
 of York, in that long civil dissension about the 
 crown of England, previously to the reign of Rich- 
 ard III. Richard Plantagenet, in Shakspeare's play 
 of Henry VI. only utters the feelings of his faction 
 when he says, 
 
 ■ " I cannot rest, 
 
 Until the white Rose, that I wear, be dy'J 
 Even in the luke-warni blood of Henry's heart.
 
 43 
 
 What eflect the triumph of the Lancastrian interest 
 might have in disparaging the culture of the Rose 
 of the rival party, I do not know ; but certainly 
 this Rose is not so generally esteemed as the other 
 varieties. It is, however, a sweet and beautiful 
 flower, and little circumstances sometimes endear to 
 us, by associations of feeling, objects which indiffe- 
 rently seen, might pass unremembered, at least un- 
 recorded. Some years ago, when in a delicate state 
 of health, and labouring under an indisposition, 
 which subjected me to a great depression of spirits, 
 I happened, while walking about my garden, to cast 
 my eyes upon a white rose-tree : the delicate appear- 
 ance of the flowers, and my own nervous suscepti- 
 bility, united to produce some very pensive feelings, 
 which I recorded in the following verses. You must 
 have seen them before, because the copy before me 
 is in your hand-writing ; but a pardonable weakness 
 induces me to transcribe them in this place. 
 
 THE WHITE ROSE. 
 
 Written during a season of indispositioti, June, 2'Jllt, 1818. 
 
 Ah ! lovely Rose, I've pass'd thee by 
 
 With gay indifference erewhile ; 
 Nor dream'd tlie flower sliould make me sigli, 
 
 Which ne'er receiv'd my smile.
 
 44 
 
 Thy damask sister's blooms by sleallli, 
 Oft from the branch I lov'd to break ; 
 
 They seem'd the emblems of my health, 
 The colours of my cheek. 
 
 Ah '. blushing tints, to me less dear — 
 To me less fragrant than before; 
 
 They whisper but of hopes that were — 
 That seem to be no more ! 
 
 Awhile with weakness left to cope, 
 That strength, — those roses fled ; 
 
 The lilies of deserted hope 
 Are blanching in their stead. 
 
 Fair flower of loveliest white ! at length, 
 Though left unpluck'd, I call thee mine ; 
 
 Faint is thy fragrance, as my strength : 
 My cheek as pale as thine. 
 
 When sickness to the heart assigns 
 
 Its own, its drooping thoughts to cheer ; 
 
 Then sensibility entwines 
 Its emblems every where. 
 
 If chance we meet a friend, — or flower, — 
 Or hear a sound from lips we prize ; 
 
 These hallow like a charm, some hour 
 Of past, — of hop'd-for joys. 
 
 And shall thy leaves, thy bloom and spray. 
 Be scattet'd by the summer's breath ? 
 
 My days as fugitive as they, 
 Are pluck 'd by time and death.
 
 45 
 
 Another summer shall restore 
 
 Leaves, roses, beauty to this tree; 
 
 Shall I behold one summer more ? 
 It may — it may not be ! 
 
 Spirit of health ! if thou art fled, 
 
 breathe, and tell me where ! 
 Dost thou the vale or mountain tread ? 
 
 Or dost thou wander near ! 
 
 Spirit of health ! thou art not gone; 
 
 1 feel thee hovering round my lieart ; 
 Faint as the flower I gaze upon, — 
 
 Thou wilt not yet depart. 
 
 A fading leaf of texture frail, 
 Although I quiver in the blast ; 
 
 The autumn's breeze — the winter's gale, 
 By me have kindly past. 
 
 Secure, till his Almighty breath, 
 Who made the creature for his love. 
 
 Dissolves the body, and at death 
 Receives the soul above. 
 
 I shall, my dear Anne, take up the remainder of 
 this letter, with brief notices of several varieties of 
 the Rose, not yet in common cultivation. Amongst 
 the curiosities which Lord Macartney brought into 
 this country from China, on his return from his 
 embassy to that country, was an elegant species of
 
 4(J 
 
 Rose ; it is single, and the petals are white, with a 
 slight blushing tinge, which is deeper on the under 
 side. The leaves are evergreen, and the flowers 
 fragrant ; this native of the Celestial Empire, is 
 called, in compliment to the ambassador. Macart- 
 ney's Rose. 
 
 There is likewise another elegant variety from 
 the above country, and which, with us, requires to 
 be kept in a stove. It is of a rich crimson colour, 
 and has varieties of single and double flowers, the 
 interior structure of which is very beautiful and 
 curious, the stamens and pistils at the upper ex- 
 tremity of a long filament issuing from the middle 
 of the flower. Rumphius, in his Herhorium Am- 
 boinense, has particularly described it. The inha- 
 bitants of India, he observes, are extremely partial 
 to whatever is red ; they consider it as a colour 
 which tends to exhilarate ; and hence they not only 
 cultivate this plant universally in their gardens, but 
 use its flowers on all occasions of festivity, and even 
 in their sepulchral rites : he mentions also an eco- 
 nomical purpose to which the flowers are applied, 
 little consistent with their elegance and beauty — that 
 of blacking shoes, whence their name of Rosce calce- 
 olariee. The shoes, after the colour is imparted to 
 them, are rubbed with the hand, to give them a 
 gloss, and which thereby receives a bluish tinge, to 
 discharge which they have recourse to lemon juice. 
 This flower is very elegantly figured in the Botanical 
 Magazine, published by Curtis, in 1792, from which
 
 47 
 
 work the above, and several other particulars in 
 tliese letters, are derived. 
 
 There is another variety, called by Millar, and 
 other botanists, Rosa Lutea— the yellow Rose ; this 
 is a single flower, and has been suspected to be 
 only a variety of the Rosa Sulphurca, so denominated 
 from its colour ; this is brought from the Levant, 
 and has a double flower ; it is sometimes called 
 the Levant, and the former the Austrian Rose. I 
 have seen this Rose, but did not smell of it ; there- 
 fore I cannot settle the different opinions respecting 
 its odour ; some say it has no smell ; others that it 
 has very little ; and there are those who maintain 
 that its smell is very unpleasant ; hence one author 
 has most offensively called this variety of our fa- 
 vourite flower, Rosa Fcetida, or stinking Rose. 
 
 The impression which the last-mentioned charac- 
 teristic of the Austrian Rose is calculated to make 
 upon your mind, will be most effectually counter- 
 acted, by the following florid version of one of the 
 odes of the Teian bard : 
 
 *' While we invoke the wreathed spring, 
 Resplendent Rose ! to thee we'll sing — 
 Resplendent Rose, the flower of flowers, 
 Whose breath perfumes Olympus' bowers; 
 Whose virgin blush of ^hasten'd dye, 
 Enchants so much our mortal eye. 
 When pleasure's blooming season glows, 
 The Graces love to twine the Rose ;
 
 48 
 
 The Rose is warm Dione's bliss, 
 And flushes like Dione's kiss; 
 Oft has the poet's magic tongue 
 The Rose's fair luxuriance sung ; 
 And long the Muses, heavenly maids, 
 Have rear'd it in their tuneful shades. 
 When, at the early glance of morn, 
 It sleeps upon the glittering thorn, 
 'Tis sweet to dare the tangled fence. 
 To cull the timid floweret thence. 
 And wipe with tender hand away, 
 The tear that on its blushes lay ; 
 'Tis sweet to hold the infant stems 
 Yet drooping with Aurora's gems. 
 And fresh inhale the spicy sighs 
 That from the weeping buds arise. 
 When revel reigns, when mirth is high, 
 And Bacchus beams in ev'ry eye, 
 Our rosy fillets scent exhale. 
 And fill with balm the fainting gale ! 
 Oh ! there is nought in nature bright 
 Where Roses do not shed their light ! 
 When morning paints the orient skies. 
 Her fingers burn with roseate dyes ; 
 The nymphs display the Rose's charms. 
 It mantles o'er their graceful arms ; 
 Through Cytherea's form its glows, 
 And mingles with the living snows. 
 The Rose distils a healing balm, 
 The beating pulse of pain to calm ; 
 Preserves the cold inurned clay, 
 And mocks the vestige of decay. 
 And when, at length, in pale decline. 
 Its florid beauties fade and pine,
 
 49 
 
 Sweet as in youth, its balmy breath 
 Diffuses odour e'en in death," 
 
 Moore s Anitcreon. 
 
 There is one species of our favourite flower — 
 Rosa Semjjcrvircns, which, as its natne imports, docs 
 not shed its leaves hke the rest ; this is the evergreen 
 musk Rose ; the favourite of our elder poets. It has 
 a stalk and branches somewhat trailing, and requir- 
 ing support, and bearing clusters of piu'e white musk- 
 scented flowers, which continue to blow from 
 August till October. There is one variety — the 
 deciduous musk Rose. I may just mention here, 
 the Alpine Rose, called inermoiis, from a peculiarity 
 in this species, of being free from all armature, and 
 hence denominated also Virgin Rose. This epithet, 
 my dear Anne, will recall to your memory the con- 
 cluding verse of one of Charles Wesley's beautiful 
 hymns. 
 
 " Thus blooms the human face divine, 
 
 When youth its pride of beauty shows ; 
 Fairer than spring the colours shine, 
 And sweeter than the Virsiin Rose." 
 
 I remain, 
 
 Yours, &c.
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 Yes, lovely flower, I find in thee 
 Wild sweetness which no words express. 
 
 And charms in thy simplicity. 
 That dwell not in the pride of dress." Laiigharne. 
 
 My DEAR Anne, 
 
 The diversities of the Rose are so numerous, 
 that botanists have found it very difficult to deter- 
 mine with accuracy, which are species, and which 
 only varieties ; — or whether, indeed, there be pro- 
 perly more than one species, which is the Rosa 
 Canina, or dog-rose of our hedges. To this sen- 
 timent, many eminent writers have inclined; and this 
 also was the opinion of Linnaeus, who attributed the 
 different varieties to culture and accident. What- 
 ever may be the fact respecting the claims of the 
 hip-tree, to be considered as the ancestor of " Royal 
 Roses," upon which it appears very difficult to 
 decide, — certainly the flower itself possesses an ele- 
 gant simplicity, and a delicate fragrance, not sur- 
 passed by any flower on the hedge : moreover, the
 
 5i 
 
 wild Rose is no less common than beautiful, being 
 found growing plentifully in all parts of the king- 
 dom, as well as in other parts of the world, espe- 
 cially in the delightful climate of Rhodes. 
 
 It is in allusion to this flower, and with reference 
 to the peak of Derbyshire, where the author of 
 " Prose by a Poet," says, in his " Old English 
 Year," that " the hedgerows were gorgeously ar- 
 rayed with Roses." Indeed it is not possible to 
 ramble along some of the rural and sequestered 
 lanes in that romantic district, when the Roses are 
 in bloom, without being attracted by their multitude 
 and fragrance : some perfectly white, and others of a 
 deep red, but the greater number — and these gene- 
 rally the finest flowers, of a fine blush colour. Ask 
 Betsy if she does not remember what a glorious 
 bough-full of them I slipped from the hedge, to 
 ornament the front of our vehicle, when we travelled 
 together on one occasion over these hills ? or if she 
 has forgot how profusely and fragrantly they gadded 
 their silvery globes in the sunshine all along the 
 road-side, as we walked from Bakevvell to Haddon 
 Hall? 
 
 In my first letter, alluding to the garden Rose, I 
 have observed that it will never be called the Quaker 
 flower : but that epithet might not so improperly 
 be applied to the present flower ; and whatever 
 may be said about Bernard Barton's eulogy on that 
 " Queen of Flowers," a Quaker tribute seems aptly 
 enough paid to this rural beauty, and has been done
 
 62 
 
 in a volume of very pleasing poetry, written by John 
 and Mary Howitt, of Nottingham. It is not often 
 that we find a man and his wife cultivating together 
 the friendship of the muses, as in this instance ; but 
 whether the following stanzas are from the feminine 
 pen, or otherwise, I cannot tell ; they are, however, 
 redolent of the subject. 
 
 THE WILD ROSE. 
 
 " Welcome ! oh ! welcome once again, 
 
 Thou dearest of all the laughing flowers, 
 That open their odorous bosoms when 
 
 The summer birds are in their bowers. 
 Tliere is none that I love, sweet gem, like thee, 
 
 So mildly through the green leaves stealing; 
 For I seem, as thy delicate flush I see. 
 In the dewy haunts of my youth to be ; 
 
 And a gladsome youthful feeling 
 Springs to my heart, that not all the glare 
 Of the blossoming East could awaken there. 
 
 " Glorious and glad it were no doubt, 
 
 Over the billowy sea to sail. 
 And to find every spot of the wide world out, 
 
 So bright and fair in the minstrel's tale. 
 To roam by old Tyber's classic tide, 
 
 At eve, when round the gushing waters 
 Shades of renown will seem to glide. 
 And amidst the myrtle's flowery pride 
 
 Walk, Italy's soft daughters : 
 Or to see Spain's haughtier damsels rove 
 Through the delicious orange grove.
 
 53 
 
 " Glorious it were where the bright heav'n glows, 
 
 To wander idly far away, 
 And to scent the musk'd voluptuous rose 
 
 Of beauty, blest Circassia ; 
 To spy some languid Indian maid 
 
 Wooing at noon the precious breeze, 
 Beneath the proud magnolia's shade ; 
 Or a Chilian girl at random laid 
 
 On a couch of amaryllides ; 
 To behold the cocoa-palm, so fair 
 To the eye of the southern islander, 
 
 " Glorious, Camellian blooms to find 
 
 In the jealous realms of far Japan, 
 Or the epidendrum's garlands twin'd 
 
 Round the tall trees of Hindostan : 
 All this were glad, and awhile to be 
 
 Like a spirit wand'ring gaily; 
 But oh ! what souls, to whom these are free, 
 Would give them all to share with me 
 
 The joys that I gather daily. 
 When, out in the morning's dewy spring, 
 I mark the wild Rose blossoming. 
 
 " When the foot-path's winding track is lost 
 
 Beneath the deep o'erhanging grass. 
 And the golden pollen forth is tost. 
 
 Thickly upon me as I pass ; 
 When England is Paradise all over ; 
 
 When flowers are breathing, birds are singing j 
 When the honeysuckle I first discover 
 Balming the air, and in the clover 
 
 The early scythe is ringing ; 
 When gales in the billowy grass delight, 
 And a silvery beauty tracks their flight ; 
 e3
 
 34 
 
 " And, more than all, the sweet wild Rose, 
 
 Starring each bush in lanes and glades, 
 Smiles in each lovelier tint that glows. 
 
 On the cheeks of England's peerless maids. 
 Some, with a deeper, fuller hue, 
 
 Like lass o'er the foamy milk-pail chanting; 
 Lighter are some, and gemm'd with dew. 
 Like ladies whose lovers all are true, 
 
 And nought on earth have wanting, 
 But their eyes on beauteous scenes are bent, 
 That own them their chief ornament. 
 
 " And some — alas ! that a British maid 
 
 In beauty should ever resemble them ! 
 Like damsel heart-broken and betray'd, 
 
 Droop softly on their slender stem : 
 Hid in the wild wood's deepest shade. 
 
 Flowers of such snowy loveliness, 
 That almost without light fancy's aid. 
 Seem they for touching emblems made 
 
 Of beauty smitten by distress. 
 But enough — the wild Rose is the queen of June, 
 When flowers are abroad, and birds in tune." 
 
 You are aware, that the fruit which succeeds to 
 the wikl Rose, is the hip, or hep, of a bright scarlet 
 colour when ripe, and very conspicuous among the 
 salvage produce of the hedges during the winter 
 months, when it becomes the food of various kinds 
 of birds. Of this fruit likewise, by separating the 
 pulp from the seeds, and beating it up with sugar, 
 a very pleasant conserve is made by country people. 
 You will recollect frequently to have noticed in
 
 55 
 
 your walks a curious spongy excrescence, or fibrous 
 tuft of a green and reddish colour, growing upon 
 the stems of the wild rose-tree; this is called rose- 
 sponge, and bedeguar ; and is occasioned by a small 
 fly, which piercing the tender bud with its sting, 
 sheds a drop of liquid in the wound, where also it 
 deposits its eggs ; the juices of the plant thereby 
 become irritated, and the vegetative process, in- 
 stead of issuing in leaves, produces a mass of fila- 
 ments, which curling into a ball, becomes the nest 
 of young insects ; first maggots, then chrysales, from 
 which escapes the perfect fly, when the fungus dries 
 
 and crumbles to pieces. 
 
 I remain, 
 
 Yours, &c. 
 
 P. S. I have just met with three very pretty 
 trifles, which, as my present letter is not full, I 
 shall here transcribe : the first is by poor Blackett, 
 an interesting young man, who gave promise of 
 poetical excellence, but died a few years ago— his 
 remains were edited by Mr. Pratt. The second 
 tribute is from Charlotte Smith : and the third from 
 the pen of the celebrated C. J. Fox, which you will 
 probably deem the most elegant flower in this spray 
 of poetical Roses. 
 
 " A sweet-scented Rose I survey'd, 
 While rapture enliven'd mine eyes; 
 I entered its, dwelling — the shade, 
 And made the sweet floweret my prize.
 
 56 
 
 In my bosom I wore it awhile, 
 
 But when I observ'd it to fade, 
 I withdrew from its beauty ray smile, 
 
 And threw it again on its bed. 
 
 ■ Let the Rose, then, a moral impart 
 
 To those who are thoughtless and gay ; 
 Who, triumphing over a heart, 
 
 Caress it, — then cast it away." Blackett. 
 
 Queen of fragrance, lovely Rose, 
 
 Thy soft and silken leaves disclose : 
 
 The winter's past, the tempests fly. 
 
 Soft gales breathe gently through the sky ; 
 
 The silver dews and genial showers 
 
 Call forth a blooming waste of flowers; 
 
 And, lo ! thy beauties now unclose, 
 
 Queen of fragrance, lovely Rose ! 
 
 Yet ah! how soon that bloom is flown! 
 
 How soon thy blushing charms are gone ! 
 
 To-day thy crimson buds unveil, 
 
 To-morrow scatter'd in the gale. 
 
 Ah! human bliss as swiftly goes, 
 
 And fades like thee, thou lovely Rose." 
 
 C. Smith. 
 
 " The Rose, the sweetly blooming Rose, 
 Ere from the tree it's torn, 
 Is like the charms which beauty shows. 
 In life's exulting morn !
 
 57 
 
 " But oh ! how soon its sweets are gone, 
 How soon it withering lies ! 
 So, when the eve of life comes on, 
 Sweet beauty fades and dies. 
 
 " Then, since the fairest form that's made 
 Soon withering we shall find, 
 Let us possess what ne'er will fade. 
 The beauties of the mind ! " 
 
 C. J. Fo.i
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 ' Full canisters of fragrant lilies bring, 
 Mix'd with the purple Roses of the spring ; 
 Let me with fun'ral flowers his body strow; 
 The gifts which parents to their children owe. 
 This unavailing gift at least I may bestow." 
 
 Drgden's Virgil. 
 
 My dear Anne, 
 
 The use oi jiomers in connexion with the 
 dead, is, in many respects, very touching and im- 
 pressive, and has obtained in most civiHzed countries 
 — where flowers are strewed upon the corpse, gar- 
 lands carried before it to the burial, or shrubs plant- 
 ed upon the grave of the deceased. And surely the 
 impression of mortality is neither diminished or less 
 affecting, when, taking a last look at the exanimate 
 countenance of one whom we have loved, we per- 
 ceive the coffin scattered with a few flowers — the 
 appropriate emblem of what departed beauty was, 
 and of what living beauty must be. Sir Thomas 
 Overbury, in his character of a " fair and happy 
 milk-maid," represents her principal anxiety to be 
 on this subject: " thus lives she, and all her care is
 
 59 
 
 she may die in the spring-time, to have store of 
 flowers stuck upon her winding sheet." At the pre- 
 sent day, when a young female dies in Wales, it 
 is customary for the damsels invited to her fune- 
 ral, to bring flowers with them, which they put 
 into her coffin: and how exquisitely touching and 
 graphic is the following verse from " The Dead 
 Twins :" 
 
 " As in their coffin short and wide 
 They lay together side by side, 
 A Rose-bud nearly clos'd, I found 
 
 Each little hand within, 
 And many a pink was strew'd around, 
 
 And many a jasimlne : 
 And yet the flowers that round them lay 
 Were not to me more fair than they." 
 
 The custom of carrying flowers, and scattering 
 them on the graves of deceased friends, is very 
 ancient. St. Ambrose, in his funeral oration 
 of Valentinian, alludes to the fragrance of those 
 flowers which others scatter over the graves of 
 the deceased, but intimates that the spirit of Christ 
 which dwelt in his friend, should be the odour of 
 his memory. St. Jerome, in a similar strain, in his 
 Letter to Panunachius, says, — " While other hus- 
 bands strewed violets and Roses and purple flowers 
 on the graves of their wives, you, Pammachius, 
 bedewed her ashes with the balsam of charity." 
 Lilies are mentioned by the first writer ; from the 
 latter it appears that Roses were used. Shakspeare
 
 00 
 
 has frequent allusions to this custom. Paris, in 
 Romeo and Juliet, when they reach the church-yard 
 of the Capulets, says to the page, — " Give me those 
 flowers : " and while he strews them, thus apostro- 
 phising the dead : " Sweet flower ! with flowers T 
 strew thy bridal bed," &c. Again in Hamlet, when 
 the Queen, scattering flowers vipon the grave of 
 Ophelia, says, 
 
 " Sweets to the sweet : Farewell ! 
 I hop'd thou wouldst have been my Hamlet's wife, 
 I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid, 
 And not have strewed thy grave." 
 
 And lastly, in Cymbeline, where Arviragus says, 
 
 " With fairest flowers 
 Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele, 
 I'll sweeten thy sad grave : thou shalt not lack 
 The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose ; nor 
 The azured harebell, like thy veins ; no, nor 
 The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander, 
 Out-sweeten'd not thy breath." 
 
 It is, however, in Wales that the practice of 
 planting flowers and shrubs on the graves, most 
 generally prevails ; lilies, snowdrops, &c. are 
 placed over children, and sweetbriers and rose- 
 trees over grown up persons. In the confined 
 church-yards of our large towns, where there is 
 hardly a blade of grass to be seen, and where 
 the dead are packed together only into less space 
 than the living, we do not expect to meet with
 
 61 
 
 these living memorials of dead friends. In the 
 bm-ying grounds, hovvever, of many large cities on 
 the continent, and elsewhere, more attention is 
 paid to decorations, and the graves are frequently 
 planted. 
 
 The burying grounds about Constantinople, ac- 
 cording to Lady Montague, " are certainly much 
 larger than the whole city. It is surprising what 
 a vast deal of ground is lost this way in Turkey. 
 Sometimes I have seen burying places of several 
 miles, belonging to very inconsiderable villages, 
 which were formerly great towns, and retain no 
 other mark of their ancient grandeur than this 
 dismal one. On no account do they remove a 
 stone that serves for a monument. The ladies 
 have a simple pillar, without other ornament ; 
 except those that die unmarried, who have a Rose 
 at the top of their monument." There is no people 
 with whom the Rose is a greater favourite, than 
 the Turks. One of the church-yards in Madrid, 
 has a rivulet running through the middle of it, and 
 " the ground," says a French traveller, *' is covered 
 with violets, jessamine, Roses, and other flowers, 
 that grow spontaneously. The whole shaded by 
 apple-trees. The trees, rivulet, and shade, the 
 beauty of the flowers, and the smell of the Roses, 
 all remind me of tlie gardens, the delicious bowers 
 and happy plains of Elysium." The Frenchman 
 was sentimental, and his cemeteries at home are 
 planted with Roses.
 
 62 
 
 The following quotation from the eighth volume 
 of Time's Telescope, presents some interesting no- 
 tices on this subject :— " Among the flowers with 
 which the graves of our ancestors were decorated, 
 (a custom not at present confined to the distant parts 
 of the kingdom, and to Wales, but still common in 
 France, Switzerland, and other countries,) the Rose 
 was sometimes blended with the lily, to form a 
 general emblem of frail mortality." " This sweet 
 flower (says Evelyn) borne on a branch set with 
 thorns, and accompanied with the lily, are natural 
 hieroglyphics of our fugitive, umbratile, anxious, and 
 transitory life, which making so fair a show for 
 a time, is not yet without its thorns and crosses." 
 " The white Rose was planted at the grave of 
 a virgin ; her chaplet was tied with white riband, 
 in token of her spotless innocence : though some- 
 times black ribands were intermingled, to bespeak 
 the grief of the survivors. The red Rose was 
 occasionally used in remembrance of such as had 
 been remarkable for their benevolence ; but Roses 
 in general were appropriated to the graves of 
 lovers. Evelyn tells us, that the custom was not 
 altogether extinct in his time, near his dwelling in 
 the county of Surrey, ' where the maidens yearly 
 planted and decked the graves of their defunct 
 sweethearts with Rose-bushes.' Camden likewise 
 remarks, in his Britannia, ' Here is also a certain 
 custom observed time out of mind, of planting 
 Rose-trees upon the graves, especially by the young
 
 63 
 
 men and maids who have lost their loves ; so that 
 this church-yard is now full of them." 
 
 We may presume that this custom of decorating' 
 the graves with Roses is not unknown in the sister 
 island, from the following epitaph, said to be copied 
 from a tomb-stone in an Irish country church-yard — 
 and which, with the exception of the sentiment in 
 the first line, is very pleasing : 
 
 " A little spirit slumbers here, 
 Who to one heart was very dear; 
 Oh ! he was more than life or light, 
 Its thoughts by day — its dream by night ! 
 The chill winds came — the young flow'r faded 
 And died; — the grave its sweetness shaded. 
 Fair boy ! thou should'st have wept for me, 
 Nor I have had to mourn o'er thee ; 
 Yet not long shall this sorrowing be — 
 Those Roses I have planted round, 
 To deck thy dear sad sacred ground , 
 When spring gales next those Roses wave, 
 They'll blush upon thy mother's grave." 
 
 Anacreon, speaking of the Rose, says that 
 
 " After death, its odours shed 
 
 A pleasing fragrance o'er the dead." 
 
 and Drummond, the Scotch poet, in an epistle to 
 one of his friends, conjures him to see the following 
 couplet placed over his grave : 
 
 " Here Damon lies, whose songs did sometimes grace 
 The murmuring Esk : — mai/ Roses shade the place."
 
 64 
 
 This, my dear Anne, you will probably think, is 
 rather a funereal letter, and yet it forms not the 
 least interesting chapter, in the biography of our 
 favourite flower. Young as you are, there have 
 been rosy-bosomed days in the spring of your exist- 
 ence, which have passed away without leaving either 
 their brightness or their fragrance behind them ; 
 and yet the Roses of youth, health, and beauty, 
 continue to adorn you — long may the best of these 
 blessings be yours — and distant be the time, when 
 the rose-tree shall be planted over your grave ! I 
 will conclude this letter in the language of " The 
 divine Herbert," as he is usually styled. 
 
 " Sweet day! so cool, so calm, so bright; 
 The bridal of the earth and sky, 
 Sweet dews shall weep thy fall to-night, 
 For thou must die. 
 
 " Sweet Rose ! whose hue, angry and brave. 
 Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye; 
 Thy root is ever in its grave, 
 
 And thou must die. 
 
 " Sweet spring ! full of sweet days and Roses ; 
 A box where sweets compacted lie ; 
 My music shews you have your closes, 
 And all must die." 
 
 I remain, 
 
 Yours, &c.
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 The Rose the poets strive to praise, 
 
 And for it would exchange their bays." Anacrcon. 
 
 My DEAR Anne, 
 
 I INTIMATED in my first letter, that the Rose 
 was an universal favourite ; it has indeed been cele- 
 brated in most of the languages of the *' babbling 
 earth," by ancient or modern writers ; and I intend 
 in the present letter, to transcribe for your gratifica- 
 tion, such proofs and illustrations of this fact, as I 
 happen to recollect ; together with such of the 
 original words, signifying " The Rose," in different 
 languages, as I possess. 
 
 Undoubtedly the most ancient, as well as the 
 most interesting book in the world, is the Bible : 
 and according to our translation, the Rose, HVr^nn 
 — Chahhatzeleth, in the original, is twice mentioned: 
 first, in the book of Canticles, chap. ii. ver. 2, *' I 
 am the Rose of Sharov, and the lily of the valleys ;" 
 and again in Isaiah, chap. xxxv. ver. 1, " The 
 F 3
 
 66 
 
 wilderness and the solitary place sliall be glad for 
 them ; and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as 
 the Rose." Whether in the former of these pas- 
 sages, the proper translation is " Rose of the field," 
 in allusion to the commonness of the flower, as 
 some suppose ; or whether it ought to be " Rose of 
 Sharon," in reference to its superiority, as con- 
 nected with that " excellency of Carmel and Sharon," 
 of which Isaiah speaks, I do not know : but this is 
 certain, that Judea, amidst its general and celebrated 
 fruitfulness, produced the rose-bush and its flowers 
 in great perfection. Doubday, an old traveller in 
 the Holy Land, mentions hedges formed of rose- 
 bushes, intermingled with pomegranate-trees ; and 
 Sandys, another traveller, seems to have found them 
 growing wild, and in great plenty, not far from 
 Jerusalem. He mentions passing " thorow valleys 
 of their Roses voluntarily plentiful." Some con- 
 ception of their plenty, indeed, may be formed, fi'om 
 a circumstance mentioned by Doubday ; he states, 
 that when the Eastern Christians made one of their 
 processions in the chvirch of the Holy Sepulchre 
 at Jerusalem, which lasted at least two hours, many 
 men attended it with sacks full of the leaves of 
 Roses, which they threw by great handfulls on the 
 people, and indeed in such prodigious quantities, as 
 that many were quite covered with them, and the 
 pavement all strewed over. There were also others 
 with bottles of rose-water, which they threw every 
 where upon people's faces. Harmer, from whom
 
 67 
 
 most of the foregoing notices are taken, gives an opi- 
 nion, as deducible therefrom, with which you will be 
 pleased : " May we suppose," says he, " that as 
 rose-leaves now are made use of to strew the pave- 
 ment about the sepulchre of our Lord, they were 
 used in that procession that almost immediately 
 preceded his death, of which the Evangelists have 
 given an account, particularly St. Mark and St. 
 Mathew? Many spread their garments in the way: 
 and others cut down branches off" the trees, and 
 strewed (them) in the way. If rose-bushes grew 
 there on Mount Olivet, they might very naturally 
 cut off branches full of Roses, and shaking them, 
 strew the path of our Loud with the beautiful, but 
 untenacious leaves of those flowers." So much, my 
 dear friend, for the Roses of Palestine. 
 
 Next in antiquity to the Hebrew Scriptures, 
 is the poetry of Homer, and the Greek language 
 in which it is written : this prince of profane writers, 
 although he nowhere celebrates the flower, yet he 
 frequently reminds us of it, by his regidar use of 
 the epithet, " rosy-Jingercd morn ; " and especially 
 in the Twenty-third Iliad, from which it would seem, 
 that the ancients used Roses in their preparations 
 for embalming deceased friends ; for Venus is de- 
 scribed as anointing the body of Hector to preserve 
 it from corruption : 
 
 " Celestial Venus hovered o'er his head. 
 And roseate unsuents, heavenly fragrance ! shed."
 
 68 
 
 The original Greek word for the Rose is 'Focoy, 
 Rhodon, and is often, as I have just said, used as 
 an expressive epithet to describe the dawn of day: 
 Anacreon, following Homer, says, 
 
 " Aurora with a blushing ray, 
 And rosy fingers, spreads the day." 
 
 And our own poets, Dryden and Milton, likewise 
 use it : 
 
 " The rosy-fingered nicrn appears, 
 
 And from her mantle shakes her tears.'' 
 
 Dryden. 
 
 " The morn, 
 
 Wak'd by the circling hours, with rosy-haiwL 
 Unbarr'd the gates of light." 
 
 Milton. 
 
 Among the Greek Fragments attributed to the 
 famous Sappho, with whose history you are ac- 
 quainted, and who was honoured with the title of 
 *' the Truth Muse," there is one on the Rose, which 
 is exceedingly beautiful: as I know you highly 
 admire Boyd's translation, I send you the version 
 of Fawkes, that you may compare them together. 
 
 ** Would Jove appoint some flower to reign 
 In matchless beauty on the plain, 
 The Rose (mankind will all agree), 
 The Rose the queen of flowers should be ; 
 The pride of plants, the grace of bowers, 
 The blush of meads, the eye of flowers ;
 
 69 
 
 Its beauties charm the gods above ; 
 Its fragrance is the breath of love ; 
 Its foliage veantons in the air, 
 Luxuriant, like the flowing hair ; 
 It shines in blooming splendour gay. 
 While zephyrs on its bosom play." 
 
 Anacreon, who also wrote in Greek, is said to 
 have been of the suitors of " the lovely Lesbian 
 maid :" leaving this point, which is asserted and 
 denied with equal authority, to the critics, it is 
 certain, that with her he admired the Rose, as witness 
 his Fifth Ode, which I transcribe from Fawkes's 
 translation, which is less paraphrastic than Moore's, 
 whose version of his Fifty-third Ode I will send you 
 in a future letter. 
 
 ON THE ROSE. 
 
 " To make the beverage divine, 
 Mingle sweet Roses with the wine ; 
 Delicious will the liquor prove, 
 For Roses are the flowers of love : 
 And while with wreaths of Roses crown'd, 
 Let laughter and the cup go round. 
 Hail, lovely Rose ! to thee I sing. 
 Thou sweetest daughter of the Spring ; 
 All mortals prize thy beauties bright ; 
 In thee the powers above delight. 
 Gay Cupid with the Graces bland, 
 When lightly bounding hand in hand : 
 With nimble feet he beats the ground, 
 Shews his bright locks with Roses crown'd.
 
 70 
 
 Here then the flowery garland bring ; 
 With numbers sweet I'll wake the string, 
 And crown'd with Roses, heavenly flowers ! 
 Admitted, Bacchus, to thy bowers, 
 With snowy-bosom'd Sappho gay, 
 I'll dance the feathered hours away." 
 
 The Greeks seem to have esteemed the Rose 
 beyond every other flower; they admitted it to all 
 their entertainments, crowned themselves with its 
 wreaths, &c., not only on account of its beauty and 
 fragrance, but because they imagined that odours 
 prevented the wine from intoxicating them. 
 
 " In arms redoubtable let others shine, 
 By Mars protected mow the hostile line ; 
 You let me please, my head with Roses crown, 
 And every care in flowing goblets drown." 
 
 Tibullus. 
 
 As the Rose was considered to be the flower of 
 Love, so we find that it was the gift of lovers. 
 Theocritus, describing the passion of Polypheme for 
 Galatea, says, 
 
 " He gave no wreaths of Roses to the fair. 
 Nor apples, nor sweet parsley for her hair." 
 
 Idyll. XL 
 
 The negligence of the young Cyclop, however, in 
 this instance, must not be attributed to indifference, 
 but to excess of passion, which led him to forget 
 the common ceremonies of lovers. You wiU be 
 amused with the substance of a note on this passage.
 
 71 
 
 given by Fawkes, in his translation of this author, 
 who, he observes, is never more entertaining than 
 when he alludes to some old proverb, as in this 
 place he does: your common lovers, such as were 
 not stark staring mad, and not extravagantly 
 profuse in their presents to their mistresses, were 
 said to love with apples and Roses; or, as others 
 affirm — with apples and garlands, which were gene- 
 rally composed of Roses and parsley: speaking of 
 Amaryllis, the repining poet says, 
 
 " Your scorn distracts me, and will make me tear 
 The flowery crown I wove for you to wear, 
 Where rose-buds mingled with the ivy-wreath, 
 And fragrant parsley sweetest odours breathe." 
 
 Idi/IL III. 
 
 The poet Virgil ranks next to Homer, — and the 
 Latin language, in which he wrote, after the Greek. 
 This author, however, but seldom speaks of the 
 Rose — Rosa in Latin. — I recollect the following 
 simile from the ^neid: 
 
 " So looks the beauteous ivory stain'd with red ; 
 So Roses mix'd with lilies in the bed, 
 Blend their rich hues." 
 
 Anacreon, before mentioned, likewise mixes these 
 flowers : 
 
 " In this chaplet, lo ! are wove 
 
 Lucid colours blending bright, 
 
 Roses red, and lilies white : 
 
 We, methinks, resemble those 
 
 I the lily, you the Rose.''
 
 72 
 
 The Romans as well as the Grecians esteemed the 
 Rose in their entertainments. Horace delicately 
 praises it when he complains of the shortness of its 
 duration : 
 
 " Here wine and oil, and Roses bring, 
 Too short-lived daughters of the Spring." 
 
 The Rose was to be found growing in the vicinity 
 of Parnassus, and was especially consecrated to the 
 Muses. Theocritus says, 
 
 " This wild thyme, and these Roses, moist with dew, 
 Are sacred to the Heliconian Muse." 
 
 Anacreon says, 
 
 " In fabled song, and tuneful lays, 
 Their favourite Rose, the Muses praise." 
 
 And Sappho, addressing — it is presumed — an arro- 
 gant, unlettered lady : 
 
 " When'er the Fates resume thy breath. 
 
 No bright reversion shall thou gain, 
 Unnotic'd thou shalt sink in death, 
 
 Nor e'en thy memory remain : 
 For thy rude hand ne'er pluck'd the lovely Rose, 
 Which on the mountain of Pieria bloivs." 
 
 1 scarcely need remind you, that Pieria was a 
 mountain in Macedonia, dedicated to the Muses, 
 from which issued the celebrated " Pierian Spring." 
 The following beautiful sonnet, translated in the
 
 73 
 
 London Magazine, from the Italian of Antonio 
 Tebaldeo, alludes to the Roses of classic ground : 
 
 " From Cyprus' isle, where Love owns every bower, 
 Or from the neighb'ring shores of Love's domain, 
 Thou surely com'st, sweet Rose, since this our plain 
 Bears not the stem where blooms so sweet a flower. 
 
 For I, who late was near my last sad hour. 
 No sooner from her hand the gift obtain, 
 Than thy sweet breath did charm away my pain, 
 And to my limbs restore their wonted power. 
 
 But mark one thing that wakes a just surprise, 
 Thy pallid form with life but faintly glows. 
 That late of loveliest hue blush'd vermeil dyes : 
 
 Haste to the thoughtless Fair, go sorrowing, Rose, 
 Bid her, by thy waned beauty taught, be wise, 
 For her own good provide, and my repose." 
 
 I know, my dear Anne, that this letter, althougli 
 consisting of little else than verbal notices of our 
 favourite flower, will not be uninteresting to you, 
 who unite with the eager curiosity, the refined taste 
 of your sex : as fragments of antiquity, they furnish 
 an additional illustration of the fact, that the Rose 
 was an early and vmiversal favourite. In my next 
 letter, I intend to present you with a few tributes 
 to the Rose, from the poets of different countries, 
 and these you will find doubly interesting from their 
 allusion to the flower, and the beauty of the poetry, 
 
 I remain. 
 
 Yours, &c.
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 " Tlie lovely Rose, 
 
 That on the mountain of Pieria blows." 
 
 Sappho. 
 
 Mv DEAR Anne, 
 
 The Italians, who for their origin, language, 
 and poetry, deserve to be mentioned after the 
 Latins, are great admirers of the Rose, which is 
 written Rosa, as in Latin. 
 
 Phillips, in his poem on " Cider," alludes to a 
 peculiar affection in the Rose of Psestum in Leu- 
 cadia, which will not be likely to be participated by 
 any but a Welshman : 
 
 " The Peestan Rose unfolds 
 
 Her bud more lovely, near the foetid Leek, 
 (Crest of stout Britons) and enhances thence 
 The price of her celestial scent." 
 
 Lord Byron has celebrated the Rose of Italy, 
 and many of her own poets have done the same. 
 The following lines are from Ariosto, translated by 
 an early English poet — Sir John Harrington :
 
 75 
 
 *' Like to the Rose I count the virgin pure, 
 That gvow'th on native stem in garden faire, 
 Which while it stands with walls environed sure, 
 Where herdsmen with their herds cannot repaire 
 To favour it, it seemeth to allure 
 The morning dew, the heate, the earth, the aire : 
 Young gallant men, and lovely dames, delight 
 In their sweet scent, and in their pleasing sight. 
 — But when at once 'tis gathered and gone, 
 From proper stalk, where late before it grew. 
 The love, the liking little is on none ; 
 Both favour, grace, and beauty, all adieu!'' 
 
 I will now transcribe a Sonnet from Metastasio, in 
 which the poet anticipates a very different destiny 
 for his Rose : 
 
 THE ROSE. 
 
 O lovely Rose, whose dewy leaflets blowing, 
 Are tended by the genial breath of morn. 
 And o'er whose breast, the early breezes borne, 
 
 Have left in crimson hue thy garments glowing: 
 
 The same kind hand that watches now thy growing 
 Shall lead thee soon a purer scene t' adorn, 
 Where, freed for ever from the galling thorn, 
 
 Thoul't bloom — alone thy fairer features showing. 
 
 Secure in loveliness that never dies — 
 
 Nor snow, nor hail, nor warring winds are there. 
 
 Nor changing seasons, nor inclement skies; 
 But blooming safe beneath a kinder care, 
 
 Thou shall in calm serenity arise. 
 For ever fragrant, and for ever fair."
 
 76 
 
 But the beautiful poem of Jerusalem Delivered, as 
 well as the peculiar misfortunes of its author, have 
 rendered Tasso the most interesting of the Italian 
 poets ; and the beautiful lines which follow, will 
 not, I am sure, diminish that interest : 
 
 " Ah ! see, deep-blushing in her green recess, 
 The bashful virgin Rose, that half revealing, 
 And half within herself, herself concealing, 
 Is lovelier for her hidden loveliness. 
 Lo ! soon her glorious beauty she discovers : 
 Soon droops; — and sheds her leaves of faded hue; 
 Can this be she, — the flower, erewhile that drew 
 The heart of thousand maids, of thousand longing lovers? 
 
 " So fleeteth in the fleeting of a day, 
 Of mortal life the green leaf and the flower, 
 And not, though Spring return to every bower. 
 Buds forth again soft leaf or blossom gay. 
 Gather the Rose! beneath the beauteous morning 
 Of this bright day that soon will over-cast ; 
 O gather the sweet Rose, that yet doth last !" 
 
 Portugal has to boast an epic poet, not inferior in 
 genius or misfortune to the last mentioned. Lewis 
 Camoens, the author of The Lusiad, has an ex- 
 quisite little composition connected with the Rose. 
 This rondeau, translated by Lord Strangford, has 
 enjoyed an uncommon degree of celebrity, from its 
 union with the beautiful air of Mr. John Dacey, one 
 of the best musical composers of our time, and who
 
 77 
 
 sank into the grave " without a friend to close his 
 eyes" in March 1824 ! 
 
 " Just hke Love is yonder Rose, — 
 Heavenly fragrance round it throws, 
 Yet tears its dewy leaves disclose, 
 And in the midst of briars it blows, 
 Just like Love. 
 
 ** CuU'd to bloom upon the breast. 
 Since rough thorns the stem invest. 
 They must be gather'd with the rest, 
 And with it to the heart be prest. 
 Just like Love. 
 
 " And when rude hands the twin-buds sever. 
 They die, and they shall blossom never ; 
 Yet the thorns be sharp as ever, 
 
 Just like Love." 
 
 I have not given the original word in Portuguese, 
 which is probably similar to the term used in other 
 European languages, through which, I am informed 
 by Mr. Bowring, there runs a general similarity in 
 the synonyms of the word representing the Rose. 
 
 Having mentioned the name of the above gen- 
 tleman, to whose kindness I am indebted for the 
 original Russian word, as well as some others ; I 
 cannot omit this opportunity of acknowledging the 
 pleasure I have experienced from the perusal of the 
 beauties of the Russian and Batavian poets, in Mr. 
 Bowring's elegant versions of their works. The 
 G 3
 
 78 
 
 word for Rose, in the language and character of the 
 fornier country, is P03A {Rosa); and the following 
 airy trifle is from the Russian of Kostrov. 
 
 THE YOW. 
 
 " The Rose is my favourite flower; 
 On its tablets of crimson I swore, 
 That up to my last living hour, 
 
 I never would think of Thee more. 
 
 1 scarcely the record had made, 
 
 Ere Zephyr, in frolicsome play. 
 On his light, airy pinions conveyed 
 
 Both tablet and promise away." 
 
 Having mentioned the poetry of Batavia, I am glad 
 to have this opportunity of sending you an in- 
 teresting reference to our favourite flower, from the 
 Dutch of Bilderdyk, in whose language the word is 
 
 THE KOSES. 
 
 " I saw them once blowing 
 
 While morning was glowing, 
 But now are their wither'd leaves strew'd o'er the ground, 
 
 For tempest to play on, 
 
 For cold worms to prey on, 
 The shame of the garden that triumphs around.
 
 79 
 
 Their buds which then flourish'd 
 
 With dew drops were nourish'd, 
 Which turn'd into pearls as they fell from on high ; 
 
 Their hues are all banish'd, 
 
 Their fragrance all vanish'd, 
 Ere evening a shadow has cast from the sky. 
 
 I saw, too, whole races 
 
 Of glories and graces 
 Thus open and blossom, but quickly decay ; 
 
 And smiling and gladness, 
 
 In sorrow and sadness. 
 Ere life reach'd its twilight fade dimly away. 
 
 Joy's light-hearted dances, 
 
 And melody's glances. 
 Are rays of a moment — are dying when born ; 
 
 And pleasure's best dower 
 
 Is nought but a flower, 
 A vanishing dew-drop — a gem of the morn. 
 
 The bright eye is clouded, 
 
 Its brilliancy shrouded. 
 Our strength disappears, we are helpless and lone ; 
 
 No reason avails us. 
 
 And intellect fails us ; 
 Life's spirit is wasted, and darkness comes on." 
 
 I have previously given you a beautiful poem from 
 the German, on the Moss-rose ; the common word is 
 9?0»C ; and the following very beautiful lines are 
 from Goethe :
 
 80 
 
 THE ROSE-BUD. 
 
 " A Rose that bloom'd the road-side by, 
 Caught a young vagrant's wanton eye ; 
 The child was gay, the morn was clear. 
 The child would see the rose-bud near : 
 
 He saw the blooming flower. 
 My little Rose, my rose-bud dear ! 
 My Rose that blooms the road-side near! 
 The child exclaimed, ' My hands shall dare 
 Thee, Rose, from off thy stem to tear : ' 
 The Rose replied, ' If I have need, 
 My thorns shall make thy fingers bleed — 
 
 Thy rash design give o'er.' 
 My little Rose, my rose-bud dear ! 
 My Rose that blooms the road-side near ! 
 Regardless of its thorny spray. 
 The child would tear the Rose away ; 
 The Rose bewail'd with sob and sigh, 
 But all in vain, no help was nigh 
 
 To quell the urchin's power. 
 My little Rose, my rose-bud dear ! 
 My Rose that bloom'd the road side near ! 
 
 New Monthly Mag. 1822. 
 
 The Swedish word for Rose is Ros : and al- 
 though I cannot present you with a poetical tribute 
 from that language, yet the country of Linnaeus is 
 neither destitute of Roses, nor of talent to celebrate 
 them; for beside the father of botany just mentioned, 
 Dr. Afzelius published at Upsal, " a most elaborate,
 
 81 
 
 accurate, and learned monograph on the Swedish 
 Roses," as it is characterised by Dr. Sims. In 
 Denmark, the word is Rose as with us. 
 
 " Oh ! nowhere blooms so bright the Summer Rose, 
 As where youth cropt it from the valley's breast; 
 Oh ! nowhere are the downs so soft as those 
 That pillow'd infancy's unbroken rest." 
 
 Translated from the Danish, bj/ 
 Mr. Walker of Cambridge. 
 
 Of every other people, however, you are aware, that 
 the Persians are the most enthusiastic admirers of the 
 Rose, regarding it with a sort of idolatrous respect: 
 as other of my letters will introduce this subject, I 
 shall here, only copy a pair of bagatelles, the first 
 translated into English prose, and the other — an 
 Ode of Jami — translated by Sir William Jones, in 
 the Persian form and measure : 
 
 " I saw my moon-like beloved in the garden, gathering 
 Roses; the thorn wounded her hands, but she only smiled. 
 I asked the cause of her laughter; in answer, she cried, 
 The Rose from envy of superior charms has wounded my 
 hands." 
 
 ODE OF JAMI. 
 
 " How sweet the gale of morning breathes ! 
 News, the Rose will soon approach, 
 Soon will a thousand parted souls 
 Since tidings, which in every heart
 
 82 
 
 Late near my charmer's flowing robe 
 Thence, odour to the rose-bud's veil, 
 Painful is absence, and that pain 
 Thou know'st dear maid !" 
 
 I shall conclude this letter with the production of 
 an American poet of the name of Perceval : the 
 poetry of America is now beginning to assume a 
 distinct character, of which the pieces of this author 
 are no unfair specimen. 
 
 *' Rose of my heart ! I've rais'd for thee a bower, 
 
 For thee have bent the pliant osier round, 
 
 For thee have carpeted with turf the ground, 
 And trained a canopy to shield thy flower. 
 So that the warmest sun can have no power 
 
 To dry the dew from off thy leaf, and pale 
 
 Thy living carmine, but a woven veil 
 Of full-green vines shall guard from heat and shower.- 
 Rose of my heart ! here, in this dim alcove, 
 
 No worm shall nestle, and no wandering bee 
 
 Shall suck thy sweets, no blights shall wither thee, 
 But thou shah show the freshest hue of love. 
 Like the red stream that from Adonis flowed. 
 
 And make the snow carnation, thou shalt blush, 
 And fays shall wander from their bright abode 
 
 To flit enchanted round thy loaded bush. 
 Bowed with thy fragrant burden, thou shalt bend 
 
 Thy slender twigs and thorny branches low : 
 Vermilion and the purest foam shall blend ; 
 
 These shall be pale, and those in youth's first glow :
 
 as 
 
 Their tints shall form one sweetest harmony, 
 
 And on some leaves the damask shall prevail, 
 Whose colours melt, like the soft symphony 
 
 Of flutes and voices in the distant dale. 
 The bosom of that flower shall be as white. 
 
 As hearts that love, and love alone, are pure ; 
 Its tip shall blush, as beautiful and bright. 
 As are the gayest streaks of dawning light. 
 
 Or mbies set within a brimming ewer — 
 Rose of my heart ! there thou shalt ever bloom. 
 
 Safe in the shelter of my perfect love. 
 And when they lay thee in the dark cold tomb, 
 
 I'll find thee out a better bower above." 
 
 I remain. 
 
 Yours, &c.
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 " In the midst of briars it blows, 
 
 Just like Love." Camoens. 
 
 My dear x\nne, 
 
 The earliest British poet who has celebrated 
 our favourite flower, is " gentill maistre Chaucer," 
 (who died about 1400,) in a poem called " The 
 Romaunt of the Rose," in which, however, he does 
 not refer to the flower solely, but to the subject of 
 Love, under the symbol of a Rose. " This book," 
 says the writer of a prefatory note, " was begun 
 in French verse, by William de Lorris, and finished 
 forty years after, by John Clopinell, alias John 
 Moone, born at Mewen upon the river of Loyer, not 
 far from Paris, as appeareth by Molinet, the French 
 author, upon the morality of the Romaunt; and after- 
 ward translated for the most part into English 
 metre by Geffry Chaucer, but not finished. ' It is 
 entituled, The Romaunt of the Rose ; or. The Art 
 of Love : wherein is shewed the helps and further- 
 ances, as also the lets and impediments that lovers
 
 85 
 
 have in their suits. In this book the author hath 
 many glances at the hypocrisie of the clergy ; where- 
 by he got himself such hatred amongst them, that 
 Gerson, the Chancellour of Paris, vvriteth thus of 
 him : saith he, * There was one called Johannes 
 Meldinensis, who wrote a book called, The Ro- 
 maunt of the Rose ; which book, if I only had, 
 and that there were no more in the world, if I 
 might have five hundred pounds for the same, I 
 would rather burne it than take the money.' He 
 sayth more, that if he thought the author thereof 
 did not repent him for that book before he died, 
 he would vouchsafe to pray for him, no more than 
 he would for Judas, that betrayed Christ." 
 
 This poem participates largely of the beauties 
 and the faults which generally characterise Chaucer's 
 voluminous writings. Its beauties are, several ex- 
 quisite touches of descriptive writing, and many 
 moral and shrewd sentiments, tersely and forcibly 
 expressed. Its faults are, a redundancy of allegory, 
 and a rugged verbosity ; as the author seems to 
 know nothing about — what, indeed, all poets learn 
 with difficulty — 
 
 " The last and greatest art — the art to blot." 
 
 Few females are presumed to be much acquainted 
 with the works of Chaucer ; nor is it any discredit 
 to you, my dear Anne, that probably you do not 
 form one of the exceptions ; for not only is the 
 
 H
 
 86 
 
 almost obsolete language of the author an insuper- 
 able barrier to the general perusal of poems so 
 voluminous, but a still greater objection, in respect 
 of your sex, lies in the frequent indelicacy and 
 often offensive coarseness of his expressions. If 
 you have read the piece in question, — which is, on 
 the whole, pretty free from these objections, — you 
 will not need to be told that T shall not quote the 
 whole of it in this letter ; but if you have not read 
 it, I may just observe that it contains not fewer 
 than seven thousand lines ! As it would be difficult 
 in brief space to give you any distinct idea of the 
 plan of the poem, I shall only make such remarks 
 as may assist you to understand the lines which 
 I shall transcribe, as more immediately affecting 
 the symbolical honour of the Rose : 
 
 " Within my twentie yeere of age, 
 Wheu that loue taketh his courage 
 Of young folke, I wente soone 
 To bed, as I was wont to doone; 
 And fast I slept, and in sleeping, 
 Me mette such a swenening, 
 That liked me wondrous wele, 
 But in that swenen is never a dele 
 That it his afterward befall, 
 Right as this dreame will tell us all." 
 
 He dreamed that he saw a garden 
 
 " Walled wele 
 With hie walles enbatailed, 
 Portrayed without, and wele entayled
 
 87 
 
 With many rich portraitures, 
 
 And both yet images and peintures," &c. 
 
 They represented Hate, Covetousness, Avarice, 
 Envy, Age, Mirth, &c. which he severally describes 
 with great minuteness. Next to " Dantie Gladnesse" 
 he saw the " God of Love ;" his robe was curiously 
 wrought with strange designs, and various flowers, 
 
 " And many a Rose-lefe full long 
 Was entermedled there emong; 
 And also on his head was set 
 Of Roses redde a chapelet." 
 
 After a very long interlude, introducing various 
 virtues and vices, we come to the description of 
 the Roses, which are rather curiously exhibited in 
 a crystal mirror at the bottom of a well : 
 
 " This well is cleped, as well is knowen, 
 The Well of Love, of very right, 
 Of which there hath full many wight 
 Spoken in bookes diursly." * * * * 
 
 " In thilk mirror saw I tho, 
 Among a thousand things mo, 
 A roser* charged full of Rosis, 
 That with an hedge about enclosis, 
 
 • Rose-bush, This pleasing epitliet is used by Skelton, in the 
 reign of Henry VIII. 
 
 " The banks enturfcd with singular solas 
 Enrailcd with Rosers."
 
 Tho had I such lust and enuie, 
 
 That for Paris ne for Pauie 
 
 Nold I haue left to gone and see, 
 
 There greatest hepe of Roses be. 
 
 Whan I was with that rage hent, 
 
 That caught hath many a man and shent,* 
 
 Toward the roser gan I go, 
 
 And when I was not ferre therefro, 
 
 The sauer of the Roses swote 
 
 Me smote right to the heart rote, 
 
 As I had all enbaumed be : 
 
 And if I ne had endoubted me 
 
 To have been hoted or assailed, 
 
 My thanks woU I not have failed, 
 
 To pull a Rose of all that rout 
 
 To beare in mine honde about. 
 
 And smellen to it where I wentj 
 
 But ever I drede me to repent, 
 
 And least it grieved or forthought 
 
 The lord that thilk gardin wrought. 
 
 Of Roses there were great wone,t 
 
 So faire were never in Rone ; 
 
 Of knopes;]; close, some saw I there. 
 
 And some well better woxen were, 
 
 And some there been of other moison,§ 
 
 That draw nigh to hir season, 
 
 And sped hem faste for to spread, 
 
 I love well such Roses red : 
 
 For brode Roses and open also, 
 
 Ben passed in a day or two, 
 
 But knoppes will fresh bee 
 
 Two dayes at least, or els three. 
 
 Ruhicd. t Heap. | Buds. § Growth.
 
 89 
 
 The knoppes greatly liked mee, 
 For fairer may there no man see : 
 Who so might have one of all, 
 It ought him been full lefe withall : 
 Might I garland e of hem getten, 
 For no richesse I would it letten.* 
 
 Amongs the knoppes I chese one 
 So faire, that of the reranaunt none 
 Ne preise I half so well as it, 
 When I avise it in my wit, 
 For it so well was enlumined 
 With colour red, as well fined 
 As nature couth it make faire, 
 And it had leaves well foure paire, 
 That kind hath set through his knowing 
 About the red Roses springing. 
 The stalk was as a rishe right, 
 And thereon stood the knoppe upright ; 
 That it ne bowed upon no side, 
 The swote smell sprung so wide, 
 That it died all the place about. 
 When I had smelled the savour swote, 
 No will had I fro thence yet go. 
 But somedele nere it went I tho. 
 To take it, but mine honde for drede 
 Ne durst I to the Rose bede. 
 For thistles sharpe of many manners. 
 Nettles, thornes, and hooked briers, 
 For muche they distourbled me, 
 For sore I drad to harmed be." 
 
 Leave. 
 H 3
 
 90 
 
 " Venus's son, Dan Cupido," now wounds him 
 with five different arrows, which he calls Beauty, 
 Simplesse, Courtesie, Company, and Fair Semblaunt. 
 The effects of these different attributes upon the 
 lover, in his attempts to obtain the favourite " bo- 
 thun," are forcibly depicted ; the fable then becomes 
 very diffuse, exhibiting the character given in the 
 prefatory note. The foregoing extract will furnish 
 you with an idea of the style and subject of " The 
 Romaunt of the Rose ;" a poem, which from its 
 allusion to this flower, no less than a reverence 
 for its antiquity, I have great pleasure in thus intro- 
 ducing to your acquaintance. 
 
 I remain, 
 
 Yours, &c.
 
 LETTER XL 
 
 Emil. Of all flowers, 
 Methinks the Rose is best. 
 
 Serv. Why, gentle madam l 
 
 Emil. It is the very emblem of a maid : 
 For when the west wind courts her gently. 
 How modestly she blows and paints the sun 
 With her chaste blushes! When the north comes near her. 
 Rude and impatient, then, like Chastity, 
 She locks her beauties in her bud again. 
 And leaves him to base briars. 
 
 My dear Anne, 
 
 I AM not sufficiently acquainted with the 
 writings of the earlier dramatists, any more than 
 with their successors, to be able to say how far 
 they may have made honourable mention of this 
 regal flower. The motto, at the head of this letter, 
 is from the works of Beaumont and Fletcher, which 
 contain much powerful dramatic writing. With 
 Shakspeare's plays I am better acquainted, and from 
 his pages I shall transplant a few Roses into this 
 letter. The following is from the collection of 
 sonnets, generally attributed to him :
 
 92 
 
 " O how much more doth beauty beauteous seem 
 By that sweet ornament which truth doth give ! 
 
 The Rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem 
 For that sweet odour which doth in it live. 
 
 The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye, 
 As the perfumed tincture of the Roses, 
 
 Hang on such thorns and play as wantonly, 
 When summers breath their masked buds discloses; 
 
 But, for their virtue only is their show, 
 They live unwoo'd, and unrespected fade ; 
 
 Die to themselves. Sweet Roses do not so ; 
 Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made : 
 
 And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth, 
 
 When that shall fade, my verse distils your truth." 
 
 The thought at the conclusion of this sonnet is 
 akin to one in the " Midsummer Night's Dream ;" 
 where Theseus intimates to Hermia, that they may 
 be " thrice blessed," in some respects, who can so 
 master themselves, as 
 
 — " to endure the livery of a nun ; 
 
 For aye to be in shady cloister mewed. — 
 
 To undergo such maiden pilgrimage : 
 
 But earthlier happy is the Rose distill'd. 
 
 Than that, which withering on the virgin thorn, 
 
 Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness." 
 
 In another part of the same play, Titania dispatches 
 her train of fairies, after a dance and a song, 
 
 " Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds."
 
 Roses at Christmas were uncommon in Shak- 
 speare's time ; he therefore compares them to an 
 absurd expectation : 
 
 " Why should I joy in an abortive birth? 
 At Christmas I no more desire a Rose, 
 Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled shows." 
 
 Loves Labour Lost. 
 
 In the same play, Boyet exhorts the Princess to 
 change her countenance, and to 
 
 " Blow like sweet Roses in this summer air. 
 Princess. — How blow? how blow? speak to be under- 
 stood. 
 Boyet. — Fair ladies mask'd, are Roses in their bud : 
 Damask'd, their damask sweet commixture shown, 
 Are angels vailing clouds, or Roses blown." 
 
 In *' All's Well that Ends Well," he makes Bertram 
 say to Diana — 
 
 " But I love thee 
 By love's own sweet constraint, and will for ever 
 Do thee all rights of service. 
 
 Diana. — Ay, so you serve us. 
 Till we serve you : but when you have our Roses, 
 You barely leave our thorns to prick ourselves, 
 And mock us with our bareness." 
 
 And in the " Taming of the Shrew," he makes 
 Petruchio say, that should any one, of Katharina
 
 94 
 
 " Say that she frown; I'll say she looks as clear 
 As morning Roses, newly wash'd with dew." 
 
 In the " Winter's Tale," the rogue Autolycus, among 
 other of his commodities declares, that he has 
 
 " Gloves as sweet as damask Roses." 
 
 But in the whole history of our favourite flower, 
 there never was an instance in which it was asso- 
 ciated with matters of more tremendous importance, 
 than when it was used as a symbol by both parties, 
 in that long and sanguinary conflict between the 
 Houses of York and Lancaster for the throne of 
 England — emphatically denominated the " War of 
 the Roses." This dreadful civil contest, which was 
 carried on with greater animosity, than, perhaps, 
 any ever known, was, as you will recollect, even- 
 tually terminated by the capture of Edward the 
 Fourth, by Henry of Lancaster, afterwards Henry 
 the Seventh, who, marrying Elizabeth, the daughter 
 of Edward, then dead, happily united the rival 
 Houses, under the auspices of the Red Rose. 
 
 Well may Walter Scott sing, 
 
 " Let merry England proudly rear 
 Her blended Roses, bought so dear.'' 
 
 They were indeed dearly bought! There is in 
 the Remembrance Office, an original manuscript
 
 95 
 
 signed by King Henry the Seventh, from which it 
 appears that a red Rose cost two shiUings — a con- 
 siderable sum in those times." 
 
 Shakspeare, in the First Part of his King Henry 
 the Sixth, has a whole scene, in which this flower 
 is introduced with associations too important to be 
 omitted by me in these letters : and I doubt not, 
 but this extract, notwithstanding its length, will 
 afford you some pleasure : — it has the triple interest 
 of presenting a specimen of Shakspeare — an illustra- 
 tion of an historical fact — and especially an impor- 
 tant chapter in the history of the Rose. 
 
 Scene IV. London. — The Temple Garden. 
 
 Enter the Earls of Somerset, Suffolk, and Warwick ; Richard 
 Plantagenet, Vernon, and another Lawyer. 
 
 Plan. — Great Lords and Gentlemen, what means this 
 silence ? 
 Dare no man answer in a case of truth? 
 
 Siif. — Within the Temple Hall we were too loud ; 
 The garden here is more convenient. 
 
 Plan. — Then say at once, if I maintain'd the truth ; 
 Or, else, was wrangling Somerset in the error? 
 
 Suf. — 'Faith I have been a truant in the law ; 
 And never yet could frame my will to it ; 
 And, therefore, frame the law unto my will. 
 
 So7n. — Judge you, my Lord of Warwick, then between us. 
 
 War. — Between two hawks, which flies the higher pitch, 
 Between two dogs, which hath the deeper mouth,
 
 96 
 
 Between two blades, which bears the better temper, 
 Between two horses, which doth bear him best. 
 Between two girls, which hath the merriest eye, 
 I have, perhaps, some shallow spirit of judgment: 
 But, in these nice sharp quillets of the law, 
 Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw. 
 
 Plan. — Tut, tut, here is a mannerly forbearance : 
 The truth appears so naked on my side, 
 That any purblind eye may find it out. 
 
 Som. — And on my side it is so well apparelled. 
 So clear, so shining, and so evident, 
 That it will glimmer through a blind man's eye. 
 
 Plan. — Since you are tongue-tied, and so loath to speak, 
 In dumb significants proclaim your thoughts : 
 Let him, that is a true-born gentleman, 
 And stands upon the honour of his birth, 
 If he suppose that I have pleaded truth, 
 From off this brier pluck a White Rose with me. 
 
 Som. — Let him that is no coward, nor no flatterer, 
 But dare maintain the party of the truth. 
 Pluck a Red Rose from off this thorn with me. 
 
 War. — I love no colours ! and without all colour 
 Of base insinuating flattery, 
 I pluck this White Rose with Plantagenet. 
 
 Suf. — I pluck this Red Rose with young Somerset ; 
 And say withal, I think he held the right. 
 
 Ver. — Stay, lords and gentlemen, and pluck no more, 
 Till you conclude — that he, upon whose side 
 The fewest Roses are cropp'd from the tree. 
 Shall yield the other in the right opinion. 
 
 Som. — Good master Vernon, it is well objected : 
 If I have fewest, I subscribe in silence. 
 Plan. — And I.
 
 97 
 
 Ver. — Tlien, for the truth and plainness of the case, 
 I pluck this pale and maiden blossom here, 
 Giving my verdict on the White Rose side. 
 
 Som. — Prick not your finger as you pluck it off, 
 Lest, bleeding, you do paint the White Rose red, 
 And fall on my side so against your will. 
 
 Ver. — If 1, my lord, for my opinion bleed, 
 Opinion shall be surgeon to my hurt. 
 And keep me on the side where still I am. 
 
 Som. — Well, well, come on: who else? 
 
 Law. — Unless my study and my books be false, 
 The argument you held was wrong in you ; [to Somerset. 
 In sign whereof, I pluck a White Rose too. 
 
 Pla7i. Now, Somerset, where is your argument? 
 
 So7n. — Here, in my scabbard; meditating that, 
 Shall dye your White Rose in a bloody red. 
 
 Plan. — Mean time, your cheeks do counterfeit our Roses; 
 For pale they look with fear, as witnessing 
 The truth on our side. 
 
 Som. — No, Plantagenet, 
 'Tis not for fear, but anger, — that thy cheeks 
 Blush for pure shame, to counterfeit our Roses; 
 And yet thy tongue will not confess thy error. 
 
 Plan. — Hath not thy Rose a canker, Somerset ? 
 
 Som. Hath not thy Rose a thorn, Plantagenet? 
 
 Plan. — Ay, sharp and piercing to maintain this truth ; 
 Whiles thy consuming canker eats its falsehood. 
 
 Som. — Well, I'll find friends to wear my bleeding Roses, 
 That shall maintain what I have said is true, 
 Where false Plantagenet dare not be seen. 
 
 Plan. — Now, by this maiden blossom in ray hand, 
 I scorn thee and thy fashion, peevish boy. 
 
 Siif. — Turn not thy scorns this way, Plantagenet. 
 I
 
 98 
 
 Plan. — Proud Poole, I will; and scorn both him & thee. 
 
 Suf. — I'll turn my part thereof into thy throat. 
 
 Som. — Away, away, good William De-la-Poole ! 
 We grace the yeoman by conversing with him. 
 
 Wa7\ — Now, by God's will, thou wrong'sthim, Somerset; 
 His grandfather was Lionel, duke of Clarence, 
 Third son to the third Edward, king of England ; 
 Spring crestless yeomen from so deep a root? 
 
 Plan. — He bears him on the place's privilege. 
 Or durst not, for his craven heart, say thus. 
 
 Som. — By him that made me, I'll maintain my words 
 On any plot of ground in Christendom. 
 Was not thy father, Richard, earl of Cambridge, 
 For treason executed in our late king's days ? 
 And by his treason, stand's! not thou attainted. 
 Corrupted and exempt from ancient gentry? 
 His trespass yet lives guilty in thy blood ; 
 And till thou be restored, thou art a yeoman. 
 
 Plan. — My father was attached, not attainted ; 
 Condemned to die for treason, but no traitor ; 
 And that I'll prove on better men than Somerset, 
 Were growing time once ripened to my will. 
 For your partaker, Poole, and you yourself, 
 I'll note you in my book of memory, 
 To scourge you for this apprehension : 
 Look to it well, and say you are well warn'd. 
 
 Som. — Ay, thou shalt find us ready for thee still ; 
 And know us by these colours, for thy foes ; 
 For these my friends, in spite of thee, shall wear. 
 
 Plan. — And, by my soul, this pale and angry B.ose, 
 As cognizance of my blood-drinking hate. 
 Will I for ever, and my faction wear ; 
 L^^ntil it wither with me to my grave,
 
 99 
 
 Or flourish to the height of my degree. 
 
 Suf. — Go forward, and be choked with thy ambition ! 
 And so farewell, until I meet thee next. 
 
 Som. — Have with thee, Poole. — Farewell, ambitious 
 Richard. 
 
 Flan. — How I am braved, and must perforce endure it! 
 
 War. — This blot that they object against your house, 
 Shall be wiped out in the next parliament, 
 Call'd for the truce of Winchester and Gloucester : 
 And, if thou be not then created York, 
 I will not live to be accounted Warwick. 
 Mean time, in signal of my love to thee, 
 Against proud Somerset, and William Poole, 
 Will I upon thy party wear this Rose; 
 And here I prophesy, — this brawl to-day. 
 Grown to this faction, in the Temple garden. 
 Shall send, between the Hed Rose and the White, 
 A thousand souls to death and deadly night. 
 
 Plan. — Good master Vernon, I am bound to you. 
 That you on my behalf would pluck a flower. 
 
 Ver. — In your behalf still will I wear the same. 
 
 Law. — And so will I. 
 
 Flan. — Thanks, gentle Sir, 
 Come, let us four to dinner ; I dare say, 
 This quarrel will drink blood another day. 
 
 This, ray dear Anne, is a very long extract ; but 
 as you do not read Sliakspeare, for which I com- 
 mend you, tills is a very fair specimen of his more 
 unexceptionable matter; and, though not without 
 some offensive expressions, is not, on the whole,
 
 100 
 
 improper for me to write, or for you to read. I 
 shall conclude this long letter, with a smart epigram 
 from an old author : it is on presenting a JVhite 
 Rose to a Lancastrian Lady : 
 
 " If this fair Rose offend thy sight, 
 It in thy bosom wear ; 
 'Twill blush to find itself less white, 
 And turn Lancastrian there." 
 
 I remain. 
 
 Yours, &c.
 
 LETTER XIL 
 
 " Fragrant Roses all entwin'd, 
 'Twixt the fingers of the fair ; 
 And the chaplets so design'd. 
 For their true love's brows prepare." 
 
 Anon. 
 
 My DEAR Anne, 
 
 I SHALL occupy this and a following letter 
 with a tale, which appeared in the " London Mag- 
 azine" for April 1822 : it is so intimately associated 
 with the annals of our favourite flower, so agreeable 
 to my own feelings, and withal so delectable a love- 
 story, that of all the interesting articles in that work, 
 I never read one with so much pleasure as the fol- 
 lowing. It is given by the writer, as the adventure, 
 and in the words, of the celebrated Wieland, from a 
 conversation at his own table. 
 1 3
 
 102 
 
 THE ROSE IN JANUARY. 
 A German Tale. 
 
 " I was not quite thirty," said he \^JVieland~\ to 
 us, " when I obtained the chair of philosophical 
 professor in this college, in the most flattering 
 manner : I need not tell you that my amour propre 
 was gratified by a distinction rare enough at my 
 age. I certainly had worked for it formerly ; but at 
 the moment it come to me, another species of phi- 
 losophy occupied me much more deeply, and I 
 would have given more to know what passed in one 
 heart, than to have had power to analyze those of 
 all mankind. — I was passionately in love ; and you 
 all know^, I hope, that when love takes possession of 
 a young head, adieu to every thing else ; there is 
 no room for any other thought. My table was 
 covered with folios of all colours, quires of paper of 
 all sizes, journals of all species, catalogues of books, — 
 in short, of all that one finds on a professor's table : 
 but of the whole circle of science, I had for some 
 time studied only the article Rose, whether in 
 the Encyclopaedia, the botanical books, or all the 
 gardener's calendars that I could meet with. You 
 shall learn, presently, what led me to this study, 
 and why it was that my window was always open 
 during the coldest days. All this was connected 
 with the passion by which I was possessed, and
 
 103 
 
 which was become my sole and continual thought. 
 I could not well say at this moment how my lectures 
 and courses got on, but this I know, that more than 
 once I have said ' Amelia,' instead of ' philosophy.' 
 " It was the name of my beauty — in fact, of the 
 beauty of the university. Mademoiselle de Belmont. 
 Her father, a distinguished officer, had died on the 
 field of battle. She occupied with her mother a 
 large and handsome house in the street in which I 
 lived, on the same side, and a few doors distant. This 
 mother, wise and prudent, obliged by circumstances 
 to inhabit a city filled with students from all parts, 
 and having so charming a daughter, never suffered 
 her a moment from her sight, either in or out of 
 doors. But the good lady passionately loved com- 
 pany and cards; and to reconcile her tastes with 
 her duties, she carried Amelia with her to all the 
 assemblies of dowagers, professor's wives, cannon- 
 esses, &c. &c., where the poor girl ennuyed herself 
 to death, hemming or knitting beside her mother's 
 card table. But you ought to have been informed, 
 that no student, — indeed no man under fifty, was 
 admitted. I had then but little chance of conveying 
 my sentiments to Amelia. I am sure, however, that 
 any other than myself would have discovered this 
 chance, but I was a perfect novice in gallantry : and, 
 until the moment when I imbibed this passion from 
 Amelia's beautiful eyes, mine, having been always 
 fixed upon volumes of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, 
 Chaldaic, &c. &c., understood nothing at all of the
 
 104 
 
 language of the heart. It was at an old lady's, to 
 whom I was introduced, that I become acquainted 
 with Amelia; my destiny led me to her house on 
 the evening of her assembly ; she received me — I 
 saw Mademoiselle de Belmont, and from that instant 
 her image was engraven in lines of fire on my 
 heart. The mother frowned at the sight of a 
 well-looking young man; but my timid, grave, 
 and perhaps somewhat pedantic air, re-assured her. 
 There were a few other young persons, — daughters 
 and nieces of the lady of the mansion ; it was 
 summer — they obtained permission to walk in the 
 garden, under the windows of the saloon, and the 
 eyes of their mammas. I followed them ; and 
 without daring to address a word to my fair one, 
 caught each that fell from her lips. 
 
 " Her conversation appeared to me as charming 
 as her person ; she spoke on different subjects with 
 intelligence above her years. In making some plea- 
 sant remarks on the defects of men in general, she 
 observed, that ' what she most dreaded was violence 
 of temper.' Naturally of a calm disposition, I was 
 wishing to boast of it ; but not having the courage, 
 I at last entered into her idea, and said so much 
 against passion, that I could not well be suspected 
 of an inclination to it: I was recompensed by an 
 approving smile; it emboldened me, and I began to 
 talk much better than I thought myself capable of 
 doing before so many handsome women ; she ap- 
 peared to listen with pleasure ; but when they came
 
 105 
 
 . to the chapter of fashions, I had no more to say — it 
 was an unknown language ; neither did she appear 
 versed in it. Then succeeded observations on the 
 flowers in the garden; I knew Httle more of this 
 than of the fashions, but I might likewise have my 
 particular taste ; and to decide, I waited to learn 
 that of Amelia: she declared for the Rose, and grew 
 animated in the eulogy of her chosen flower. From 
 that moment, it became to me the queen of flowers. 
 ' Amelia,' said a little, laughing Espiegle, ' how 
 many of your favourites are condemned to death 
 this winter?' ' Not one,' replied she; 'I renounce 
 them — their education is too troublesome, and too 
 ungrateful a task, and I begin to think I know 
 nothing about it.' 
 
 " I assumed sufficient resolution to ask the ex- 
 planation of that question and answer : she gave it 
 to me; * You have just learned that I am passion- 
 ately fond of Roses; it is an hereditary taste; my 
 mother is still fonder of them than I am ; since I 
 was able to think of any thing, I have had the 
 greatest wish to offer her a Rose-tree in blow (as a 
 new-year's gift) the first of January : I have never 
 succeeded. Every year I have put a quantity of 
 rose-trees into vases ; the greater number perished ; 
 and I have never been able to offer one Rose to my 
 mother.' So little did I know of the culture of 
 flowers, as to be perfectly ignorant that it was pos- 
 sible to have roses in winter ; but from the moment 
 I understood that it might be, without a miracle,
 
 lOG 
 
 and that incessant attention only was necessary, I 
 promised myself, that this year, the first of January 
 should not pass without Amelia's offering her mother 
 a rose-tree in blow. We returned to the saloon — 
 so close was I on the watch that I heard her ask my 
 name in a whisper. Her companion answered, ' I 
 know him only by reputation ; they say he is an 
 author, and so learned that he is already a pro- 
 fessor.' — * I should never have guessed it,' said 
 Amelia; ' he seems neither vain nor pedantic' — 
 How thankful was I for this reputation ! Next 
 morning I went to a gardener, and ordered fifly 
 rose-trees of different months to be put into vases. 
 ' It must be singular ill fortune,' thought I, ' if 
 among this number, one at least does not flower.' 
 On leaving the gardener, I went to my bookseller's, 
 purchased some works on flowers, and returned 
 home full of hope. I intended to accompany my 
 rose-tree with a fine letter, in which I should re- 
 quest to be permitted to visit Madame de Belmont, 
 in order to teach her daughter the art of having 
 roses in winter ; the agreeable lesson, and the charm- 
 ing scholar, were to me much pleasanter themes 
 than those of my philosophical lectures. I built on 
 all this the prettiest romance possible ; my milk- 
 pail had not yet got on so far as Pernette's; she 
 held it on her head ; and my rose was not yet 
 transplanted into its vase ; but I saw it all in blow. 
 In the mean time, I was happy only in imagination ; 
 I no longer saw Amelia ; they ceased to invite me
 
 107 
 
 to the dowager parties, and she was not allowed to 
 mix in those of young people. I must then be 
 restricted, until my introducer was in a state of 
 preservation, to seeing her every evening pass by 
 with her mother, as they went to their parties. 
 Happily for me, Madame de Belmont was such a 
 coward in a carriage, that she preferred walking 
 when it was possible. I knew the hour at which 
 they were in the habit of leaving home ; I learned 
 to distinguish the sound of the bell of their gate, 
 from that of all others of the quarter ; my window 
 on the ground floor was always open ; at the 
 moment I heard their gate unclose, I snatched up 
 some volume, which was often turned upside down, 
 stationed myself at the window, as if profoundly 
 occupied with my studies, and thus almost every 
 day saw for an instant the lovely girl, and this 
 instant was sufficient to attach me to her still more 
 deeply. The elegant simplicity of her dress; her 
 rich dark hair, wreathed round her head, and falling 
 in ringlets on her forehead ; her slight and graceful 
 figure — her step, at once light and commanding — 
 the fairy foot, that the care of guarding the snowy 
 robe rendered visible, inflamed my admiration ; 
 while her dignified and composed manner, her at- 
 tention to her mother, and the affability with which 
 she saluted her inferiors, touched my heart yet 
 more. I began too to fancy, that limited as were 
 my opportunities of attracting her notice, I was not 
 entirely indifferent to her. ******
 
 108 
 
 " October arrived, and with it my fifty vases of 
 rose-trees ; for which, of course, they made me pay 
 what they chose ; and I was as much dehghted to 
 count them in my room, as a miser would his 
 sacks of gold. They all looked rather languishing, 
 but then it was because they had not yet reconciled 
 themselves to the new earth. I read all that was 
 ever written on the cultiu-e of Roses, with much 
 more attention than I had formerly read my old 
 philosophers ; and I ended as wise as I began. 
 I perceived that this science, like all others, has no 
 fixed rules, and that each vaunts his system, and 
 believes it the best. One of my gardener authors 
 would have the rose-trees as much as possible in 
 the open air ; another recommended their being close 
 shut up ; one ordered constant watering ; another 
 absolutely forbade it. ' It is thus with the educa- 
 tion of man,' said I, closing the volumes in vexation. 
 ^ Always in extremes — always for exclusive systems 
 — let us try the medium between these opposite 
 opinions.' — I established a good thermometer in my 
 room ; and according to its indications, I put them 
 outside the windows, or took them in : you may 
 guess that fifty Roses, to which I gave this exercise 
 three or four times a day, according to the variations 
 of the atmosphere, did not leave me much idle 
 time ; and this was the occupation of a professor of 
 philosophy ! Ah ! well might they have taken his 
 chair from him, and sent him back to school ; to 
 school, a thousand times more childish than the
 
 109 
 
 youngest of those pupils to whom I hurried over 
 the customary routine of philosophical lessons : 
 my whole mind was fixed on Amelia and my rose- 
 trees. 
 
 " The death of the greater number of my eltves 
 however, soon lightened my labour ; more than half 
 of them never struck root. I flung them into the 
 fire : a fourth part of those that remained, after 
 unfolding some little leaves, stopped there : several 
 assumed a blackish yellow tint, and gave me hope 
 of beautifying : some flourished surprisingly, but 
 only in leaves : others, to my great joy, were 
 covered with buds ; but in a few days they always 
 got that little yellow circle, which the gardeners 
 call the collar, and which is to them a mortal 
 malady. Their stalks twisted — they drooped — and 
 finally fell one after the other to the earth — not a 
 single bud remaining on my poor trees. Thus 
 withered my hopes ; and the more care I took of 
 my invalids — the more I hawked them from window 
 to window, the worse they grew. At last, one of 
 them, and but one, promised to reward my trouble 
 — thickly covered with leaves, it formed a handsome 
 bush, from the middle of which sprang out a fine 
 vigorous branch, crowned with six beautiful buds 
 that got no collar — grew, enlarged, and even dis- 
 covered through their calices, a slight rose tint. 
 There were still six long weeks before the new- 
 year; and, certainly, four, at least, of my precious 
 buds w-ould be blown by that time. Behold me 
 
 K
 
 J 10 
 
 now recompensed for all my pains ; hope re-entered 
 my heart, and every moment I looked on my beau- 
 tiful introducer with complacency." 1 have filled 
 
 my letter at present, and shall therefore give you 
 the conclusion of the story in my next, which, as 
 it would be cruel to make you wait long, you may 
 expect by the post to-morrow ; meanwhile, 
 
 I remain, 
 
 Yours, &c.
 
 LETTER XIII. 
 
 ■ The little Rose that laughs upon its stem, 
 One of the sweets with which the gardens teem, 
 In value soars above an eastern gem. 
 If tender'd as a token of esteem." Cunningham. 
 
 My dear Anne, 
 
 I SHALL now, according to my promise, 
 transcribe the remainder of the story begun in my 
 last: — " On the 27th of November," continued the 
 relater, " a day which I can never forget, the sun 
 rose in all its brilliance ; I thanked heaven, and 
 hastened to place my rose-tree, and such of its com- 
 panions as yet survived, on a peristyle in the court. 
 (I have already mentioned that I lodged on the 
 ground floor ;) I watered them, and went, as usual, 
 to give my philosophical lecture. I then dined — ■ 
 drank to the health of my Rose ; and returned to 
 take my station in my window, with a quicker 
 throbbing of the heart. 
 
 " Amelia's mother had been slightly indisposed ;
 
 112 
 
 for eight days she had not left the house, and, con- 
 sequently, I had not seen my fair one. On the 
 first morning, I had observed the physician going 
 in : uneasy for her, I contrived to cross his vv'ay, 
 questioned him, and was comforted. I afterwards 
 learned that the old lady had recovered, and was to 
 make her appearance abroad on this day, at a grand 
 gala given by a baroness, who lived at the end of 
 the street. I was then certain to see Amelia pass 
 by, and eight days of privation had enhanced that 
 thought ; I am sure Madame de Belmont did not 
 look to this party with as much impatience as I did. 
 She was always one of the first ; it had scarcely 
 struck five, when I heard the bell of her gate. I 
 took up a book — there was I at my post, and pre- 
 sently I saw Amelia appear, dazzling with dress and 
 beauty, as she gave her arm to her mother ; never 
 yet had the brilliancy of her figure so struck me : 
 this time there was no occasion for her to speak to 
 catch my eyes ; they were fixed on her's, but her's 
 were bent down ; however, she guessed that I was 
 there, for she passed slowly to prolong my happiness. 
 I followed her with my gaze, until she entered the 
 house ; then only she turned her head for a second ; 
 the door was shut, and she disappeared, but remain- 
 ed present to my heart. I could neither close my 
 window, nor cease to look at the baroness's hotel, 
 as if I could see Amelia through the walls; I re- 
 mained there till all objects were faded into obscurity. 
 The approach of night, and the frostiness of the air,
 
 113 
 
 brought to my recollection that the rose-tree was 
 still on the peristyle : never had it been so precious 
 to me ; I hastened to it ; and scarcely was I in the 
 anti-chamber when I heard a singular noise, like 
 that of an animal browsing, and tinkling its bells. 
 I trembled, I flew ; and I had the grief to find a 
 sheep quietly fixed beside my rose-trees, of which 
 it was making its evening repast with no slight 
 avidity. 
 
 " I caught up the first thing in my way ; it was 
 a heavy cane ; I wished to drive away the glutton- 
 ous beast ; alas ! it was too late ! he had just 
 bitten off the beautiful branch of bvids ; he swal- 
 lowed them, one after another ; and in spite of the 
 gloom, I could see, half out of his mouth, the finest 
 of them all, which in a moment was champed like 
 the rest. I was neither ill-tempered nor cruel; 
 but at this sight I was no longer master of myself. 
 Without well knowing what I did, I discharged a 
 blow of my cane on the animal, and stretched it at 
 my feet. No sooner did I perceive it motionless, 
 than I repented of having killed a creature uncon- 
 scious of the mischief it had done ; was this worthy 
 of the professor of philosophy, the adorer of the 
 gentle Amelia ? But thus to eat up my rose-tree, 
 my only hope to get admittance to her ! when I 
 thought on its annihilation, I could not consider 
 myself so culpable. However, the night darkened; 
 I heard the old servant crossing the lower passage, 
 and I called her. ' Catharine,' said I, ' bring your 
 
 K ,'i
 
 114 
 
 light, there is mischief here ; you left the stable door 
 open, (that of the court was also unclosed,) one of 
 your sheep has been browsing on my rose-trees, 
 and I have punished it.' 
 
 " She soon came with the lanthorn in her hand. 
 ' It is not one of our sheep,' said she •, ' I have just 
 come from them, the stable door is shut, and they are 
 all within. Oh, blessed saints ; blessed saints I what 
 
 do I see !' exclaimed she when near, ' it is the 
 
 pet sheep of our neighbour Mademoiselle Amelia 
 de Belmont. Poor Robin ! what bad luck brought 
 you here ? Oh ! how sorry she will be.' I nearly 
 dropped down beside Robin. ' Of Mademoiselle 
 Amelia?' said I, in a trembling voice, 'has she 
 actually a sheep ?' ' Oh ! good Lord ! no, she has 
 none at this moment — but that which lies there with 
 its four legs in the air: she loved it as herself; see 
 the collar that she worked for it with her oAvn 
 hands.* I bent to look at it. It was of red leather, 
 ornamented with little bells, and she had embroi- 
 dered on it in gold thread, ' Robin belongs to 
 Amelia de Belmont ; she loves him, and begs that 
 he may be restored to her.' ' What will she think of 
 the barbarian who has killed him in a fit of passion ; 
 the vice she most detests : she is right, it has been 
 fatal to her. Yet if he should be only stunned by 
 the blow : Catharine ! run, ask for some aether, or 
 Eau de vie, or hartshorn, — run, Catharine, run.' 
 
 " Catharine set off: I tried to make it open its 
 mouth ; my rose-bud was still between its hermeti-
 
 115 
 
 cally sealed teeth ; perhaps the collar pressed it ; in 
 fact the throat was swelled. I got it off with diffi- 
 culty ; something fell from it at my feet, which I 
 mechanically took up and put into my pocket with- 
 out looking at ; so much was I absorbed in anxiety 
 for the resuscitation. I rubbed him with all my 
 strength ; I grew more and more impatient for the 
 return of Catharine. She came with a small phial 
 in her hand, calling out in her usual manner, * Here, 
 sir, here's the medicine. I never opened my mouth 
 about it to Mademoiselle Amelia; I pity her enough 
 without that.' 
 
 " ' What is all this, Catharine ? where have you 
 seen Mademoiselle Amelia ? and what is her afflic- 
 tion if she does not know of her favourite's death ? 
 * Oh, sir, this is a terrible day for the poor young 
 lady. She was at the end of the street searching 
 for a ring which she had lost, and it was no trifle, 
 but the ring that her dead father had got as a present 
 from the emperor ; and worth, they say, more ducats 
 than I have hairs on my head. Her mother lent it 
 her to-day for the party : she has lost it ; she knows 
 neither how nor where, and never missed it till she 
 drew off her glove at supper ; and, poor soul ! the 
 glove was on again in a minute, for fear it should 
 be seen that the ring was wanting, and she slipped 
 out to search for it all along the street, but she has 
 found nothing.' 
 
 " It struck me that the substance that had fallen 
 from the sheep's collar had the form of a ring —
 
 116 
 
 could it possibly be ? I looked at it ; and, judge of 
 my joy, it was Madame de Belmont's ring, and 
 really very beautiful and costly. A secret presen- 
 timent whispered to me, that this was a better means 
 of presentation than the rose-tree. I pressed the 
 precious ring to my heart, and to my lips ; assured 
 myself that the sheep was really dead ; and leaving 
 him stretched near the devastated rose-trees, I ran 
 into the street, dismissed those who were seeking 
 in vain, and stationed myself at my door to await 
 the return of my neighbours. I saw from a distance 
 the flambeau that preceded them, quickly distin- 
 guished their voices, and comprehended by them 
 that Amelia had confessed her misfortune. The 
 mother scolded bitterly ; the daughter wept, and 
 said, ' Perhaps it may be found.' ' Oh yes, per- 
 liaps,' — replied the mother with irritation, ' it is too 
 rich a prize to him who finds it ; the emperor gave 
 it to your deceased father on the field when he saved 
 his life ; he set more value on it than on all that he 
 possessed besides, and now you have thus flung 
 it away ; but the fault is mine for having trusted 
 you with it. For some time back you have seemed 
 quite bewildered.' I heard all this as I followed at 
 some paces behind them ; they reached home, and I 
 had the cruelty to prolong, for some moments more, 
 Amelia's mortification. I intended that the trea- 
 sure should procure me the entree of their dwelling, 
 and I waited till they had got up stairs. I then had 
 myself announced as the bearer of good news ; I
 
 117 
 
 was Introduced, and respectfully presented the ring 
 to Madame de Belmont ; and how delighted seemed 
 Amelia ! and how beautifully she brightened in her 
 joy, not alone that the ring was found, but that I 
 was the finder. She cast herself on her mother's 
 bosom, and turning on me her eyes, humid with 
 tears, though beaming with pleasure, she clasped 
 her hands, exclaiming, ' Oh, Sir, what obligation, 
 what gratitude do we not owe to you !' 
 
 " ' Ah, Mademoiselle,' returned I, ' you know not 
 to whom you address the term gratitude.' — ' To one 
 who has conferred on me a great pleasure,' said she. 
 ' To one who has caused you a serious pain, — to the 
 killer of Robin.' 
 
 " ' You, Sir? — I cannot credit it — why should you 
 do so ? You are not so cruel.' 
 
 " ' No, but I am so unfortunate. It was in open- 
 ing his collar, which I have also brought to you, 
 that your ring fell on the ground : — you promised a 
 great recompense to him who should find it — I dare 
 to solicit that recompense ; grant me my pardon for 
 Robin's death.' 
 
 " ' And I, Sir, I thank you for it,' exclaimed the 
 mother : ' I never could endure that animal ; it took 
 up Amelia's entire time, and wearied me out of all 
 patience with its bleating ; if you had not killed it, 
 heaven knows where it might have carried my dia- 
 mond. But how did it get entangled in the collar? 
 Amelia, pray explain all this.' 
 
 ** Amelia's heart was agitated ; she was as much
 
 118 
 
 grieved that it was I who had killed Robin, as that 
 he was dead. — ' Poor Robin,' said she,- — drying a 
 tear, ' he was rather too fond of running out ; before 
 leaving home, I had put on his collar, that he might 
 not be lost — he had always been brought back to 
 me. The ring must have slipped under his collar. 
 I hastily drew on my glove, and never missed it till 
 I was at supper.' 
 
 " ' What good luck was it that he went straight 
 to this gentleman's ! ' observed the mother. 
 
 " ' Yes — for you,' said Amelia ; ' he was cruelly 
 received — Was it such a crime. Sir, to enter your 
 door?' 
 
 " ' It was night,' I replied ; ' I could not dis- 
 tinguish the collar, and I learned, when too late, 
 that the animal belonged to you.' 
 
 " ' Thank heaven, then, you did not know it !' 
 cried the mother, ' or where would have been my 
 ring V 
 
 it i 
 
 It is necessary at least,' said Amelia, with 
 emotion, ' that I should learn how my favourite 
 could have so cruelly chagrined you.' 
 
 " ' Oh, Mademoiselle, he had devoured my hope, 
 my happiness, — a superb rose-tree, about to blow, 
 that I had been long watching, and intended to 
 present — to — to — a person on New-year's day.' 
 Amelia smiled, blushed, extended her lovely hand 
 towards me, and murmured — ' all is pardoned.' — * If 
 it had eaten up a rose-tree about to blow,' cried 
 out Madame de Belmont, ' it deserved a thousand
 
 119 
 
 deaths. I would give twenty sheep for a rose-tree 
 in blow.' — ' And I am much mistaken,' said Amelia, 
 with the sweetest naivete, ' if this very rose-tree 
 was not intended for you.' — ' For jne! you have 
 lost your senses, child; I have not the honour of 
 knowing the gentleman.' — ' But he knows your 
 fondness for Roses ; I mentioned it one day before 
 him, the only time I ever met him at Madame de S.'s. 
 Is it not true. Sir, that my unfortunate favourite 
 had eaten up my mother's rose-tree ?' I acknow- 
 ledged it, and I related the course of education 
 of my fifty rose-trees. 
 
 " Madame de Belmont laughed heartily, and said, 
 ' she owed me a double obligation.' — ' Mademoiselle 
 Amelia has given me my recompense for the dia- 
 mond,' said I to her ; ' I claim yours also, Madame.' 
 * Ask, Sir.' — * Permission to pay my respects some- 
 times to you !' — ' Granted,' replied she, gaily. I 
 kissed her hand respectfully, that of her daughter 
 tenderly, and withdrew. But I returned the next 
 day — and every day — I was received with a kindness 
 that each visit increased — I was looked on as one of 
 the family. It was I who now gave my arm to 
 Madame de Belmont, to conduct her to the evening 
 parties; she presented me as her friend, and they 
 were no longer dull to her daughter. New-year's 
 day arrived. I had gone the evening before to a 
 sheep-fold in the vicinity to purchase a lamb similar 
 to that I had killed. I collected from the different 
 hot-houses all the flowering rose-trees I could find ;
 
 120 
 
 the finest of them was for Madame de Belmont ; and 
 the Roses of the others were wreathed in a garland 
 round the fleecy neck of the lamb. In the evening I 
 went to my neighbours with my presents. — ' Robin 
 and the rose-trees are restored to life,' said I, in 
 offering my homage, which was received with sen- 
 sibility and gratefulness. ' I also should like to give 
 you a New-year's gift, said Madame de Belmont 
 to me, ' if I knew what you would best like.' 
 ' What I best like — ah, if I only dared to tell you.' 
 ' If it should chance now to be my daughter' — I 
 fell at her feet, and so did Amelia. ' Well,' said 
 the kind parent, ' there then are your New-year's 
 gifts ready found ; Amelia gives you her heart, and I 
 give you her hand.' She took the rose-wreath from 
 off the lamb, and twined it round our united hands. 
 And my Amelia," continued the old professor, as he 
 finished his anecdote, passing an arm round his 
 companion as she sat beside him, " my Amelia is 
 still to my eyes as beautiful, and to my heart as 
 dear, as on the day when our hands were bound 
 together with a chain of flowers." Leaving this 
 delightful tale to produce its own effects on your 
 affectionate feelings, 
 
 I remain, 
 
 Yours, &c.
 
 LETTER XIV. 
 
 ' In the mirror of truth, prithee say, is it shown T 
 Or is it but guess'd by your fancy alone. 
 That pleasure, true pleasure, cau only be known 
 Sub Rosa?" 
 
 Mrs. Spencer, 
 
 My dear Anne, 
 
 The Rose, as you are aware, is not only the 
 flower of Love, and the emblem of Beauty, but is 
 also considered the symbol of Secrecy. A kiss is 
 often taken and allowed " under the Rose." A 
 belief that two young companions have become 
 lovers, is a suspicion whispered '* under the Rose." 
 The certainty of arrangements for an intended 
 marriage often transpires " under the Rose ;" and 
 whenever I greet the full-blown impression of your 
 exquisitely engraven seal, with its appropriate motto 
 — " Sub Rosa," I always anticipate beneath it, if not 
 a poetical kiss or a lover's secret, yet expressions of 
 kindness, and feelings of friendship, which are 
 sacred and inviolate; and for which these letters
 
 122 
 
 on the importance of the Rose must be my feeble 
 return. 
 
 The following passage on the above attribute of 
 our favourite flower, is from Brown's curious work 
 on " Vulgar Errors." — " When we desire to confine 
 our words, we coimmonly say they are spoken under 
 the Rose ; which expression is commendable, if the 
 Rose from any naturall propertie may be the symboll 
 of silence, as Nazianzene seems to imply in these 
 translated verses : 
 
 " Utque latet Kosa Vema suo putamme clausu 
 Sic OS vinclaferat, validisque arctetur habenis, 
 Indicatqiie suis prolixa Silentia lahris, 
 
 and is also tolerable, if by desiring a secrecy to 
 words spoke under the Rose, we only mean in 
 society and compotation, from the antient custome 
 in Symposiacke meetings, to wear chaplets of Roses 
 about their heads ; and so we condemn not the 
 Germane custome, which over the table, describeth 
 a Rose in the seeling ; but more considerable it is, 
 if the original were such as Lemnius and others 
 have recorded; that the Rose was the flower of 
 Venus, which Cupid consecrated unto Harpocrates 
 the God of Silence, and was therefore an emblem 
 thereof, as is declared in this tetrastic : 
 
 " Est Rosajlos Veneris, cujus quo facta laterent 
 
 Harpocrati matris, dona dicavit Amor ; 
 
 Inde Kosam mensis hospis suspendit Amicis, 
 
 Conviva ut sub ea dicta tacenda sciant."
 
 123 
 
 I have somewhere seen the following lines given 
 as a translation of the foregoing, although they are 
 rather a paraphrase : 
 
 " The Rose is Venus' pride ; — the archer boy 
 
 Gave to Harpocrates his mother's flower, 
 What time fond lovers told the tender joy — 
 
 To guard with sacred secrecy the hour : 
 Hence, o'er his festive board the host uphung 
 
 Love's flower of silence, to remind each guest. 
 When wine to amorous sallies loosed the tongue, 
 
 Under the Rose what pass'd, must never be express'd." 
 
 Happy are we, my dear friend, who live under the 
 auspices of a different state of society ; when instead 
 of hanging up the Rose as the guardian of baccha- 
 nalian revelry, we introduce the fair sex as a rational 
 and effectual check upon that licence of speech, 
 which the influence of wine has so falsely been sup- 
 posed to justify. 
 
 It appears to have been with reference to this 
 attribute of secrecy, that the Rose was adopted not 
 only as a part of the blazon on the arms, but like- 
 wise as a cognominal designation of the fraternity 
 of the Rosycrucians, a sect of philosophers which 
 appeared in Germany about 1614, and presently 
 spread themselves through most of the countries of 
 Europe, and out of which has sprung the present 
 system of Freemasonry. The opinion that the Rose 
 was assumed as the symbol of secrecy, and the cross 
 to represent the solemnity of the oath by which the
 
 124 
 
 vow of secrecy was ratified, is defended by a writer of 
 authority on the subject. Against this presumption, 
 however, it is argued that the armorial bearings of the 
 family of John Valentine Andrea, a celebrated theo- 
 logian of Wirtemberg, were a St. Andrew's cross, 
 and four Roses; which Andrea is suspected of 
 having fabricated the legend of Father Rosycross, 
 out of which originated this celebrated order, I 
 ought to apologize for such a seemingly unfeminine 
 digression ; but I wish you to know, my fair friend, 
 that these were the men so long famed for their 
 occult studies in the pursuit of some imagined 
 universal panacea — or elixir vitse ; and also of that 
 %vonderful transmuter of all inferior metals into 
 gold — the philosopher's stone. These foolish pur- 
 suits, which in the sixteenth century made such a 
 noise, even in England, are now exploded : and no 
 doubt many individuals, whose gold by the processes 
 of alchemy had been turned into dross in the crucible, 
 would derive much consolation from the doctrine of 
 the following paragraph from one of the writers of 
 the sect: — "It is a very childish objection that the 
 brotherhood have promised so much, and performed 
 so little. With them, as elsewhere, many are called 
 but few chosen ; the masters of the order hold out 
 the Rose [the secret] as a remote prize, but they 
 impose the cross [the labour] on those who are 
 entering." Among other curious notions, they held 
 that the principle which determined the shape of 
 animals and vegetables when they became organized,
 
 125 
 
 was incipient in certain salts, to be obtained from 
 the ashes of similar bodies ! Sir Kenelm Digby has 
 left a recipe for producing cray-fish after this 
 fashion ; and the celebrated Kircher is said to have 
 exhibited in his museum, a phial hermetically sealed, 
 containing a Rose, the product of such a lixivium. 
 
 I remain, 
 
 Yours, &c. 
 
 I 3
 
 LETTER XV. 
 
 • Thus having told you how the bridegroom Thame was drest, 
 I'll show you how the bride fair Isis they invest ; 
 Sitting to be attired under a bower of state. 
 Which scorns a meaner sort than fits a princely rate ; 
 In anadems for whom they curiously dispose 
 The red, the dainty white, the goodly damask Rose, 
 For the rich ruby, pearl, and amethyst men place 
 In kings' imperial crowns, the circle that embrace." 
 
 Draytoii's Poly Ulbion. 
 
 My dear Anne, 
 
 In this letter, I present you with a bouquet 
 of poetical Roses, culled from the works of the 
 earlier British poets, chiefly those who flourished 
 from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries in- 
 clusive. As you may not be familiar with the 
 names alluded to, I shall introduce the composition 
 of each, with a brief notice of its author : and these 
 remarks you may consider, my dear friend, either 
 as the foliage, or the stems of the Roses which 
 they accompany. 
 
 My first flower is from the garden of Sir John 
 Davies, who, in 1592, dedicated his poem, on the
 
 127 
 
 " Immortality of the Soul," to Queen Elizabeth : 
 but the following is from a series of twenty-six 
 compositions, entitled, " Hymns of Astrea ," all of 
 which exhibit, in their initial letters of each line, 
 Elisa-betiia Regixa ; this acrostical flower, there- 
 fore, you must reverence as a royal Rose. 
 
 TO THE ROSE. 
 
 " E ye of the garden, queen of flowers, 
 X ove's cup wherein lie nect'rous powers, 
 
 I ngender'd first of nectar : 
 
 S weet nurse-child of the Spring's yx)ung hours, 
 A nd beauty's fair character. 
 
 B less'd jewel that the earth doth wear, 
 
 E 'en when the brave young sun draws near, 
 
 T o her hot love pretending ; 
 
 H imself likewise like form doth bear, 
 
 A t rising and descending. 
 
 R ose of the queen of love belov'd ; 
 E ngland's great kings divinely mov'd, 
 G ave Roses in their banner; 
 
 I I show'd that beauty's Rose indeed, 
 JV ow in this age should them succeed, 
 A nd reign in more sweet manner." 
 
 Thomas Carew was an elegant poet, who lived 
 in the reign of Charles I., to whose fortunes he 
 adhered ; he was one of the first in wliom we find 
 gallantry and the graces united. His poems, chiefly
 
 128 
 
 short pieces, were highly valued by liis contem-' 
 poraries : his longest production is " Coelum Bri- 
 tannicum," a masque, performed in the banqueting 
 house at Whitehall : and you may perhaps be 
 surprised to learn, that the masquers on this occa- 
 sion were the Kings Majesty, one duke, four earls, 
 one viscount, and eleven lords, besides several 
 noblemen's sons ! He was an admirer of our fa- 
 vourite flower, as witness this posey of 
 
 RED AND WHITE ROSES. 
 
 " Read in these Roses the sad story 
 Of my hard fate and your own glory ; 
 In the white you may discover 
 The paleness of a fainting lover ; 
 In the red, the flames still feeding 
 On my heart with fresh wounds bleeding. 
 The white will tell you how I languish, 
 And the red express my anguish: 
 The white my innocence displaying, 
 The red my martyrdom betraying. 
 The frowns that on your brow resided, 
 Have those Roses thus divided ; 
 Oh ! let your smiles but clear the weather. 
 And they both shall grow together." 
 
 You may think the conceits forced enough in the 
 above, but what do you think of the affectation and 
 hyperbole of the following lines from the same 
 author ?
 
 129 
 
 ON A DAMASK ROSE, 
 Sticking upon a Lady's Breast. 
 
 " Let pride grow big, my Rose, and let the clear 
 And damask colour of thy leaves appear. 
 Let scent and looks be sweet, and bless that hand 
 That did transplant thee to that sacred land. 
 O happy thou, that in that garden rests ; 
 That paradise between that lady's breasts : 
 There's an eternal spring ; there shalt thou lie. 
 Betwixt two lilly mounts, and never die : 
 There shalt thou spring among the fertile rallies, 
 By buds like thee, that grow in 'midst of allies, 
 There none dare pluck thee, for that place is such, 
 That but a god divine there's none dare touch ; 
 If any but approach, straight doth arise, 
 A blushing lightning flash, and blights his eyes. 
 There, 'stead of rain, shall living fountains flow ; 
 For wind, her fragrant breath for ever blow. 
 Nor now, as erst, one sun shall on thee shine, 
 But those two glorious suns, her eyes divine. 
 O then, what monarch would not think't a grace, 
 To leave his regal throne to have thy place? 
 Myself, to gain thy blessed seat, do vow, 
 Would be transform'd into a Rose as thou." 
 
 William Drummond, a Scotch poet, generally called 
 Drummond of Hawthornden, was of gentle extrac- 
 tion, and, like Carew, involved in the fortunes of the 
 unfortunate Charles, whose execution is said to 
 have hastened the end of our poet. He is a very 
 pleasing writer, and not only in his " Flowers of
 
 130 
 
 Zion," and " Divine Poems," but in his miscella- 
 neous pieces, he is freer from indelicate allusions 
 than many others of his age. He has this madrigal 
 on the Rose : 
 
 " Sweet Rose, ■whence is this hue 
 Which doth all hues excell ? 
 Whence this most fragrant smell ? 
 And whence this form and gracing grace in you t 
 In fair Psestana's fields perhaps you grew, 
 Or Hybla's hills you bred, 
 Or odoriferous Enna's plains you fed, 
 Or Imolus, or where boar young Adon slew ; 
 Or hath the queen of love you dyed of new 
 In that dear blood, which makes you look so red? 
 No, none of those, but cause more nigh you bliss'd. 
 My lady's breast you bore, her lips you kiss'd." 
 
 From the same. 
 
 THE ROSE. 
 
 " Flower, which of Adon's blood 
 Sprang, when of that clear flood, 
 Which Venus wept, another white was born, 
 The sweet Cynarean youth thou lively shows; 
 But this sharp-pointed thorn. 
 So proud about thy crimson fold that grows. 
 What doth it represent ? 
 
 Boar's teeth, perhaps, his milk-white flank which rent, 
 O show in one of unesteemed worth, 
 That both the kill'd and killer setteth forth."
 
 131 
 
 These lines have an allusion to the first Idyllium 
 of Bion, " on the death of Adonis :" from whose 
 blood that sweet singer of Sicily represents the 
 Rose to have sprang. Fawkes's translation of the 
 passage runs thus : 
 
 " As many drops of blood, as from the wound 
 Of fair Adonis trickled on the ground, 
 So many tears she [Venus] shed in copious showers : 
 Both tears and drops of blood were turn'd to flowers, 
 From these in crimson beauty sprung the Rose 
 Cerulean — bright anemonies from those." 
 
 Ovid, in his Metamorphoses, says, that anemonies, 
 and not Roses, sprung from the blood of Adonis. 
 
 William Habington was born in 1605, and, like 
 the preceding, was a poet and a lover. His ama- 
 tory eftusions are tender and elegant, and still freer 
 from indelicacies than the productions of the pre- 
 viously mentioned bards. His poems, in three 
 parts, are entitled Castara, by which epithet he 
 designates the lady of his love, who was daughter 
 to Lord Powis, and grandaughter to Henry Percy, 
 eighth earl of Northumberland. He addresses the 
 following verses 
 
 TO ROSES, 
 In the Bosome of Castara. 
 
 " Yee blushing virgins happie are 
 In the chaste nunn'ry of her breasts, 
 
 For hee'd prophane so chaste a faire, 
 Who ere shall call them Cupid's nests.
 
 132 
 
 " Transplanted thus, how bright yee grow^ 
 How rich a perfume doe yee yeild! 
 
 In some close garden, cowslips so 
 Are sweeter than i' th' open field. 
 
 " In those white cloysters live secure 
 From the rude blasts of wanton breath, 
 
 Each houre more innocent and pure, 
 Till you shall wither into death. 
 
 " Tlien that which living gave you roome, 
 
 Your glorious sepulcher shall be ; 
 There wants no marble for a tomb, 
 
 Whose breast hath marble beene to me." 
 
 A modern edition of the Castara has been pub- 
 lished by Mr. Elton, who gives, in a note, the 
 following elegant verses, from Bernard: 
 
 " Nurs'd by the zephyr's balmy sighs, 
 And cherish'd by the tears of morn, 
 O Queen of flowers ! awake ! arise ! 
 O haste, delicious Rose, be born ! 
 
 " Unheeding wish ! no, yet awhile, 
 
 Be yet awhile thy dawn delay'd ; 
 Since the same hour that sees thee smile 
 
 In orient bloom, shall see thee fade. 
 
 " Themira thus, an op'niiig flower, 
 Must withering droop at fate's decree ; 
 
 Like her thou bloom'st thy little hour. 
 And she, alas ! must fade like thee.
 
 133 
 
 " Yet go, and on her bosom die, 
 
 At once, blest Rose, thy throne and tomb; 
 
 While envious heaves my secret sigh, 
 To share with thee so sweet a doom. 
 
 " Love shall thy graceful bent advise. 
 Thy blushing, trem'lous leaves reveal ; 
 
 Go, bright, yet hurtless, charm her eyes ; 
 Go, deck her bosom, not conceal. 
 
 " Should some bold hand invade thee there. 
 
 From Love's asylum rudely torn ; 
 Oh, Rose! a lover's vengeance bear, 
 
 And let my rival feel thy thorn." 
 
 Milton, whose partiality to this flower was no 
 doubt considerable, frequently mentions it, not only 
 in Paradise Lost, but also in his smaller pieces. 
 In that fragment, entitled Arcades, he makes the 
 Genius of the Wood address the nymphs thus : 
 
 " And ye, the breathing roses of the wood, 
 Fair silver buskind nymphs, as great and good ; 
 I know this quest of yours, and free intent, 
 Was all in honour and devotion meant 
 To the great mistress of yon princely shrine. 
 Whom, with low rev'rence, 1 adore as mine." &c. 
 
 And in the most exquisite pastoral monody ever 
 written, he does not neglect to name the " musk- 
 rose " in the catalogue of flowers, which he invokes 
 the vales to contribute, 
 
 " To strew the laureate herse where Lycid lies." 
 
 M
 
 134 
 
 The following very pretty song is from " the 
 tuneful Waller," as he has generally been called, 
 and who lived during the reigns of James I., 
 Charles I., Cromwell, and Charles II. Gaiety and 
 elegance of thought, united with harmony of ver- 
 sification, characterizes his poetry. 
 
 " Go, lovely Rose ! 
 Tell her, that wastes her time and me, 
 
 That now she knows. 
 When I resemble her to thee, 
 How sweet and fair she seems to be. 
 
 " Tell her that's young. 
 And shuns to have her graces spied, 
 
 That hadst thou sprung 
 In desarts, where no men abide, 
 Thou must have uncommended died. 
 
 " Small is the worth 
 Of beauty from the light retir'd: 
 
 Bid her come forth, 
 Suffer herself to be desir'd, 
 And not blush so to be admir'd. 
 
 " Then die ! that she 
 The common fate of all things rare 
 
 May read in thee. 
 How small a part of time they share, 
 That are so wondrous sweet and fair !
 
 135 
 
 Carew, whom I have before mentioned, selects 
 the fugaciousness of the Rose to enforce a similar 
 exhortation : 
 
 " The faded Rose each spring receives 
 A fresh red tincture on her leaves ; 
 But if your beauties once decay, 
 You never know a second May. 
 O then be wise, and whilst your season 
 Affords you days for sport, do reason ; 
 Spend not in vain your life's short hour, 
 But crop in time your beauty's flower. 
 Which will away, and doth together 
 Both bud and fade, both blow and wither." 
 
 In like manner, exhorting the importance of 
 carpe diem, singeth Daniel, another early English 
 poet, in the following very clever Sonnet. Love 
 is fickle and fastidious, and beauty transitory as 
 youth; it is therefore not without reason that the 
 poets recommend the ingenuous maiden to love 
 while she is " lovely and beloved." 
 
 " Look, Delia, how we 'steem the half-blown Rose, 
 
 The image of thy blush, and Summer's honour ; 
 Whilst yet her tender bud doth undisclose 
 
 That fall of beauty time bestows upon her. 
 No sooner spreads her glory in the air, 
 
 But straight her wide-blown pomp comes to decline; 
 She then is scoin'd that late adorn'd the fair; 
 
 So fade the Roses of those cheeks of thine.
 
 136 
 
 ■ No April can revive thy vvither'd flowers, 
 
 Whose springing grace adorns thy glory now ; 
 Swift speedy Time, feather'd with flying hours, 
 
 Dissolves the beauty of the fairest brow : 
 Then do not thou such treasure waste in vain, 
 But love now, while thou may'st be lov'd again." 
 
 I shall conclude this letter with a short quotation 
 from Dryden's " Palamon and Arcite," and which 
 exhibits the only distinct allusion to the Rose which 
 I can recollect, from the numerous works of this 
 vigorous poet. 
 
 " At every turn she made a little stand. 
 And thrust among the thorns her lily hand, 
 To draw the Rose; and every Rose she drew. 
 She shook the stalk, and brush'd away the dew ; 
 Then party-colour'd flowers of white and red, 
 She wove, to make a garland for her head." 
 
 I I'emain, 
 
 Yours, &c.
 
 'LETTER XVI. 
 
 " I deem the Rose the nightingale of flowers I" 
 
 My dear Anne, 
 
 It is impossible to mention Persia, without 
 recalling ideas of Love, Roses, and Nightingales ! 
 And although the gorgeous and voluptuous pictures 
 which travellers have drawn of this country, exist 
 in our minds rather as akin to the pleasing delusions 
 of our dreams, than to the images of our waking 
 recollections, — still we turn with willing attention 
 our thoughts to a country so peculiarly interesting : 
 
 " To those romantic regions of the Sun" — 
 
 To a country which has been selected by some — not 
 Avithout reason — as the scite of primeval paradise ; 
 and which is now emphatically 2^^radise lost! It 
 is still a garden where natui-e revels in the most 
 unbounded luxuriance ; but where man is fallen 
 M 3
 
 138 
 
 indeed — where he is held in the most abject mental 
 bondage; his chains, it is true, are wreathed with 
 flowers, and his prison house vocal with the song 
 of birds ; but they are chains, and he is still a 
 prisoner ; and remote indeed does the period appear 
 when he shall be emancipated from this vassalage 
 and spiritual darkness, into the freedom and light 
 of the everlasting gospel. The Gheber fire-wor- 
 shipper of Persia, and the Arabian follower of 
 Mahomet, must, however, be brought into the way 
 of truth, and some first-fruits have already ap- 
 peared, one of which is celebrated in Mr. Montgo- 
 mery's beautiful poem of " Abdallah and Sabat," 
 which, you will recollect, we read with so much 
 interest, and which I now mention for the purpose 
 of reminding you of the couplet in which he has 
 recognised the triple alliance mentioned at the be- 
 ginning of this letter : 
 
 " Where the soft Persian maid the breath inhales 
 Of love-sick Roses wooed by nightingales." 
 
 The Persian poets abound with allusions to the 
 affection which is feigned to subsist between the 
 nightingale and the Rose ; and Lady Mary AVortley 
 Montague gives the following introductory lines, in 
 one of her letters from the East : — 
 
 " The nightingale now wanders among the vines; 
 His passion is to seek Roses."
 
 139 
 
 1 shall therefore, my dear Anne, devote this 
 letter to the selection of a few instances for your 
 amusement, of the poetical allusions to this elegant 
 fiction. The following singular creation of an ideal 
 being, is from the fertile genius of Dr. Darwin : 
 
 " So when the nightingale in eastern bowers 
 On quivering pinions woos the queen of flowers, 
 Inhales her fragrance as he hangs in air, 
 And melts with melody the blushing fair; 
 Half Rose, half bird, a beauteous monster springs. 
 Waves his thin leaves, and claps his glossy wings ; 
 Long horrent thorns his mossy legs surround, 
 And tendril-talons root him to the ground, 
 Green films of rind his wrinkled neck o'erspread, 
 And crimson petals crest his curled head ; 
 Soft warbling beaks in each bright blossom move. 
 And vocal rose-buds fill th' enchanted grove. 
 Admiring evening stays her beamy star, 
 And still Night listens from his ebon car ; 
 While on white wings descending houris throng, 
 And drink the floods of odour and of song." 
 
 It was an hyperbolical compliment, which the 
 Greeks used to pay to some of their most flowery 
 orators, to say, that they " spoke Roses !" With much 
 greater propriety of metaphor do the orientals com- 
 pare their poets to the celebrated bird in question : 
 Hafez, especially, is constantly called the " Persian 
 Nightingale ; " and the following extract from the 
 eighth volume of " Time's Telescope," will give you 
 some idea of his style, and refers moreover to the
 
 140 
 
 fiction before mentioned : " Hafez, speaking of our 
 eagerness to enjoy the pleasures of the Spring, 
 beautifully observes, M'^e drop, like nightingales, 
 into the nest of the Rose, Again, in his Seventh 
 Ode, he says, ' O Hafez, thou desirest, like the 
 nightingales, the presence of the Rose : let thy very 
 soul be a ransom for the earth, vphere the keeper of 
 the rose-garden walks !' In the Eighth Ode, also, 
 yve have the following: — 
 
 " ' The youthful season's wonted bloom 
 Renews the beauty of each bower, 
 And to the sweet-song d bird is come 
 Glad welcome from its darling flower.' 
 
 In the sixth stanza of the Ninth Ode, the bard 
 again alludes to this favourite fiction, which, literally 
 translated, would stand thus : — ' When the Rose 
 rides in the air, like Solomon, the bird of morn 
 comes forth with the melody of David.' In Ode 
 XIII. on the return of Spring, we are presented 
 with the following beautiful stanza on the same 
 subject : — 
 
 " ' The love-struck nightingales delightful strain, 
 The lark's resounding note are heard again ; 
 Again the Hose, to hail Spring's festive day, 
 From the cold house of sorrow hastes away.' 
 
 " In the delicious garden of Negauristan, the eye 
 and the smell are not the only senses regaled by the 
 presence of the Rose. The ear is enchanted by the
 
 141 
 
 wild and beautiful notes of multitudes of nightin- 
 gales, whose warblings seem to increase in melody 
 and softness, with the unfolding of their favourite 
 flowers ; verifying the song of their poet, who says : 
 ' When the Roses fade, when the charms of the 
 bower are passed away, the fond tale of the nightin- 
 gale no longer animates the scene.'" 
 
 There is a beautiful little elegy and air composed 
 by a gentleman of Sheffield, I believe, on occasion 
 of the death of the lamented Princess Charlotte 
 of Wales, which turns upon the fiction before us : — 
 
 " When first the glooms of wrath o'evspread, 
 
 In Eden's bowers, each blissful scene ; 
 When first in death declined her head 
 
 The virgin Rose, the garden's queen ; 
 'Twas then that to the naked thorn, 
 
 The nightingale her bosom prest, 
 'Twas then the song became so lorn, 
 
 That trembled from her bleeding breast. 
 
 " Such was our fate — such are our woes ; 
 
 (Ah ! what can e'er those woes beguile ;) 
 Our gem of hope ! our regal Rose ! 
 
 The bud and blossom of our Isle ; 
 Each faded on its death-bed lies! 
 
 And though they bloom in bovvers divine; 
 
 Yet still, each weeping Briton cries, 
 The thorn — the thorn alone is mine '." 
 
 The conceit of the nightingale leaning her bosom 
 against a thorn, while pouring forth her mournful
 
 142 
 
 strains, is a very old conceit, and is thus quaintly 
 noticed by Sir Philip Sydney : — 
 
 " The nightingale, as soon as April bringeth 
 
 Unto her rested sense a perfect waking, 
 While late base earth, proud of new clothing springeth, 
 
 Sings out her woes, a thorn her song-book making ; 
 
 And mournfully bewailing. 
 Her throat in tunes expresseth 
 What grief her breast oppresseth." 
 
 I remain, 
 
 Yours, &c.
 
 LETTER XVII. 
 
 " There the Rose unveils 
 
 Her breast of beauty, and each delicate bud 
 O'the season comes in turn to bloom and perish." 
 
 My dear Anne, 
 
 In my last letter, I cited some of the allu- 
 sions made by oriental, and other poets, to that 
 beautiful fiction, which repi'esents the nightingale 
 as being enamoured of the Rose. I shall now 
 return to our favourite flower, denominated, by 
 Sir J. Davis, the 
 
 " Eye of the garden, queen of flowers, 
 Love's cup, wherein lie nect'rous powers, 
 
 Ingender'd first of nectar, 
 Sweet nurse-child of the Spring's young hours, 
 
 And beauty's fair character." 
 
 " In no country of the world," says the compiler 
 of Time's Telescope for 1822, " does the Rose 
 grow in such perfection as in Persia; and in no
 
 144 
 
 country is it so cultivated and prized by the natives. 
 It is often alluded to by Hafez, in his beautiful 
 Odes." 
 
 " When the young Rose, in crimson gay, 
 
 Expands her beauties to the day, 
 And foliage fresh her leafless boughs o'erspread ; 
 
 In homage to her sov'reign power, 
 
 Bright regent of each subject flower, 
 Low at her feet the violet bends its head." 
 
 Hafez, by Noti, Ode IX. 
 
 " See, where the Rose and Spring to mirth awake ! 
 So cheerful looks the Rose, 'twere wisdom's part 
 To tear the root of sorrow from the heart. 
 
 " Soft comes the morning wind; the wanton Rose 
 Bursts from its cup, to kiss the gale that blows ; 
 Its silken garment wounds in tender play, 
 And leaves its body naked to tie day." 
 
 Ode XIV. 
 
 " O cease with delight to survey the proud Rose, 
 Whose soft leaves must too soon feel decay ; 
 For ah ! the dark wind, as it churlishly blows. 
 At our feet all its honours shall lay." 
 
 Ode XVI. 
 
 The garden of Negauristan, a palac; belonging 
 to the king of Persia, is described, by Sir R. K. 
 Porter, in his recent Travels (vol. i, p. 3^7), to 
 abound with the niost beautiful Rose-trees. He 
 there saw two plants, full fourteen feet high,
 
 145 
 
 laden with thousands of flowers, in every degree of 
 expansion, and of a bloom and delicacy of scent, 
 that imbued the whole atmosphere with the most 
 exquisite perfume. The gardens and courts of the 
 Persians are crowded with its plants; their rooms 
 ornamented with vases, filled with its gathered 
 bunches; and every bath strewn with the full-blown 
 flowers, plucked from the ever-replenished stems : 
 
 < And as the parent Rose decays and dies, 
 The infant buds with brighter colours rise, 
 And with fresh sweets the mother's scent suppUes.' 
 
 Even the humblest individual, who pays a piece of 
 copper money for a few whifs of a kalioun, feels a 
 double enjoyment when he finds it stuck with a 
 bud from his dear native tree! " 
 
 You have often heard the expression, " a bed of 
 Roses" applied to the luxury and comforts of 
 various individuals. However that may be meta- 
 phorically true of the holders of sinecures, &:c. in 
 this country, it is literally true that beds of Roses 
 are not uncommon in the East ; the Roses of Jinan 
 Nile, or Garden of the Nile, attached to the Em- 
 peror of Morocco's Palace, are unequalled, and 
 mattrasses are made of the leaves for men of rank 
 to recline upon. Mrs. Spencer, in her little volume, 
 entitled " Pensive Pleasures," has a poem on " Rose- 
 leaves," in which she says she has alluded to the 
 effects their influence might be supposed to have 
 upon dift'erent individuals, who slept upon them. 
 
 N
 
 146 
 
 Beds of Roses, however, are not always comfort- 
 able; the wicked often find thorns, and the volup- 
 tuous need none, to make them uneasy. You re- 
 collect the famous illustration of the latter fact, in 
 the story of the effeminate Sybarite, who could not 
 sleep upon his bed, because its Rose-leaves were 
 crumpled under him! 
 
 Of this charming flower, which is such an uni- 
 versal favourite in the East, there are many splendid 
 varieties. " The Rose of Kashmire" has long been 
 proverbial for the brilliancy of its colour and the 
 delicacy of its odour. Indeed, my dear Anne, I 
 am told that it is impossible for us, in this northern 
 climate, to conceive of the exquisite fragrancy of 
 this flower, as it is diffused through the faery 
 bovvers of an oriental garden. Such is the almost 
 idolatrous admiration of the Rose, that, in some 
 parts of Asia, a feast is annually held during the 
 whole time that it is in bloom. To this circum- 
 stance, recorded by Pietro de la Valle, Moore 
 alludes, in his " Lalla Rookh." 
 
 " With quicker spread each heart uncloses, 
 And all is ecstacy, for now 
 
 The valley holds its ' Feast ob Roses;' 
 That joyous time, when pleasures pour 
 Profusely round, and in their shower ' 
 Hearts open, like the Season's Rose, — 
 
 The floweret of a hundred leaves 
 Expanding, while the dew-fall flows. 
 
 And every leaf its balm receives." *
 
 147 
 
 And Southey, in his " Wild and Wondrous Song" 
 of " TiiALABA," amidst his description of an Asiatic 
 garden, observes, that there 
 
 " the Rose expands 
 
 Her paradise of leaves. 
 
 You must not however imagine, my dear Anne, 
 Ahat fetes celebrated in allusion to the Rose have 
 been confined to the East. Madame de Genlis has 
 written a comedy, in two acts, celebrating " The 
 Queen of the Rose of Salen^y." — " In Salen9y, a 
 small village in Picardy," says the author of The 
 Philosophy of Nature, " there still remains an 
 interesting and a highly useful and moral custom; 
 it is called the * Festival of the Rose.' On a 
 certain day of every year, the young women of the 
 village assemble. After a solemn trial, before com- 
 petent judges, that young woman who has conducted 
 herself the most discreetly, and gives the most 
 affecting proofs of the general innocence and sim- 
 plicity of her character, is decorated with a crown, 
 which thenceforward becomes an object of pride 
 to all her family. The crown is a hat covered with 
 Roses. It frequently constitutes the whole wealth 
 of the wearer; but the instances are far from unfre- 
 quent, in which it has been esteemed the most 
 honourable recommendation to a wealthy suitor. 
 This custom was instituted by St. Medard, in the 
 fifth century : he was sole proprietor of the village,
 
 148 
 
 and his sister the fortunate winner of the original 
 prize. To the time of the Revokition, this festival 
 was observed with all the circumstances of prepa- 
 ration and solemnity, that marked its primary insti- 
 tution thirteen centuries before." It is recorded 
 that Louis XIII. dispatched the Marquis de Gordes 
 from Varennes to Salenfy, with presents of a blue 
 ribbon and a silver ring, for the Queen of the Rose ; 
 and in 1766, Mons. Morfontanie made a settlement 
 of 120 livres upon the annual winner of the Roses. 
 
 I remain, 
 
 Yours, &c.
 
 LETTER XVIII. 
 
 " ' Why there uow, the fellow has attempted to paint 
 a fly upon that Rose-bud ; why it's no more like a fly than 
 I am like an a — a — .' But as the connoisseur approached 
 his finger to the picture, the fly flew away! his eyes are half 
 closed, — this is called ' the wise man's wink.' " 
 
 G. A.Stevens. 
 
 My dear Anne, 
 
 We live in an age which is happily exempt 
 from most of those superstitious ceremonies wliich 
 vised to be practised on particular days by our 
 forefathers. Some of these, it is true, were very 
 picturesque and harmless; others absurd and ridi- 
 culous, and often profane and injurious: and how- 
 ever much, in general, they may be more honoured 
 now in the breach than by the observance, still it 
 is pleasing to recall to our imaginations some of 
 those peculiar practices of bye-gone times, which 
 constituted, as it were, the poetry and the romance 
 of common life. 
 
 Among the more harmless of their interesting 
 rites was the practice of gathering the Rose on 
 Midsummer -eve, which custom is alluded to in 
 N 3
 
 150 
 
 No. 56 of the Connoisseur. " Our maid Betty 
 tells me," says the writer, " that if I go backwards, 
 without speaking a word, into the garden, upon 
 Midsummer- eve, and gather a Rose, and keep it 
 in a clean sheet of paper, without looking at it, 
 till Christmas-day, it will be as fresh as in June; 
 and if I then stick it in my bosom, he that is to 
 be my husband will come and take it out." To 
 this pleasing conceit, respecting " the virgin-fancied 
 flower," there is an allusion, with some difference 
 of circumstances, in the poem of the " Cottage 
 Girl." 
 
 " The moss-rose that, at fall of dew^ 
 (Ere eve its duskier curtain drew) 
 Was freshly gather'd from its stem, 
 She values as the ruby gem; 
 And guarded from the piercing air. 
 With all an anxious lover's care, 
 She bids it, for her shepherd's sake. 
 Await the new-year's frolic wake. 
 When faded, in its alter'd hue 
 She reads the rustic is untrue! 
 But if its leaves the crimson paint. 
 Her sick'ning hopes no longer faint; 
 The Rose upon her bosom worn, 
 She meets him at the peep of dawn." 
 
 I know, my dear Anne, you will be pleased with 
 the above lines, and the custom to which they 
 allude: the following elegant verses, by S.T. Cole- 
 ridge, are of another class. You must give my
 
 151 
 
 love to sister Sarah, and tell her, that as the poet 
 wrote them for her name-sake, so I transcribe them 
 for, and present them to her. • 
 
 THE ROSE. 
 
 " As late each flower that sweetest blows, 
 
 I pluck'd the garden's pride ! 
 Within the petals of a Rose 
 
 A sleeping love I spied. 
 
 " Around his brows a beaming wreath, 
 
 Of many a lucid hue; 
 All purple glow'd his cheek beneath, 
 
 Inebriate with dew. 
 
 " I softly seiz'd th' unguarded power, 
 
 Nor scar'd his balmy rest; 
 And plac'd him cag'd within the flower. 
 
 On spotless SaraJis breast. 
 
 " But when, unweening of the guile. 
 
 Awoke the pris'ner sweet, 
 He struggled to escape awhile, 
 
 And stamp'd his fairy feet. 
 
 " Ah 1 soon the soul-entrancing sight 
 
 Subdued th' impatient boy ; 
 He gaz'd, he thrill'd, with deep delight, 
 
 Then clapp'd his wings for joy. 
 
 " ' And oh!' he cried, * of magic kind, 
 
 What charms this throne endear ! 
 Some other love let Venus find, 
 
 I'll fix mil empire here.' "
 
 162 
 
 The Rose, however, as Miss Sarah knows, is 
 destined soon to wither, even when placed upon 
 the fairest bosom, as well as when left on the 
 bush : 
 
 " But as the parent Rose decays and dies, 
 The infant buds with brighter colours rise, 
 And with fresh sweets the mother's scent suppUes." 
 
 This, my dear Anne, is obvious to common ob- 
 servers; but perhaps you might not be aware that 
 even the imagination of a poet had celebrated the 
 " funeral rites of the Rose;" but Herrick has 
 actually done it, and a sweet fiction he has ex- 
 hibited. 
 
 " The Rose was sick, and smiUng died, 
 And being to be sanctified, 
 About the bed there sighing stood 
 The sweet and flow'ry sisterhood. 
 Some hung the head, while some did bring, 
 To wash her, water from the spring ; 
 Some laid her forth, while others wept ; 
 But all a solemn fast there kept. 
 The holy sisters, some among 
 The sacred dirge and trental sung; 
 But ah, what sweets smelt everywhere. 
 As heaven had spent all perfumes there! 
 At last, when prayers for the dead, 
 And rites were all accomplished ; 
 They, weeping, spread a lawny loom. 
 And clos'd her up as in a tomb."
 
 153 
 
 I shall now devote the remainder of this letter 
 to the transcript of a smartly written and neatly 
 turned " Fable," from Cunningham, whom you 
 may perhaps recollect from his " Elegy on a Pile 
 of Ruins," but certainly from his " Day, a Pas- 
 toral," which I have often heard you recite in our 
 rambles. 
 
 THE ROSE AND BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " At day's early dawn, a gay Butterfly spied 
 A budding young Rose, and he wish'd her his bride ; 
 She blush'd when she heard him his passion declare, 
 And tenderly told him — he need not despair. 
 
 " Their faith was soon plighted, as lovers would do ; 
 He swore to be constant, she vow'd to be true. 
 It had not been prudent to deal with delay, 
 For the bloom of a Rose passes quickly away, 
 And the pride of a Butterfly dies in a day. 
 
 " When wedded, away the young gentleman hies, 
 From flow'ret to flow'ret he wantonly flies ; 
 Nor did he revisit his bride, till the sun 
 Had less than one fourth of his journey to run. 
 
 " The Rose thus reproach'd him — ' Already so cold; 
 How feign'd, O you false one, the passion you told ! 
 'Tis an age since you left me' — she meant a few hours, 
 But such we'll suppose the fond language of flowers. 
 ' I saw when you gave the base vi'let a kiss : 
 How, how could you stoop to a meanness like this? 
 Shall a low Utile wretch, whom we Roses despise. 
 Find favour, O love, in my Butterfly's eyes? 
 On a tulip quite tawdry I saw your fond rape; 
 Nor yet could the pitiful primrose escape :
 
 154 
 
 Dull daffodils too were with ardour address'd; 
 And poppies, ill scented, you kindly caress'd.' 
 
 " The coxcomb was piqu'd, and replied with a sneer, 
 ' That you're first to complain I commend you, my dear; 
 But know from your conduct ray maxims I drew, 
 And if I'm inconstant, I copy from you. 
 I saw the boy Zephyrus rifle your charms; 
 I saw how you simper'd and smil'd in his arms; 
 The honey-bee kiss'd you, you cannot disown; 
 You favour'd besides — Oh dishonour! — a drone: 
 Yet worse — 'tis a crime that you must not deny, 
 Your sweets were made common, false Rose, to a Fly.' 
 
 " MORAL. 
 
 " This law long ago did Love's providence make. 
 That every coquet should be curs'd with a rake." 
 
 Whatever may be the justice or the extent of 
 the retribution asserted in this moral, it is pretty 
 certain that the flower in the apologue was not 
 guilty to the extent alleged by her husband, the 
 beau butterfly, whom prejudice, rather than evi- 
 dence, seems to have influenced. He had perhaps 
 listened to the elegant scandal of our poet respect- 
 ing a similar transaction, deposed in the following 
 lines : 
 
 " From the West as it wantonly blows, 
 
 Fond Zephyr caresses the vine; 
 And the bee steals a kiss from the Rose, 
 
 And willows and woodbines entwine."
 
 155 
 
 Be that as it may, I believe the Rose to have been 
 guiltless of any gallantries with the " honey-bee" 
 ov the " drone," who would know, either from 
 instinct or experience, that the Rose might caress 
 them with fragrance, but would not reward them 
 with honey. The Rose is also exquisitely up- 
 braided in the following lines from the London 
 Magazine : 
 
 " Waken, O Rose! O fragrant-breasted Rose! 
 
 Thou ever-blushing maiden of the field! 
 
 Are thy love-dreams so sweet thou fear'stto wake? 
 
 Oh! thou young shrewd one! thou dost keep thy breast 
 
 Close for yon travelling bee, whose sylvan hum 
 
 Taketh thine amorous ear. Thou smilest — aye — 
 
 But blush still deeper as you smile." 
 
 Now let us hear the evidence of Hurdis on this 
 indictment: 
 
 " But why, sweet traveller, whose eager lip 
 Delights to visit the bloom-sprinkled branch, 
 And leave a kiss upon its every flower. 
 Why scorns it to salute the beauteous Rose, 
 And greets his sweet bud never? Partial bitd, 
 Has May alone thy love? and spreads in vain 
 June the sweet treasures of her flow'ry lap? 
 Why else untouch'd upon its thorny stem 
 Hangs the pale Rose unfolding, and the red?"
 
 156 
 
 Now, my dear Anne, what think you of the 
 charge against tlie honey-bee and the Rose — 
 guilty, or not guilty ? Hurdis contemplated nature 
 in her minute operations, the others perused her 
 in books. 
 
 I remain, 
 
 Yours, &c.
 
 LETTER XIX. 
 
 ' This Rose which bloom'd bo fair with thee, 
 Alas! has withered with me; — 
 I nurs'd it with a watchful eye. 
 Yet spite of all, my flower must die; 
 And thus through life's uncertain day, 
 Will all we value fade away." Anon. 
 
 My dear Anne, 
 
 Whatever extends or diversifies our sources 
 of innocent and profitable recreation, is valuable 
 and desirable ; and nothing conduces more delight- 
 fully and effectually to this, than the facilities af- 
 forded by poetry — when the handmaid of piety — 
 for multiplying those associations of feeling, with 
 which we think upon, or behold the beauties of 
 creation. This is more especially the case with the 
 amiable part of your sex, when connected with the 
 contemplation of flowers. Our first parents were 
 placed in a garden *' to keep it ; " and Eden, the 
 name of that garden, signifies pleasure ; and Milton, 
 in his " Paradise Lost," has innumerable passages 
 of exquisite beauty on this subject, in which he 
 introduces the rarities of the vegetable kingdom,
 
 158 
 
 and particularly represents the employment of Eve 
 to be the tending and training of the flowers of the 
 garden. These passages, my dear Anne, you will 
 easily recall to memory, because I know you are 
 conversant with the beauties of this immortal poem ; 
 you will also recollect the honourable distinction 
 which the poet confers upon our favourite flower, 
 when describing the nuptial bower of the first pair ; 
 whose 
 
 -" flowery roof 
 
 Showered Roses, which the morn repair'd." 
 
 The Rose is used in Holy Scripture as a meta- 
 phor, and as a similitude in the most interesting and 
 dignified sense. In the first instance, Jesus Christ 
 is generally considered to be designated by " The 
 Rose of Sharon ;" and, in the second, when the 
 sacred penman would represent the glories of his 
 reign on earth, he says, " the wilderness and the 
 solitary place shall be glad, and the desert shall 
 rejoice, and blossom as the Rose." And Virgil in 
 his PoUio, which is thought to have reference to the 
 same glorious consummation, asserts, that in this 
 era of felicity 
 
 " Each common bush, shall Syrian Roses bear." 
 
 Of the merely imaginative poets who have cele- 
 brated the Rose, these letters will record a consi- 
 derable number, as well as of the effusions of the
 
 159 
 
 more pious members of the poetical fraternity ; but 
 grave divines as well as poets have not thought it 
 beneath them to illustrate their subjects by refer- 
 ring to this flower which is so apt an emblem of mor- 
 tality. " Those," says Dr. Smith, ** who have ever 
 gathered a Rose, know, but too well, how soon it 
 withers ; and the familiar application of its fate to 
 that of human life and beauty, is not more striking 
 to the imagination than philosophically and literally 
 true." Listen to Jeremy Taylor, who might be 
 called the Shakspeare of divines — " So have I seen 
 a Rose newly springing from the clefts of its hood, 
 and at first it was fair as the morning, and full with 
 the dew of heaven as a lamb's fleece ; but when a 
 ruder breath had forced upon its virgin modesty, 
 and dismantled its too youthful and vmripe retire- 
 ments, it began to put on darkness, and to decline 
 to softness and the symptoms of a sickly age : it 
 bowed the head and broke its stalk ; and at night, 
 having lost some of its leaves, and all its beauty, it 
 fell into the portion of weeds and outworn faces." 
 
 I will not forego the pleasure of transcribing here, 
 the exquisitely simple lines of Dr. Watts on " The 
 Rose." These lines, my dear Anne, arc laid up 
 among the first and dearest of our poetical recol- 
 lections, and so far from being less esteemed because 
 common and familiar, they are on that account the 
 more valuable, and like the flower which they cele- 
 brate, never present themselves without an assu- 
 rance of sweetness.
 
 160 
 
 " How fair is the Rose ! what a beautiful Hower ! 
 The glory of April and May ! 
 But the leaves are beginning to fade in an hour, 
 And they wither and die in a day. 
 
 " Yet the Rose has one powerful virtue to boast, 
 Above all the flowers of the field : 
 When its leaves are all dead, and fine colours are lost. 
 Still how sweet a perfume it will yield ! 
 
 " So frail is the youth and the beauty of men, 
 
 Though they bloom and look gay like the Rose ; 
 But all our fond care to preserve them is vain. 
 Time kills them as fast as he goes. 
 
 " Then I'll not be proud of my youth or my beauty, 
 Since both of them wither and fade ; 
 But gain a good name by well doing my duty ; 
 This will scent, like a Rose, when I'm dead." 
 
 The pious Hervey, in his " Reflections on a Flower 
 Garden," has not forgotten or neglected the Rose. 
 " To a graceful shape and blooming complexion," 
 says our author, " the Rose adds the most agree- 
 able perfume. Our nostrils make it repeated visits, 
 and are never weary of drinking in its sweets. A 
 fragrance so peculiarly rich and reviving, transpires 
 from its opening tufts, that every one covets its 
 acquaintance. How have I seen even the accom- 
 plished Clarissa, for whom so many votaries lan- 
 guish, fondly caressing this little flower ; that lovely
 
 161 
 
 bosom which is the seat of innocence and virtue ; 
 whose least excellency it is to rival the delicacy of 
 the purest snows ; among a thousand charms of its 
 own, thinks it possible to adopt another from the 
 damask rose-bud. Yet even this universal favour- 
 ite must fail ; its native balm cannot preserve it 
 from putrefaction. Soon, soon, must it resign all 
 those endearing qualities, and hang neglected on its 
 stem, or drop despised to the ground." 
 
 As this letter, my dear Anne, consists chiefly of 
 pious allusions to our favourite flower, it would be 
 equally improper and impossible to neglect the beau- 
 tiful stanzas of Cowper, which we have so often 
 repeated and admired, on the Rose which Mrs. 
 Unwin presented to Lady Austen : 
 
 " The Rose had been wash'd, just wash'd in a shower, 
 Which Maiy to Anna convey'd ; 
 Tlie plentiful moisture encumber'd the flow'r, 
 And weigh'd down its beautiful head. 
 
 " The cup was all fiU'd, and the leaves were all wet, 
 And it seem'd to a fanciful view, 
 To weep for the buds it had left with regret, 
 On the flourishing bush where it grew. 
 
 " I hastily seized it, unfit as it was. 
 
 For a nosegay, so dripping and drown'd, 
 And swinging it rudely, too rudely, alas ! 
 I snapp'd it — it fell to the ground. 
 o3
 
 162 ' ' 
 
 " And such, I exclaim'd, is the pitiless part 
 Some act by the delicate mind ; 
 Regardless of wringing and breaking a heart. 
 Already to sorrow resign'd. 
 
 " This elegant Rose, had I shaken it less, 
 
 Might have bloom'd with its owner awhile ; 
 And the tear that is wip'd with a little address, 
 May be followed perhaps by a smile." 
 
 There are some circumstances connected with 
 the history of the foregoing little poem, which 
 will interest you. In the first place it is the 
 record of a real transaction, and not a fiction of 
 poetry : in a letter to the Rev. W. Unwin, dated 
 Feb. 7, 1785, Cowper says, " In the last Gen- 
 tleman's Magazine my Poplar Field appears. I 
 have accordingly sent up two pieces more, a latin 
 translation of it, which you have never seen, and 
 another on a Rose-bud, the neck of which I in- 
 advertently broke, which whether you have seen or 
 not, I know not." The little poem became a favou- 
 rite in various circles where its author was not 
 known ; and a certain female, presuming on this cir- 
 cumstance, had the temerity to appropriate it as her 
 production, and might, perhaps, have done so with 
 impunity, but for Lady Hesketh, who knew the 
 verses and detected the fraud, at the same time 
 informing the poet of the circumstance. To this 
 belovqd relative, Cowper writes from " the Lodge," 
 Jan. 8, 1787, in which letter he says, " I coidd pity
 
 163 
 
 the poor woman, who has been weak enough to 
 claim my song. Such pilferings are sure to be 
 detected. I wrote it, I know not how long, but I 
 suppose four years ago. The Rose in question, was 
 a Rose given to Lady Austen by Mrs. Unwin, and 
 the incident that suggested the subject, occurred in 
 the room in which you slept at the vicarage, which 
 Lady Austen made her dining room. Some time 
 since, Mr. Bull going to London, I gave him a copy 
 of it, which he undertook to convey to Nichols, the 
 printer of the Gentleman's Magazine. He shewed 
 
 it to a Mrs. C , who begged a copy of it, and 
 
 promised to send it to the printer by her servant. 
 Three or four months afterwards, and when I had 
 concluded that it was lost, I saw it in the Gentle- 
 man's Magazine, with my signature W. C. Poor 
 simpleton ! she will find now that the Rose had a 
 thorn, and that she has pricked her finger with it. 
 Adieu, my beloved cousin." Allow me to con- 
 clude this letter to you, with echoing the conclusion 
 of the amiable poet's epistle. 
 
 Adieu ! my beloved Friend.
 
 LETTER XX. 
 
 Now seen with love-lorn lilies weeping, 
 Now with a blushing rose bud sleeping; 
 While fays from forth their chambers peeping, 
 Cry, O rare!" Leftley. 
 
 My dear Anne, 
 
 Whatever concerns the name, the writings, 
 or the memory of Cowper, is interesting to me, and, 
 I believe, to you also. I concluded my last letter 
 with an extract from one of the poet's epistles to 
 Lady Hesketh. I now introduce you to another 
 cousin of the amiable bard — Mrs. Thompson of Don- 
 caster. This lady is the daughter of Dr. Madan, 
 the friend and correspondent of Cowper ; but, pro- 
 bably, better known to you as the composer of the 
 fine music accompanying Dr. Watts's solemn hymn, 
 beginning, " Before Jehovah's awful throne," which 
 I know to be a favourite piece of yours. Mrs. 
 Thompson has published anonymously, besides 
 smaller pieces, a volume of poetry, which reflects
 
 165 
 
 no discredit on her relationship to the bard of 
 Weston; and as he declares in his " Winter Nose- 
 gay," that 
 
 " The charms of the late-blowing Rose 
 Seem'd grac'd with a livelier hue," 
 
 in consequence of the affection of Mrs. Unwin, so 
 also do the following lines derive additional interest 
 from the fact of their having been written by the 
 cousin of Coivper. 
 
 ON FINDING A WITHERED BUD UPON A FAVOURITE 
 ROSE-TREE. 
 
 " Pride of that favourite bush my fancy chose, 
 As the sweet promise of its fairest Rose ! 
 How art thou chang'd, though my assiduous toil, 
 From each encroaching weed preserv'd thy soil ; 
 Would pleas'd observe thy infant folds assume 
 The gradual blush, the delicate perfume ; 
 The glittering insect's hasty wing would chase, 
 And prune thy leaf from all their embryo race. 
 Yet, ere maturer sweets my hopes repaid, 
 Those hopes are vanish'd and those sweets decay 'd. 
 Haply a prey to some unpitying storm, 
 Perchance a banquet to the lurking worm, 
 That inly canker'd what appear'd so fair, 
 To mock my wishes and defeat my care. 
 Ah! could a wish revive that fragrant scent. 
 Those lovely tints, indulgent nature lent,
 
 166 
 
 How soon those faded beauties should return, 
 
 Which once I cherish'd, now can only mourn : 
 
 Can only to a faithless world compare, 
 
 Whose smiles betray, whose promises ensnare ; 
 
 Or to that fragile, that precarious thread. 
 
 Which yet withholds me from the silent dead. 
 
 Should we then trust that world's delusive power, 
 
 On youth depend, less certain than a flower ? 
 
 Alas ! let such as have presumed to try, 
 
 From sad experience dictate the reply — 
 
 " Lean not on earth, it is a broken reed, 
 
 " Nay, oft a spear, whereon our hope must bleed." 
 
 There is a hope, that never can deceive. 
 
 There is a promise we may dare believe ; 
 
 That such as trust in " Him who cannot lie," 
 
 Though born to suffer, and decreed to die. 
 
 May feel support beneath afiliction's weight. 
 
 May look beyond this transitory state. 
 
 Where the too ardent in their frail pursuit. 
 
 Expect from blossoms, ample store of fruit ; 
 
 Till disappointed, they lament to see, 
 
 A " Wither'd Bud" upon their favourite tree." 
 
 How many buds of hope, which it was fondly 
 anticipated would one day blow into roses of happi- 
 ness, have we seen wither and drop from the 
 branches of society around us ! and a few from 
 the bower of our own enjoyments have immaturely 
 perished — but how many yet remain, which the bless- 
 ings of heaven shall nourish to perfection, and which 
 we may gather in due time full of fragrance, and 
 finished in beauty ! But, my dear Anne, how
 
 1G7 
 
 interesting is a bitd — a Rose-bud ! It seems like 
 a secret folded up ; a promise in reversion ; a hope 
 in progress ; the plaything of the imagination, which 
 hath yet something to reveal. " The Rose," says 
 an elegant writer, " in full display of beauty, is 
 not so captivating, as when opening her paradise 
 of leaves, she speaks to the fancy, rather than the 
 sight." 
 
 " I've seen indeed the hopeful bud 
 Of a ruddy Rose that stood 
 Blushing to behold the ray 
 Of the new saluted day; 
 His tender top not fully spread ; 
 The sweet dash of a shower now shed, 
 Invited him no more to hide 
 Within himself the purple pride 
 Of his forward flower, when lo, 
 While he sweetly 'gan to show 
 His swelling glories, Auster spied him, 
 Cruel Auster thither hied him. 
 And with the rush of one rude blast, 
 Sham'd not spitefully to waste 
 All his leaves, so fresh, so sweet, 
 And lay them trembling at his feet." 
 
 Cras}uiw. 
 
 The following verses are from the tuneful Waller : 
 they exhibit one of those forced conceits so familiar 
 with the poets of his age, and so opposite to truth 
 and nature ; the appUcation of the thought in this 
 instance, is pretty as well as ingenious.
 
 168 
 
 " Lately on yonder swelling bush, 
 Big with many a coming Rose, 
 This early Bud began to blush, 
 And did but half itself disclose ; 
 
 I pluck'd it, though no better grown. 
 And now you see how full 'tis blown. 
 
 " Still as I did the leaves inspire, 
 With such a purple light they shone, 
 As if they had been made of fire, 
 And spreading so would flarne anon : 
 All that was meant by air or sun, 
 To the young flower my breath has done. 
 
 " If our loose breath so much can do, 
 What may the same inform's of love, 
 Of purest love, and music too, 
 W^hen Flavia it aspires to move : 
 
 When that which lifeless buds persuades 
 To wax more soft, her youth invades." 
 
 The notion that the bud might be made to open 
 by breathing upon, seems to have been prevalent 
 among the elder poets. Sir Richard Fanshawe 
 alludes to it in the following lines ; in what situation 
 our poet's rose-bush stood to be obnoxious to the 
 " careless plough," is not very easy to conceive. 
 
 " Thou blushing Rose, within whose virgin leaves 
 The wanton wind to sport himself presumes, 
 Whilst from their rifled wardrobe he receives 
 For his wings purple, for his breath perfumes!
 
 169 
 
 Blown in the morning, thou shalt fade ere noon ! 
 
 What boots a life which in such haste forsakes thee? 
 Tiiou'rt wondrous frolic, being to die so soon, 
 
 And passing proud a little colour makes thee. 
 If thee thy brittle beauty so deceives, 
 
 Know then, the thing that swells thee is thy bane ; 
 For the same beauty doth in bloody leaves 
 
 The sentence of thy early death contain. 
 Some clown's coarse lungs will poison thy sweet flovver, 
 
 If by the careless plough thou shalt be torn ; 
 And many Herods lie in watt each hour, 
 
 To murder thee as soon as thou art born. 
 Nay, force thy bud to blow, their tyrant breath 
 Anticipating life, to hasten death." 
 
 I have yet another bud, and it is an interesting- 
 one. — Miss Caroline Symmons, who died June 1st, 
 1803, aged 14, is said to have written the following 
 sonnet in her eleventh year ! The lines seem al- 
 most prophetic of her fate. Children are generally 
 lovely, and always interesting, because, while in the 
 bud, they are subjects of Iiope, over which our 
 imaginations delight to expatiate. " A child is 
 a promise — a man disappointment," says an ele- 
 gant writer with equal truth and beauty. 
 
 ON A BLIGHTED ROSE-BUD. 
 
 " Scarce had thy velvet lips imbibed the dew, 
 And nature hail'd thee infant queen of May; 
 Scarce saw the opening bloom the sun's broad ray. 
 And to the air its tender fragrance threw; 
 i-
 
 170 
 
 When the north-wind enamoured of thee grew, 
 And by his cold rude kiss thy charms decay; 
 Now drops thy head, now fades thy blushing hue, 
 No more the queen of flowers, no longer gay. 
 So blooms a maid, her guardian's health and joy; 
 Her mind arrayed in innocency's vest, 
 When suddenly, impatient to destroy, 
 Death clasps her vigour to his iron breast. 
 She fades : the parent, sister, friend deplore, 
 The charms and budding virtues are no more !" 
 
 I shall conclude this letter with a quotation from 
 Shakspeare's Richard III., in which he alludes to 
 the supposed murder of the two sons of Edward IV. 
 in the Tower — the Rose-bud was never more exqui- 
 sitely appropriated by any poet; Tyrrel speaks : 
 
 " The tyrannous and bloody act is done; 
 The most arch deed of piteous massacre, 
 That ever yet this land was guilty of. 
 Dighton, and Forrest, whom I did suborn 
 To do this piece of ruthless butchery, 
 Albeit they were flesh'd villains, bloody dogs, 
 Melting with tenderness and mild compassion, 
 Wept like two children, in their death's sad story. 
 
 * O thus,' quoth Dighton, ' lay the gentle babes,' — 
 ' Thus, thus,' quoth Forrest, ' girdling one another 
 ' Within their alabaster innocent arms ; 
 
 * Their lips were four red roses on a stalk, 
 
 * Which, in their summer heanty, kiss'd each other, 
 ' A book of prayers on their pillow lay; 
 
 * Which once,' quoth Forrest, * almost chang'd my mind ;
 
 171 
 
 < But O, the devil' — There the villain stopp'd 
 When Dighton thus told on, — ' vee smothered 
 
 * The most replenished sweet work of nature, 
 
 * That, from the prime creation, e'er she framed.'" 
 
 I remain, 
 
 Yours, &c.
 
 LETTER XXI. 
 
 ■ Fresh-blown Roses wash'd in dew." 
 
 Milton. 
 
 My dear Anne, 
 
 I ou ask me whether Lord Byron has any 
 allusions to the Rose in his multifarious writings. 
 I am only able to reply generally that he has. 
 I have the gratification to be the possessor of one 
 of the fifty copies which composed the first edition 
 of his juvenile poems, and which were printed in 
 post quarto, for presents to his friends, to each of 
 whom he addressed the copies in his own hand 
 writing. Mine, in addition to a neat pen and ink 
 drawing of his arms, is inscribed, " Oct. 21, 1806. 
 Hoc poemata ex dono sunt Georg'n Gordon Byron. 
 Vale!" In the very first stanza of these pages — 
 and probably the very first lines of his ever set 
 up at the press — he laments the fallen condition
 
 173 
 
 of this noble flower in the garden of his paternal 
 estate of Newstead Abbey. 
 
 " Through the cracks in these battlements loud the winds 
 whistle, 
 
 For the hall of my fathers is gone to decay; 
 And in yon once gay garden, the hemlock and thistle 
 
 Have choak'd up the Rose, which late hlooind in the wayj" 
 
 The following lines, from the same noble bard, 
 refer to the Rose of Italy, which, he says, is 
 
 " Unbent by winds, unchill'd by snows, 
 Far from the winters of the West, 
 By every breeze and season blest, 
 Returns the sweets, by nature given 
 In softest incense, back to heaven; 
 And grateful yields that smiling sky, 
 Her fairest hue, and fragrant sigh." 
 
 In addition to which instances, you will accept 
 and admire this beautiful simile: 
 
 " In vain the lyre would lightly breathe — 
 The smile that sorrow fain would wear 
 But mocks the woe that lurks beneath, 
 Like Roses o'er a sepulchre." 
 
 I shall, my dear Anne, devote this letter to a 
 few extracts from the living poets of our own 
 country, who have honoured the Rose. To the 
 p 3
 
 174 
 
 few which I shall transcribe, the recollections of 
 your own reading will, I doubt not, enable you 
 to make a voluminous addition ; for what poet does 
 not allude to it in his works, and in what magazine 
 does it not bloom periodically? The following ele- 
 gant lines are from Campbell : 
 
 " As wandering, I found on my ruinous walk, 
 
 By the dial-stone aged and green, 
 One Rose of the Wilderness left on its stalk, 
 
 To mark where a garden had been : 
 Like a brotherless hermit, the last of its race. 
 
 All wild, in the silence of nature it drew 
 From each wandering sun-beam a lovely embrace; 
 For the night-weed and thorn overshadow'd the place 
 
 Where the flower of my forefathers grew. 
 
 " Sweet bud of the wilderness ! emblem of all 
 
 That survives in this desolate heart; 
 The fabric of bliss to its centre may fall. 
 
 But patience shall never depart ; 
 Though the wilds of enchantment, all vernal and bright. 
 
 In the days of delusion, by fancy combin'd 
 With the vanishing phantoms of love and delight, 
 Abandon my soul like a dream of the night, 
 
 And leave but a desart behind." 
 
 Sir Walter Scott has this sweet simile in Rokeby : 
 
 " The tear down childhood's cheek that flows. 
 Is like the dew-drop on the Rose; 
 When next the summer breeze comes by, 
 And waves the bush, the flower is dry."
 
 175 
 
 Our beloved Montgomery, whose chaste and 
 amiable character as a poet is only exceeded by 
 the excellency of his character as a man and a 
 Christian, has adopted the Rose, in a beautiful 
 little poem, presented to a friend on the birth 
 of his first child. 
 
 THE ROSES. 
 
 " Two Roses on one slender spray, 
 In sweet communion grew, 
 
 Together hail'd the morning ray, 
 And drank the ev'ning dew; 
 
 While sweetly wreath'd in mossy green, 
 
 There sprang a little bud between. 
 
 " Through clouds and sunshine, storms and showers, 
 
 They open'd into bloom, 
 Mingling their foliage and their flowers. 
 
 Their beauty and perfume; 
 While foster'd on its rising stem, 
 The bud became a purple gem. 
 
 " But soon their summer splendour pass'd, 
 
 They faded in the wind, 
 Yet were these Roses to the last 
 
 The loveliest of their kind. 
 Whose crimson leaves, in falling round, 
 Adorn'd and sanctified the ground.
 
 176 
 
 " When thus were all their honours shorn, 
 
 The bud unfolding rose, 
 And blush'd and brighten'd, as the morn 
 
 From dawn to sunrise glows, 
 Till o'er each parent's drooping head 
 The daughter's crowning glory spread. 
 
 " My friends, in youth's romantic prime. 
 
 The golden age of man. 
 Like these twin Roses spend your time, 
 
 Life's little less'ning span ; 
 Then be your breasts as free from cares. 
 Your hours as innocent as theirs. 
 
 " And in the infant bud that blows 
 
 In your encircling armSj 
 Mark the dear promise of a Rose, 
 
 The pledge of future charms, 
 That o'er your withering hours shall shine. 
 Fair and more fair as you decline ; — 
 
 " Till, planted in that realm of rest. 
 
 Where Roses never die. 
 Amidst the gardens of the blest, 
 
 Beneath a stormless sky. 
 You flower afresh, like Aaron's rod, 
 Tliat blossom'd at the sight of God."
 
 177 
 
 Moore has given iis the following exquisite 
 verses on 
 
 THE LAST ROSE OF SUMMER. 
 
 " 'Tis the last Rose of Summer, 
 
 Left blooming alone, 
 All her lovely companions 
 
 Are faded and gone; 
 No flower of her kindred, 
 
 No rose-bud is nigh, 
 To reflect back her blushes, 
 
 Or give sigh for sigh. 
 
 ** I'll not leave thee, thou lone one. 
 
 To pine on the stem, 
 Since the lovely are sleeping. 
 
 Go sleep thou with them; 
 Thus kindly I scatter 
 
 Thy leaves o'er the bed, 
 Where thy mates of the garden 
 
 Lie scentless and dead. 
 
 " So soon may I follow, 
 
 When friendships decay, 
 And from Love's shining circle 
 
 The gems drop away; 
 When true hearts lie wither'd. 
 
 And fond ones are flown. 
 Oh! who would inhaljit 
 
 This bleak world alone?"
 
 178 
 
 The following little fanciful article is from the 
 Rev. George Croly's poem of " Sebastian ; " it is 
 entitled, " Zephyr and the Rose-Nymph" and is 
 taken from an Italian ballet. 
 
 " Tis eve, the soft, the purple hour, 
 The dew is glist'ning on the bower, 
 The lily droops its silver head, 
 The violet slumbers on its bed; 
 Heavy with sleep, the leaflets close, 
 Veiling the bloom, enchanting Rose, 
 Still gazing on the western ray. 
 The last sweet worshipper of day; 
 A cloud descends, a meteor plume 
 Shoots dazzling through the twilight gloom. 
 Oh ! who, at this soul-soft'ning hour. 
 So wildly rushes through the bower. 
 Now winging fount, now grot, now grove' 
 Tis Zephyr, led by viewless Love. 
 He darts, where in the deepest dell 
 A fount makes music in its shell ; 
 Upon the woodbine branch above 
 Coos to its mate a snowy dove. 
 He stops; no more his azure gaze 
 On earth, on heaven, upbraiding strays; 
 Charm'd to the spot, his bright'ning eyes 
 See odours from the ground arise, 
 Waving to heaven, with curl and gleam, 
 Touch'd by the sun, a ruby stream 
 They spread, float, fade, on upper air — 
 A simple Rose-tree blushes there. 
 It bends, it breathes, new blossoms swell, 
 On that strange tree of miracle,
 
 179 
 
 Till in its central op'ning shade, 
 He sees a form of beauty laid. 
 
 " But, oh! not on that young cheek glows 
 The blushing of its parent Rose; 
 Low on her breast her head is hung, 
 Her locks upon the wind are flung, 
 Her eye is clos'd, ambrosial sleep 
 Relentless seems her brow to steep. 
 Caught to his heart, she lives, she wakes, 
 On lip and cheek the deep blush breaks; 
 Still o'er the slight unquick'ning limb, 
 In marble folds the garments swim. 
 He smiles — in waving light the robe 
 Floats on her bosom's heaving globe ; 
 No words are whisper'd there, no sigh — 
 What emblem like a lover's eye? 
 All told at once; in mystic dance 
 Their light feet o'er the verdure glance. 
 Now, wreathing close, her ringlets flow 
 On his blue wing and neck of snow; 
 Now, shot asunder, bright and far. 
 Swift as the arrows of a star. 
 They cull the Rose, or press the wine 
 
 From thy rich cluster, melting vine. 
 
 * * * *- * * 
 
 A moment more, like sun-set's beam. 
 Flung loose along the rippling stream. 
 Still bright, they all dissolv'd the rays. 
 In parted groups the dance decays; 
 The music dies, as twilight's wave 
 Subsiding in its marble cave. 
 The dance has paus'd : on grot and hill 
 All is delicious, all is still.
 
 180 
 
 And now the rite is done, that Love 
 
 Shall seal with Hymen's kiss above. 
 
 The blushing bride, the Rose-nymph springs, 
 
 Beside her lord, on sudden vnngs ; 
 
 The troop ascends ; slow wheeling o'er 
 
 The spot their pinions found before ; 
 
 Then up the azure ocean bear 
 
 The nymph in triumph to their sphere.'' 
 
 ON A ROSE. 
 
 From Barry Cormvall. 
 
 " Oh ! thou dull flower, here silently dying : 
 And wilt thou never, then, — never resume 
 Thy colour or perfume ? 
 Alas ! and but last night I saw thee lying 
 Upon the whitest bosom in the world, 
 And now thy crimson leaves are parch'd and curl'd. 
 
 '' Is it that Love hath with his fiery breath 
 Blown on thee, until thou wast fain to perish, 
 (Love who so strives to cherish,) 
 And is the bound so slight 'tween life and death — 
 A step but from the temple to the tomb? 
 Oh ! where hath fled thy beauty, where thy bloom ? 
 
 " For me, last night I envied thee thy place. 
 So near a heart which I may never gain. 
 And now — perhaps in pain, 
 Thou'rt losing all thy fragrance — all thy grace, 
 And yet it was enough for thee to lie 
 On her breast for a moment, and then — die."
 
 181 
 
 The following verses, extracted from a periodical 
 paper, will please you ; I do not know the writer, 
 whose pardon I have to crave, for omitting some 
 stanzas in the following transcript : 
 
 STANZAS, 
 
 Occasioned by looking at a favourite Withered Rose, during the 
 sickness of a Friend. 
 
 " Some seasons have fled, and still they are flying, 
 Since first thou wert pluck'd from the tree, 
 And now the fair form in affliction is lying, 
 That gave thee in beauty to me. 
 
 " Fresh as the morn, and thyself, she was blooming. 
 And often entitled " The Rose," 
 But now my sad heart would forebode her entombing, 
 So near seems her life to its close. 
 
 " Dead as thou art, sweet flower of my keeping, 
 An odour around tliee is spread, 
 And so with " The Rose," for whom I am weeping, 
 Whose memory a fragrance shall shed . 
 
 " But far be the day, — though meek be it spoken. 
 Religion forbids to condemn, — 
 Far, when from me that dear friend shall be broken, 
 Or snapp'd like the Rose from its stem." 
 
 I remain. 
 
 Yours, &c.
 
 LETTER XXII. 
 
 So mix'd the Rose and Lily's white, 
 That Nature seem'd uncertain quite, 
 To deck her cheeks what flowers she chose. 
 The Lily or the blushing Rose." 
 
 My DEAR Anne, 
 
 I HAVE in a former letter taken notice of the 
 *' wars of the Roses ;" but not only have these flow- 
 ers been unnaturally divided against themselves in 
 civil conflict, but they have also been, in an emblem- 
 atical sense, at war with other flowers; and to a 
 fanciful mind, the Rose, the patronymic symbol of 
 Britain, might, with as much propriety, be conse- 
 crated to Mars as to Venus. You are aware, my 
 dear friend, that insular proximity did not prevent it 
 from engaging in hostilities with the Shamrock ; but 
 those contests have long ago terminated in its fa- 
 vour, and now in royal blazonry the emerald flower 
 entwines it as an inseparable companion. The mar- 
 tial Thistle longer persisted, and endured severer 
 contests with the Rose ; but this hardy veteran of
 
 183 
 
 the hills was at length allied to the queen of the 
 garden, communicating strength and deriving beauty 
 from the Union, which Rowe has thus celebrated : 
 
 " While rich in brightest red the blushing Rose 
 Her freshest opening beauties did disclose, 
 Her the rough Thistle from a neighb'ring field 
 With fond desires and lover's eyes beheld : 
 Strait the fierce plant lays by his pointed darts, 
 And 7?oos the gentle flower with softer arts ; 
 Kindly she heard, and did his flame approve, 
 And own'd the warrior worthy of her love. 
 Flora, whose happy laws the seasons guide, 
 Who does in fields and painted meads preside, 
 And crowns the gardens with their flowery pride, 
 With pleasure saw the wishing pair combine, 
 To favour what their goddess did design, 
 And bid them in eternal Union join. 
 ' Henceforth,' she said, ' in each returning year, 
 ' One stem the Thistle and the Rose shall bear; 
 ' The ThisUe's lasting grace, thou, O my Rose, shalt be, 
 ' The warlike Thistle's arms a sure defence to thee.'" 
 
 Virgil and Anacreon, as you will recollect from a 
 former letter, both allude to the union of the Lily 
 and the Rose ; that this union lasted for a conside- 
 rable time, history doth sufficiently prove ; but civil 
 separation produces national animosity ; and the im- 
 perial Fleur-de-lis of France, has often exalted itself 
 against the royal Rose of England — with what suc- 
 cess you know. Cunningham, in one of his Odes, 
 says,
 
 184 
 
 " The vengeful lance Britannia wields 
 In concert with her brave ally, 
 Saves her^jr Roses in the fields, 
 Where Gaul's detested lilies die. 
 Wreaths of eternal friendship spring 
 'Tvi'ixt mighty George and Prussia's king." 
 
 Alas, for the eternity of royal friendships ! There 
 is at present, however, an happy pacification between 
 the rival flowers ; may it ever continue, as it might 
 if they would listen to the dictates of justice, as 
 much as their representatives are said to have done 
 to Flora, in the following contest between 
 
 THE LILY AND THE ROSE. 
 
 " The nymph must lose her female friend, 
 If more admir'd than she — 
 But where will fierce contention end, 
 If flowers can disagree ? 
 
 " Within the garden's peaceful scene 
 Appear'd two lovely foes, 
 Aspiring to the rank of queen. 
 The Lily and the Rose. 
 
 " The Rose soon redden'd into rage, 
 
 And swelling with disdain, 
 
 Appeal'd to many a poet's page. 
 
 To prove her right to reign. 
 
 " The Lily's height bespoke command, 
 A fair imperial flower ; 
 She seem'd design'd for Flora's hand, 
 The sceptre of her power.
 
 185 
 
 " This civil bickering and debate 
 The goddess chanc'd to hear, 
 And flew to save, ere yet too late, 
 The pride of the parterre ; 
 
 " Yours is, she said, the nobler hue, 
 And yours the statelier mieu ; 
 And, till a third surpasses you, 
 Let each be deem'd a queen. 
 
 " Thus, sooth'd and reconcil'd, each seeks 
 The fairest British fair : 
 The seat of empire is her cheeks, 
 
 They reign united there." Cowper. 
 
 One Rose yet remains to be mentioned, and with 
 this I shall conclude; I allude to her, 
 
 " The Royal flower now laid in dust." 
 
 Campbell. 
 
 To name the late Princess Charlotte, is to conjure 
 up a train of feelings, associations, and recollections 
 without parallel in the annals of national bereave- 
 ments. On this occasion, all the Muses wept for 
 the deceased, and strewed her hearse with flowers ; 
 at present I can only recollect the following, with 
 which we were much pleased at the time : 
 q3
 
 186 
 
 THE COBOURG ROSE. 
 
 " Of fragrant scent, and charming hue, 
 In Britain's royal garden grew 
 
 A lovely Rose ; 
 And as he pass'd th' enchanting place, 
 CoBOURG, the blushing flower to grace, 
 
 His bosom chose. 
 
 " Still blooming in the royal bound 
 The plant remain'd, but fenc'd around 
 
 New buds to bear; 
 Phoebus with genial glory smil'd. 
 And zephyrs only, sweet and mild, 
 
 Wav'd through the air. 
 
 " The Rose did bud; yet ere the day 
 Which should its beauteous hue display, 
 
 By Heaven's command, 
 Death pass'd that way in rueful hour, 
 And sudden snatch'd both bud and flower 
 
 With icy hand. 
 
 " For blooming youth, and mental worth, 
 We drop the pitying tear on earth, 
 
 But look above 
 With eye of hope ; for well we know, 
 Death oft removes his flowers to blow 
 
 In realms of love.
 
 187 
 
 " Yes ; there's a better world on high, 
 A garden planted in the sky, 
 
 For ever fair; 
 Still Charlotte and her Son may reign 
 Through grace divine, nor death nor pain 
 
 Can enter there." 
 
 Her Royal Highness herself was an admirer of 
 our flower; and you know how much we used to 
 commend her good taste and national feeling, in 
 selecting, as the general adorning of her head, a 
 magnificent bandeau of Roses. You may perhaps 
 recoUect too, that we were much pleased with an 
 elegant engraving of the Cobourg Rose, repre- 
 senting a miniature portrait of the beloved princess 
 placed amidst the petals of the flower. I cannot 
 transfer that Rose and its portrait to my letter; but 
 I will give you the following sketch from the pen 
 of Montgomery; it is indeed " Prose by a Poet," 
 and appears as rich and warm in colouring to the 
 imagination, as if it were pourtrayed by the pencil 
 to the eye. *' The Princess, it will be remembered, 
 was born in the highest place of polished society ; 
 she had arrived at the gayest period of human life ; 
 she was heiress to the most illustrious throne of 
 Europe; beautiful and affectionate, accomplished 
 and intelligent, esteemed, admired, courted, and 
 revered by her family, her associates, her depen- 
 dants, and her future subjects; above all, loving 
 and beloved (a bliss so rare in palaces), the spouse
 
 188 
 
 of the man whom she had chosen for herself, and 
 about to become the mother of a line of princes, 
 who might reign for ages over the greatest, freest, 
 happiest people in the world. This, and more — 
 yea, all that youth and health and love and rank 
 and power could make her — she was, but a week 
 ago, in the sight of those who looked upon her 
 from below. What is she now ? In the brief phrase 
 of the Poet of Laura, she is nudo spirto e poca polve, 
 ' pure spirit and a little dust.'" This beautiful 
 paragraph is so pregnant with matter for reflection 
 to persons of your age and sex, that I am per- 
 suaded it will be acceptable, whether it finds you 
 at the drawing-room fire-side, or in your rose- 
 covered bower in the garden. 
 
 You are now, my dear Anne, in the possession 
 of nearly all that I recollect on the subject of the 
 Rose ; this is, therefore, the last letter of the series 
 which I commenced for your amusement, and from 
 the perusal of which I am glad to know, that at 
 least you have not experienced disappointment. 
 This, I am aware, has not been owing either to their 
 merit or their correctness, but to your candour ; and a 
 very different judgment might be formed upon the 
 whole, had they been exhibited to a less indulgent 
 critic. Together, however, they form an interesting 
 collection of notices of our favourite flower, and 
 perhaps you will be surprised to find such a number 
 of eminent names connected with so many beautiful 
 contributions to The Rose's Album.
 
 189 
 
 And now, my gentle Friend, adieu '. 
 May Roses ever bloom for you; 
 For you, in youth and age and prime, 
 Still garlanding the brow of time. 
 Long may your op'ning charms disclose 
 The richest hues of beauty's Rose; 
 In love, may every sacred bower 
 Be fragrant with the Paphian flower. 
 When Hymen binds your willing hands, 
 May Rose-wreaths be your nuptial bands, 
 And in your dear domestic round, 
 Long bud, and blossom, and abound . 
 When in the fields you walk abroad, 
 May fragrant Roses hedge the road, 
 And more luxuriantly invest 
 The garden alcove where you rest; 
 And when you sit within your room. 
 May Rose-trees in the window bloom. 
 Thus through your changeful scenes of life, 
 As daughter, mother, friend, or wife. 
 May happiness with Rose-wreaths wait. 
 Crowning each blest belov'd estate! 
 Then, when our fav'rite flower you see, 
 Will you still sometimes think on me ; 
 On me, who pluck'd, to wreathe your hair, 
 The summer Roses, sweet and fair? 
 Accept the chaplet twin'd for you ; 
 And now, my dearest Friend, adieu ! 
 
 I remain, 
 
 Yours. &c.
 
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