74 GEAKT DES BATAILLES. 



Fabulous writers on the Eose have said the Red Eose has been 

 indebted to tlie blood which flowed from the feet of Venus when running 

 through the woods in despair for the loss of Adonis ; as the White 

 Eose is also said to have sprung from the tears which she shed upon 

 that occasion. Our readers will remember that the Eed Eose has been 

 usually termed, from its long dwelling with us, the English Eose. 



The often-expressed Bed of Eoses is not altogether a fiction. The 

 Eoses in the garden attached to the Palace of the Emperor of Mo- 

 rocco, it has been said, are unequalled, and mattresses are made of their 

 floral leaves for persons of rank to recline upon. Eastern poets have 

 united the Eose with tlie nightingale ; the Venus of Flowers with the 

 Apollo of Birds ; and they have supposed the Eose has burst forth 

 from its bud at the song of the nightingale. Persia is the very land of 

 Roses. A festival is held, called the feast of Eoses, which lasts the 

 whole time they are in bloom. 



Sir E. K. Porter, speaking of the garden of one of the royal 

 palaces of Persia, says, " On my first entering this bower of fairy land, 

 I was struck with the appearance of two Eose-trees, full fourteen feet 

 high, laden with thousands of flowers, in everj"^ degree of expansion, and 

 of a bloom and delicacy of scent that imbued the whole atmosphere with 

 exquisite perfume. And I believe that in no country does the Eose 

 grow in such perfection as in Persia, nor cultivated so extensively and 

 prized by the natives. Their gardens and courts are crowded by its 

 plants, their rooms ornamented with vases filled with the gathered 

 bunches, and every bath strewed w-ith the full-blown flowers. But in 

 this delicious garden of Nesaaristan, the eye and the smell are not the 

 only senses regaled by the Rose ; but the ear is enchanted by the wild 

 and beautiful notes of multitudes of nightingales, whose warblings 

 seem to increase in melody and softness with the unfolding of their 

 favourite flowers. Here, indeed, is the genuine country of the nightin- 

 gale and the Rose." 



Sir "W. Ouseley says, in his Travels in the East, " On a visit to a 

 man of high rank at Teliaran, though tliere was a great profusion of 

 meat and fruit at the entertainment, it might have been styled the 

 feast of Roses, for the floor of the great hall was spread in the middle 

 and in the recess with Roses, forming the figures of Cypress trees. 

 Roses decorated all the candlesticks. The surface of tlie reservoir of 

 water was completely covered with Rose leaves : the walks, too, were 

 thickly scattered over with them." 



The Rose was in high esteem with the Romans, and they were at 

 great expense to procure them in winter. Suetonius states that the 

 Emperor Nero spent thirty thousand pounds for Roses at one supper. 

 When Roses are associated with a moral meaning, they are generally 

 identified with mere pleasure ; but some writers, witli a juster senti- 

 ment, have made them emblems of virtue. 



Now eveiy country boasts of the Rose, and every beholder of the 

 increased beauties admire them ; and it is our national emblem. In the 

 first volume of our Magazine, eighteen years ago, we inserted a de- 

 scriptive list of one thousand kinds of Roses ; and to that number we 

 have annually added a description of new and improved varieties. At 



