792 ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. PART III. 



In the East, the rose has always been a favourite with the poets. They 

 represent the nightingale as sighing for its love ; and many beautiful verses 

 are derived from this fable. " In a curious fragment by the celebrated 

 Persian poet Attar, entitled Bulbul Namely The Book of the Nightingale, all 

 the birds appear before Solomon, and charge the nightingale with disturbing 

 their rest, by the broken and plaintive strains which he warbles forth all the 

 night in a sort of frenzy and intoxication. The nightingale is summoned, 

 questioned, and acquitted by the wise king; because the bird assures him, 

 that his vehement love for the rose drives him to distraction, and causes him 

 to break forth into those passionate and touching complaints which are laid 

 to his charge." (Tlie Language of Flowers, p. 116.) The Persians also assert 

 that " the nightingale, in spring, flutters around the rose bushes, uttering 

 incessant complaints, till, overpowered by the strong scent, he drops stupified 

 on the ground." (Ibid.) Mr. Rivers, in the Gard. Mag. y vol. x. p. 133., men- 

 tions that Sir John Malcolm told him that, when in Persia, he had once 

 breakfasted on an immense heap, or rather mount, of roses, which the Per- 

 sians had raised in honour of him. 



The Turks believe that roses sprang from the perspiration of Mahomet : 

 for which reason, they never tread upon a rose leaf, or suffer one to lie on 

 the ground ; they also sculpture a rose on the tombstones of females who die 

 unmarried. There are many legends related of roses in the East. The story 

 of the learned Zeb, who intimated by a rose leaf that he might be received 

 into the silent academy at Amadan, is well known. The vacant place for 

 which he applied having been filled up before his arrival, the president inti- 

 mated this to him by filling a glass so full of water, that a single additional 

 drop would have made it run over ; but Zeb contrived to place the petal of 

 a rose so delicately on the water as not to disturb it in the least, and was 

 rewarded for his ingenious allusion by instant admission into the society. 

 According to the Hindoo mythology, Pagoda Siri, one of the wives of Vish- 

 nu, was found in a rose. 



The Rose ivas also celebrated in the Catholic Church. "Marullus tells a story 

 of a holy virgin, named Dorothea, who suffered martyrdom in Caesarea, under 

 the government of Fabricius, and who converted to Christianity a scribe 

 named Theophilus, by sending him some roses, in the winter time, out of 

 Paradise. A golden rose was considered so honourable a present, that none 

 but crowned heads were thought worthy either to give or to receive it. 

 Roses of this kind were sometimes consecrated by the popes on Good Friday, 

 and given to such potentates as it was their particular interest or wish to 

 load with favours ; the flower itself being an emblem of the mortality of the 

 body, and the cold of which it was composed of the immortality of the soul." 

 (Lindl. Ros. Monog., pref. xv.) In an old mosaic, in the church of St. 

 Susan, at Rome, Charlemagne is represented kneeling, and receiving from St. 

 Peter a standard covered with roses. The custom of blessing the rose is still 

 preserved in Rome, and the day on which the ceremony is performed is called 

 Dominica in Rosa. The rose was always considered as a mystical emblem by 

 the Catholic church ; and, as Schlegel observes, it enters into the composition 

 of all the ornaments of Gothic churches, in combination with the cross. The 

 seal of Luther was a rose. In 530, St. Medard, Bishop of Noyon, instituted 

 a festival at Salency, his birthplace, for adjudging annually the prize of a 

 crown of roses to the girl who should be acknowledged by all her competitors 

 to be the most amiable, modest, and dutiful in the village ; and he had the 

 pleasure of crowning his own sister as the first rose queen. This custom was 

 continued to the time of Madame de Genlis, who, in the first volume of her 

 Theatre d'E'ducation, has written a beautiful little drama, entitled La Rosicre 

 de Salency, on the subject. In the middle ages, the knights at a tournament 

 wore a rose embroidered on their sleeves, as an emblem that gentleness 

 should accompany courage, and that beauty was the reward of valour. About 

 this period, the rose was considered so precious in France, that, in several 

 parts of the country, none but the rich and powerful were allowed to cultivate 



