Nat. Obd. HosACEiS. 



EAELY WILD ROSE. 



Eosa Blanda. 



"Xor did I wonder at the lilies wbite^ 

 Nor praise the deep vermillion of the rose.*^ 



Shakespeare. 



" Tlie rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem, 

 For that sweet odour which in it doth live." 



Shakespeare. 



UR Artist has given us in the present plate a charming 

 specimen of one of our native roses. The early flowering 

 Rose {Rosa blanda) is hardly so deeply tinted as our 

 dwarf wild rose, rosa lucida, but both possess attractions 

 of colour and fragrance ; qualities that have made the rose to be the 

 them, of many a poet's song. In the flowery language of the East, 

 beauty and the rose seem almost to be synonymous. The Italian 

 poets are full of allusions to the rose, especially to the red damask 

 rose, which they call '^purpurea rosa." 



A popular song in the days of Charles the 1st was that beginning 

 with the lines — 



" Gather your roses while you may, 

 For time is still a flying. 

 And that same flower that blooms to-day,- 

 To-morrow may be dying." 



