792 ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. PART III. 
In the East, the rose has always been a favourite with the poets. They 
represent the nightingale as sighing for its love; and many beautiful verses 
are derived from this fable. “In a curious fragment by the celebrated 
Persian poet Attar, entitled Bulbul Nameh, The Book of the Nightingale, all 
the birds appear before Solomon, and charge the nightingale with disturbing 
their rest, by the broken and plaintive strains which he warbles forth all the 
night in a sort of frenzy and intoxication. The nightingale is summoned, 
questioned, and acquitted by the wise king; because the bird assures him, 
that his vehement love for the rose drives him to distraction, and causes him 
to break forth into those passionate and touching complaints which are laid 
to his charge.” (The Language of Flowers, p. 116.) The Persians also assert 
that “the nightingale, in spring, flutters around the rose bushes, uttering 
incessant complaints, till, overpowered by the strong scent, he drops stupified 
on the ground.” (Jbid.) Mr. Rivers, in the Gard. Mag., vol. x. p. 133., men- 
tions that Sir John Malcolm told him that, when in Persia, he had once 
breakfasted on an immense heap, or rather mount, of roses, which the Per- 
sians had raised in honour of him. 
The Turks believe that roses sprang from the perspiration of Mahomet : 
for which reason, they never tread upon a rose leaf, or suffer one to lie on 
the ground ; they also sculpture a rose on the tombstones of females who die 
unmarried. There are many legends related of roses in the East. The story 
of the learned Zeb, who intimated by a rose leaf that he might be received 
into the silent academy at Amadan, is well known. The vacant place for 
which he applied having been filled up before his arrival, the president inti~ 
mated this to him by filling a glass so full of water, that a single additional 
drop would have made it run over; but Zeb contrived to place the petal of 
arose so delicately on the water as not to disturb it in the least, and was 
rewarded for his ingenious allusion by instant admission into the society. 
According to the Hindoo mythology, Pagoda Siri, one of the wives of Vish- 
nu, was found in a rose. 
The Rose was also celebrated in the Catholic Church. “ Marullus tells a story 
of a holy virgin, named Dorothea, who suffered martyrdom in Cesarea, under 
the government of Fabricius, and who converted to Christianity a scribe 
named Theophilus, by sending him some roses, in the winter time, out of 
Paradise. A golden rose was considered so honourable a present, that none 
but crowned heads were thought worthy either to give or to receive it. 
Roses of this kind were sometimes consecrated by the popes on Good Friday, 
and given to such potentates as it was their particular interest or wish to 
load with favours ; the flower itself being an emblem of the mortality of the 
body, and the gold of which it was composed of the immortality of the soul.” 
(Lindl. Ros. Monog., pref. xv.) In an old mosaic, in the church of St. 
Susan, at Rome, Charlemagne is represented kneeling, and receiving from St. 
Peter a standard covered with roses. The custom of blessing the rose is still 
preserved in Rome, and the day on which the ceremony is performed is called 
Dominicain Rosa. The rose was always considered as a mystical emblem by 
the Catholic church; and, as Schlegel observes, it enters into the composition 
ofall the ornaments of Gothic churches, in combination with the cross. The 
seal of Luther was arose. In 530, St. Médard, Bishop of Noyon, instituted 
a festival at Salency, his birthplace, for adjudging annually the prize of a 
crown of roses to the girl who should be acknowledged by all her competitors 
to be the most amiable, modest, and dutiful in the village; and he had the 
pleasure of crowning his own sister as the first rose queen. This custom was 
continued to the time of Madame de Genlis, who, in the first volume of her 
Théatre @ E’ducation, has written a beautiful little drama, entitled La Rosiére 
de Salency, on the subject. In the middle ages, the knights at a tournament 
wore a rose embroidered on their sleeves, as an emblem that gentleness 
should accompany courage, and that beauty was the reward of valour. About 
this period, the rose was considered so precious in France, that, in several 
parts of the country, none but the rich and powerful were allowed to cultivate 
