520 pfant "bore, Tsege^/, anel "ls)Ljric/. 



crowning his own sister as the first Rose Queen of Salency, in 

 which obscure village this pleasant institution still exists. At the 

 present time, however, the Rosiere has a douceur of three hundred 

 francs presented to her. Of late years the institution of the Rosiere 

 has been introduced into this country by a Roman Catholic priest 

 who labours in the east of London. The Academy of Floral Games 

 at Toulouse, founded in 1322, and still in existence, was wont to 

 give a Rose as a prize for the best poem. From 1288 to 1589 the 

 French dukes and peers of all degrees were obliged in the Spring 

 which followed their nomination to present a tribute of Roses to 

 Parliament. 



The association of the flower with our own country dates from 

 a very early period ; and we find Pliny doubting whether the name 

 Albion referred to the white cliffs of our island or the white Roses 

 which grew there in abundance. In Edward the Third's reign a 

 gold coin was struck called the " Rose noble," which bore the 

 figure of a Rose on one of its faces. As the badge of the rival 

 houses of York and Lancaster, the flower became celebrated in 

 English history — the White Rose being the hereditary cognisance 

 of the house of York, and the Red Rose that of Lancaster. Shak- 

 speare (in Henry VL) represents the feud between the two houses 

 as having originated in the Temple Gardens, where after a fierce 

 altercation, Warwick addresses Plantagenet thus : — 



. " In signal of my love to thee, 

 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 Red Rose and the White 

 A thousands souls to death and deadly night.' 



Like the Gilliflower, the Rose was occasionally taken as a quit- 

 rent; thus we find in 1576 that the then Bishop of Ely granted to 

 Sir Christopher Hatton the greater portion of Ely House, Holborn, 

 for a term of twenty-one years, on consideration of the tenant paying 

 annually a red Rose for the garden and gate-house, and giving the 

 Bishop free access to the gardens, with the right of gathering 

 twenty bushels of Roses every year. 



In the East, the Rose is an objedl: of peculiar esteem. The 

 Oriental poets have united the beauteous Rose with the melodious 

 nightingale ; and the flower is fabled to have burst forth from its 

 bud at the song of the warbler of the night. The poet Jami says — 

 " You may place a handful of fragrant herbs and flowers before the 

 nightingale ; yet he wishes not in his constant heart for more than 

 the sweet breath of his beloved Rose." 

 " Though rich the spot 



With every flower this earth has got, 



What is it to the nightingale, 



If there his darling Rose is not?" — Moore, 



Persia is the veritable land of Roses : nowhere does the queen 

 of flowers reign in such glorious majesty. Zoroaster himself, the 



