200 NATURE AND LIFE. 



fragrance to their baths, their rooms, their beds, and their 

 drinks. They poured them on the heads of guests. The 

 awning shielding the amphitheatre was saturated with 

 scented water which dripped, like a fragrant rain, on the 

 spectators' heads. The very Roman eagles were anointed 

 with the richest perfumes before battle. At the funeral of 

 his wife Poppaea, Nero burned on the pyre more incense 

 than Arabia yielded in a whole year. It is related, too, 

 that Plancius Plancus, proscribed by the triumvirs, was 

 betrayed by the perfumes he had used, and thus discovered 

 to the soldiers sent to pursue him. Besides the odors ex- 

 tracted from mint, marjoram, and the violet, which were 

 the most common, the ancients made much use of the roses 

 of Psestum, and various aromatic substances, such as spike- 

 nard, megalium, cinnamon, opobalsamum, etc. 



It is singular to notice that the use of perfumes, brought 

 from Rome with Grecian manners, was in its turn conveyed 

 to France and Northern Europe with Latin manners, 

 and chiefly by the Romish religion. It is from religious 

 rites, indeed, that it passed into ceremonies of state, and 

 thence into private life. Among the presents sent by Ha- 

 roun-al-Raschid to Charlemagne were many perfumes. In 

 the middle ages, among princes and men of highest rank, 

 they washed their hands with rose-water, before and after 

 eating; some even had fountains from which aromatized 

 waters flowed. At this period, too, it was the custom to 

 carry the dead to their burial-place with uncovered face, 

 and to place little pots full of perfumes in the coffin. The 

 French monarchy always showed an unrestrained passion 

 for enjoyments of this nature, which seemed created as 

 a necessary attendant upon all others. Marshal Riche- 

 lieu so extravagantly indulged his passion for perfumes 

 under every form, that he lost the perception of them, and 

 lived habitually in an atmosphere so loaded with scents, 

 that it made his visitors ill. Madame Tallien, coming from 



