45 

 THE DAMASK KOSE. 



(ROSA DAMASCENA.) 



Rosier Damas. 



THE ' Damask Rose ' is a name familiar to every 

 reader of English poetry, as it has been eulogised 

 more than any other rose, and its colour described 

 with a poet's licence. The author of Eb'then, in 

 that lively book of Eastern travel, remarks, while 

 at Damascus, that the rose-trees 'grow to an 

 immense height and size ; those I saw were all of 

 the kind we call Damask.' He is, however, so 

 enraptured with the roses, that he leaves the sober 

 path of prose in the following passage : ( High, 

 high above your head, and on every side all down 

 to the ground, the thicket is hemmed in and 

 choked up by the interlacing boughs that droop 

 with the weight of roses, and load the slow air 

 with their Damask breath.' 



In these glowing descriptions the truth, as is 

 frequently the case in poetry, has been in a measure 

 lost sight of; for, in plain unvarnished prose, it 

 must be stated that the original Damask Rose, 

 and the earlier varieties, such as must have been 

 the roses of our poets, though peculiarly fragrant, 

 are most uninteresting trees : however, we must 

 not ungratefully depreciate them, for they are the 

 types of our present new, beautiful, and fragrant 

 varieties. The original species with single flowers 



