The History of the Rose. 



The famous gardens of Babylon, which are supposed to have existed 2000 years 

 before the Christian era, would probably number the Rose among their treasures. This, 

 of course, can be but conjecture, though the probability is increased when we con- 

 sider that the neighbouring country, Persia, has ever been famous for the Roses it 

 naturally produces. Roses are also plentiful in Palestine. Hasselquist, the Swedish 

 naturalist, a pupil Q{ Linnaeus, who travelled in the Holy Land, alludes to the 

 Damask, the Double White, the Common Red, and the Cinnamon, as the principal 

 varieties there. 



Homer, the most ancient of all the profane writers, uses the Rose figuratively both 

 in the Iliad and the Odyssey; and about 2000 years have rolled away since Sappho 

 christened it the " Queen of Flowers." Philostratus (Epistle 73), writing of this lyric 

 poet, says, " Sappho was enamoured of the Rose, and bestows upon it always some 

 distinguished praise ; she likens it to the most beautiful of maidens." 



It were scarcely necessary to search the Greek authors for quotations to show in 

 what esteem that people held our flower. Ancient history, by which their customs 

 are handed down to us, bears sufficient evidence of its popularity. The Rose, with 

 other flowers, was used by them in times of public rejoicings, in their religious 

 ceremonies, and the youth of both sexes wore them in the fetes. They consecrated 

 it to Venus, Cupid, Aurora, and also to Harpocrates, the God of Silence. If it was 

 dedicated to Venus as an emblem of beauty, and to Cupid as an emblem of love, we 

 may conjecture wherefore it was also dedicated to the goddess of the morning ; it 

 was the symbol of youth. But beyond this, the Greeks doubtless were alive to the 

 fact that the Rose is most beautiful at sunrise ; then, newly expanded by the breath of 

 morn, there is visible all that freshness in which consists so much of its peculiar 

 beauty, and which soon vanishes before the radiance of a summer's sun. From its 

 being consecrated to Harpocrates, the God of Silence, probably arose that custom 

 practised in the north of Europe, but now almost fallen into desuetude, of suspending 

 a Rose from the ceiling at convivial or other meetings, to signify that what 

 transpired was of a confidential nature. " The White Rose has long been considered 

 as sacred to silence ; over whatever company it was suspended no secrets were ever 

 revealed, for it hung only above the festal board of sworn friendship. No matter 

 how deep they might drink, or how long the wine-cup might circulate round the 

 table, so long as the White Rose hung over their heads every secret was considered 

 inviolable ; no matter how trivial or how important the trust, beneath that flower it 

 was never betrayed, for around it was written the sentence 



He who doth secrets reveal 

 Beneath my roof shall never live. 



What faith and what confidence must there have been between man and man in the 

 olden time, when only the presence of a flower was needed to prevent the maligning 



