THE HISTORY AND CULTIVATION OF THE ROSE. 25 



From the fall of the Roman Empire little can be 

 gathered for a great length of time; the Rose shared in the 

 general oblivion to which flowers were consigned during 

 the dark ages. In the fourteenth century the Italian 

 writers mention it among other flowers, and the Italian 

 horticulturists have of late years obtained an unenviable 

 notoriety for their dexterity in making Roses assume the 

 appearance of being grafted on the orange, oleander, and 

 other plants. 



The taste for flowers which attained to such an extra- 

 ordinary height in Holland during the seventeenth century, 

 has little bearing on our subject. Although the Moss 

 Rose was originally received in England from Holland, I 

 believe the Rose had little or no part in the extravagant 

 transactions which took place there during the Florimania. 

 Roses were cultivated largely in France during the four- 

 teenth century for uses in public feasts, &c. In several 

 villages in France there exists at the present day Rose 

 Fetes, at which among other ceremonies it is customary 

 for the villagers to place a crown of Roses upon the head 

 of the young girl who may be deemed the most virtuous. 

 Writers of various countries have delighted to dwell on the 

 Rose, and numerous are the ingenious and interesting 

 tales they have conjured up concerning it. We have not, 

 however, time to relate them here. Among our own poets 

 who have written on this flower, we number Chaucer, 

 Spenser, Shakespeare, Beaumont, Milton, Byron, Moore, 

 Cowper, Mrs Hemans, and almost every name of high 

 reputation. 



With regard to the cultivation of the Rose in our own 

 country in the olden times, I have not been able to gather 

 much information. It might not have been cultivated to 

 a great extent, but the favourable mention made of it by 

 some of the early writers warrants us at least in supposing 

 it to have been an admired flower. In the fifteenth 

 century it must have been brought prominently before our 

 forefathers in the wars of the houses of York and 



