

THE ROSE. 9 

eare and skill. Still, there are persons who share 
with the black beetle a positive dislike for the 
Rose. Among those who have taken so prominent 
a part in public life as to have attracted the 
attention of history, is the famous Chevalier de 
Guise, who could not smell a rose without feel- 
ing umcomfortable . and Vinieri, one of the Doges 
of Venice, suffered under the same inconvenience 
for the enjoyment of the garden. Anne of 
Austria, wife of Louis XIII, could not even look 
at a rose ina picture without being seized with 
tantrums. 
In the East there is still the belief that the 
first Rose was formed by a tear of the Prophet 
Mahomet, but nations of more cool and dis- 
passionate imaginations have sometimes admit- 
ted that its origin was lost in obscurity. Roses 
were used in very early history among the most 
potent ingredients of love philters. They seem 
to have been imported by the Romans from 
Egypt until the age of Domitian. Antiochus 
slept upon a bed of rose leaves; Mark Anthony 
begged that Cleopatra would cover his tomb 
with these flowers, and mea rosa was a favorite 


