1 68 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. 



satisfy curiosity by informing me who first called the Pro- 

 vence Rose "Old Cabbage," and why?* For myself, "I 

 should as soon have thought of calling an earthquake gen- 

 teel," as Dr Maitland remarked, when an old lady near to 

 him during an oratorio declared the Hallelujah Chorus to 

 be "very pretty." It must have been a tailor who sub- 

 stituted the name of his beloved esculent for a word so full- 

 fraught with sweetness, so suggestive of the brave and the 

 beautiful, of romance and poesy, sweet minstrelsy and 

 trumpet-tones. The origin of the title Provence is, I am 

 aware, somewhat obscure. Mr Rivers thinks that it cannot 

 have been given because the Rose was indigenous to Pro- 

 vence in France, or our French brethren would have proudly 

 claimed it, instead of knowing it only by its specific name, 

 Rose a cent fmillcs ; but we may have received it, neverthe- 

 less, from Provence, as Provence, when Provincia, received 

 it — Rosa centifolia — from her Roman masters, and may have 

 named it accordingly ; or we may have had it direct from 

 Italy, as stated in Haydn's Dictionary of Dates. Be this as 

 it may, we have all the rhyme, and enough of the reason, to 



* I am, sub rosd, well aware that (as Miller writes in his Dictionary) the 

 Cabbage Rose is so called "because its petals are closely folded over each 

 other like cabbages." 



