144 ON FLOWERS. 



and trust, — hung in ancient time above the festal board of 

 sworn friendship, a custom still known to us as emblematic of 

 confidence and secrecy, by our common phrase of " sub rosa" 

 — "under the rose." In the scripture, frequent mention is 

 made of the rose. The desert was to blossom as the rose," 

 and there was the " Rose of Sharon," and the " Rose of Jeri- 

 cho." In Ecclesiasticus is this passage, "Hearken unto me, 

 ye holy children, and bud forth as a Rose growing by the 

 brook of the field." The gay Anacreon calls the Rose "the 

 most beautiful of flowers," — " the delight of the gods," the 

 favorite of the muses." Hear into what a rapture of song he 

 breaks forth, upon this, his most favorite theme ! 



" Rose, thou art the sweetest flower, 

 That ever drank the amber shower I 

 Rose, thou art the fondest child, 

 Of dimpled spring, the wood nymph wild. 

 Even the gods that walk the sky, 

 Are amorous of thy scented sigh ; 

 Tlien bring me showers of roses bring, 

 And shed them round me while I sing." 



Homer uses it in his figures ; Sappho, the lyric poetess, was 

 enamored of it ; and the Latin poets, Virgil, Ovid, and Martial, 

 all speak of its praises. Who can ever forget Virgil's reference 

 to the old Corycian gardener : 



" Who gathered earliest Roses in the spring, 

 And from his trees the richest fruits did bring." 



The cultivation of flowers, and especially of the Rose, by 

 the Romans, was carried to the utmost excess. Their festal 

 rooms were strown with its leaves, and the statues of their 

 Gods were crowned with chaplets of Roses. Nero, spent $150,- 

 000, in procuring Roses enough for a single feast, a shameless 

 and wicked prodigality, yet perfectly characteristic of this 

 debauched wantonizer and execrable tyrant. 



But the developement of this beautiful Flower and its ela- 

 borate culture was left for the moderns.- and English and 

 French Florists have vied with each other in the production of 

 new and splendid varieties, by hybridizing, entirely unknown 

 to the ancients. The hardy kinds only, are those we com- 

 mend for culture in the Farm-garden, and we append a short 



