THE ^JOSE-GAKDEN", 



CHAPTER XXXII. 



1817. The queen of flowers seems to have escaped from the realms of poesy, 

 for we do not find that any of our recent poets make use of the brilliancy of 

 its colours or the fragrance of its odours in their metaphorical pictures ; it is 

 no longer the favoured theme, as it was with the older poets, to cele- 

 brate the beauties of this favourite flower. And yet how insignificant are 

 the beauties of the rose as they were known even a century ago, when com- 

 pared with those of our day. The stores of the East and the West, the tropical 

 forest and the gardens of the flowery land, have been ransacked to fill our 

 hothouses and gardens ; and it need .10 longer be a[novelty to find a rival to the 

 cultivator whose boast it ^^ as thirty years ago that he had a different rose 

 for his buttonhole ever}- day in the year. The immense variations into which 

 nature and art have combined to divide the family would render this an 

 easy boast in the present day. Among the ancients, the rose was conse- 

 crated to beauty, to love, and to friendship. The white rose was the sacred 

 emblem of confidential friendship and social observances ; and when suspended 

 over the festive board, all that transpired there was considered inviolable : — 



" Dear to earth its smiling bloom. 

 Dear to heaven its rich perfume." 



1 8 18. Without wasting our space in discussing the praises bestowed on thia 

 delight of the gods and favourite of the muses, it may be mentioned that Dr. 

 Deslongchamps, who has written a learned monograph on the rose, tells us, 

 on the authority of Seneca, that the Roman gardeners had discovered the 

 means of constructing hothouses, which they heated by means of tubes filled 

 with hot water, by which means they induced roses and lilies to bloom in 

 December. Pliny also tells us that roses were produced before their natural 



