40 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. 



order for his nurseryman. In their joys and in 

 their sorrows the Rose was their favorite flower, 

 and the Corona conviviaHs, the Corona nuptiaHs, 

 and the Corona funebris, were wreathed aUke from 

 the Rose. They made wine from Roses, con- 

 serves from Roses, perfumes,* oil, and medicine 

 from Roses. The Rosa canina took its name, it 

 is said, Hke the Kvi^opoSov of the Greeks, from its 

 supposed power to cure h}'drophobia; and they 

 used it, finally, in the embalming of their dead, 

 and in adorning the tombs of their heroes. 



Such are m}' slender memories of classical 

 allusion to the Rose ; but I do not lament this 

 scantiness, because **I have no opinion," as Mr. 

 Lillyvick remarked concerning the French lan- 

 guage, of Greek or Roman floriculture. It was 

 the only art in which they did not excel. We 

 know nothing of Greek gardening, and that which 

 we know of Roman is a disappointment. The 

 arrangement was formal and monotonous. They 

 had " come to build stately, but not to garden 

 finely:" and upon terraces and under colonnades, 

 around bath-rooms and statue-groups, they placed 



* The Historians of perfumer)' tell us that the Rose was the first 

 flower from which perfume was made, and that Avicenna, an illus- 

 trious Arabian doctor, who discovered the art of extracting the per- 

 fume of flowers by distillation, made his first experiment upon Rosa 

 centifolia, and so invented Rose-water. 



