256 Landscape Gardening 



shapes which the plant has taken in by-gone days, and 

 which have perished with the thousand other refinements 

 and luxuries of the nations who cultivated and enjoyed 

 them.* 



All this variety of form, so far from destroying the admira- 

 tion of mankind for the rose, actually increases it. This 

 very character of infinity, in its beauty, makes it the symbol 

 and interpreter of the affections of all ranks, classes, and 

 conditions of men. The poet, amid all the perfections of 

 the parterre, still prefers the scent of the woods and the 

 air of freedom about the original blossom, and says - 



"Fur dearer to me is the wild flower that grows 

 Unseen by the brook where in shadow it flows." 



The cabbage-rose, that perfect emblem of healthful rural 

 life, is the pride of the cottager; the China rose, which 

 cheats the window of the crowded city of its gloom, is the 

 joy of the daughter of the humblest day laborer; the delicate 

 and odorous tea rose, fated to be admired and to languish in 

 the drawing-room or the boudoir, wins its place in the 

 affections of those of most cultivated and fastidious tastes; 

 while the moss rose unites the admiration of all classes, com- 



* Many of our readers may not be aware to what perfection the 

 culture of flowers was once carried in Rome. During Csesar's reign, so 

 abundant had forced flowers become in that city, that when the Egyp- 

 tians, intending to compliment him on his birthday, sent him roses in 

 midwinter, they found their present almost valueless from the profusion 

 of roses in Home. The following translation of Martial's Latin Ode to 

 Csesar upon this present, will give some idea of the state of floricul- 

 ture then. There can scarcely be a doubt that there were hundreds of 

 sorts of roses known to, and cultivated by the Romans, now entirely lost. 



"The ambitious inhabitants of the land, watered by the Nile, have 

 sent llicc. () Caesar, the roses of winter, as a present, valuable for its 

 novelty. But the boatman of Memphis will laugh at the gardens of 

 Pharaoh as soon as he has taken one step in thy capital city; for the 

 spring in all its charms, and the flowers in their fragrance and beauty, 

 equal the glory of the fields of Ptestum. Wherever he wanders, or casts 

 his eyes, every street is brilliant with garlands of roses. And thou, O 

 Nile! must yield to the fogs of Rome. Send us thy harvests, and we 

 will send thee roses." A. J. D. 



