248 ROSACE^E 



of those days fully shared. Shakspere in more places than one designates 

 it thus : — 



' ' 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 summer's 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." 



Notwithstanding this opinion, however, this Rose is not only beautiful, but 

 even slightly fragrant. It is still called Canker Rose in Devonshire, and 

 probably its old name lingers in the villages of some other counties. The 

 blossom is generally over by July, but occasionally a few stray roses may 

 appear on the bush in autumn, a circumstance which, in former times, was 

 deemed a certain " signe of an insuing plague." 



The Dog-rose affords several varieties of garden Roses, and some Rose-trees 

 of this species attain a great age, the stems acquiring considerable thickness. 

 Many of our hardy Rose plants are long-lived, though we have none which is 

 like that Wild Rose-tree which Humboldt mentions as growing in the crypt of 

 the Cathedral at Hildersheim, said to be a thousand years old ; though this 

 writer adds, that it is the root only, and not the stem, which is proved by 

 accurate and trustworthy original documents to be eight centuries old. " A 

 legend," he says, " connects this Rose-tree with a vow made by the first 

 founder of the Cathedral, Ludwig the Pious ; and an original document of 

 the eleventh century says, that when the Bishop Hezilio rebuilt the Cathedral, 

 which had been burnt down, he enclosed the roots of a Rose-tree within a 

 vault which still exists,' raised upon this vault the crypt, which was conse- 

 crated in 1061, and spread out the branches of the rose-tree on the walls. 

 The stem, now living, is about twenty-six feet and a half high, and about 

 two inches thick, and the outspread branches cover about thirty-two feet 

 of the external wall of the eastern crypt; it is doubtless of considerable 

 antiquity, and well deserving of the celebrity which it has gained throughout 

 Germany." 



When the artist represents the floral badge of our country, he does not 

 often depict our native Hedge-rose, for time and custrom have sanctioned the 

 practice of choosing one of those full Roses whose petals have been increased 

 in number by culture, or which are the product of other lands. But the Rose 

 is always beautiful everywhere, although the blossoms of Eastern countries 

 and of Southern Europe far exceed ours in hue and fragrance. In Greece the 

 lovely and fragrant Rose, known in England as the Cabbage-rose, is abundant, 

 and it won for the Isle of Rhodes its name, while in some countries larger, 

 though not sweeter, roses are to be found than these. Meyen tells of some 

 thorny Rose-bushes, growing in the forests of Missouri, above St. Louis, which 

 ascend to the tops of the highest trees, and adorn them with countless red 

 blossoms. 



The Holy Land has beautiful wild Roses still growing there ; and though 

 doubtless our translators of Scripture have sometimes rendered an original 



