216 History and Cultivation of the Host. 



our first parents were placed, while yet innocent, in the Garden of 

 Eden, and taught to dress it. It is a good place to educate the 

 children, for you can give a lecture on vegetation or botany with 

 plenty of illustrations before you. And, as a good writer, treat- 

 ing " On the Pleasures peculiar to Old Age," refers to the "joy- 

 ous spirit of children," and its influence on the aged, we would 

 like to add that few pleasures are to be compared with that of the 

 venerable father or grandfather who is gratifying the children 

 with fruits and flowers of his own production. If " Music hath 

 charms to tame the savage breast," and 



" The man who hath no music in his soul 

 Is fit for treason, stratagems, and spoils," 



we would modestly suggest that there is a music, addressed not 

 to the ear, but the eye, and has much power to allay the stormj'', 

 wicked passions of the himian heart. And how much this tran- 

 quilizing influence is needed to subdue the acrimony of political 

 strife, or assuage the animosity of family discord ! 



THE HISTORY AND CULTIVATION OF THE ROSE. 



BY D. W. RAY. 



ROSE freshly gathered, trembling with the 

 dew that makes its brilliant colors 

 more bright, is a fitting object to 

 deck a bride or inspire a poet. 



Roses come to us as the earliest 

 flowers praised and known among the 

 Ancients. "The mythological history 

 *of the rose is that the first rose ever 

 seen was given to Hippocrates by the 

 god of silence to conceal the amours 

 of the goddess Venus ; and hence it became a custom among the 

 ancient Greeks and Romans, at their feasts, and in their banquet 

 halls, for the guests to place a rose over their heads, thus indicating 

 that the guests were under no restraint, and that what was said would 

 not be repeated elsewhere. Thus originated the practice of saying 



