Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 193 



There the firft parents, 



" Lulled by nightingales, embracing flept, 

 And on their naked limbs the flowery roof 

 Shower'd rofes which the morn repaired." 



Eve is painted, 



" Veiled in a cloud of fragrance, where me flood, 

 Half fpied, fo thick the rofes blufhing round 

 About her glow'd." 



And when Adam firft learns his wife's tranf- 

 greflion : 



" From his flack hand the garland wreath' d for Eve 

 Down dropt, and all the faded rofes fhed." 1 



Shakefpeare's rofes are thofe which bloflbmed 

 on the hedges by the Avon, and in the little 

 cottage-plots with which he was moft familiar. 

 His " fweet mufk-rofes " are the wildings of his 

 own country lanes. He has ftamped an indelible 

 aflbciation on this flower by relating the ftory of 

 red and white rofes becoming the badges of the 

 rival houfes of York and Lancafter (" i Henry VI.," 

 ii. 4). All who have read the beautiful "Virgin 

 Martyr " of Maffinger will remember how felici- 

 toufly he makes ufe of the legend which tells that 

 rofes were fent down from Paradife to ftrengthen 

 the martyr's refolution. 



The rofe was efpecially facred to Venus. She 

 was fabled to have rifen from the fea dropping 

 rofes over Rhodes, itfelf named from and famous 

 for that flower. 2 Another legend told that me 



1 "Par. Loft," iv. 697, 771, and ix. 425. 



2 Ovid, "Fail.," v. 354: 



" Et monet aetatis fpecie, dum floreat, uti ; 

 Contemni fpinam, cum cecidere rofae." 



O 



