158 SYLVA FLORIFERA. 



dren with roses, and when the funeral passes 

 the streets, a multitude of these flowers are 

 thrown from the windows. Camden tells us, 

 " There is a classical custom observed, time 

 out of mind, at Oakley, in Surrey, of planting 

 a rose-tree on the graves, especially of the 

 young men and maidens who have lost their 

 lovers ; so that this church-yard is full of 

 them." It is the more remarkable, since it 

 was anciently used both amongst the Greeks 

 and Romans ; who were so very religious in 

 it, that we find it often annexed as a codicil 

 to their wills (as appears by an old inscrip- 

 tion at Ravenna, and another at Milan), by 

 which they ordered roses to be yearly strewed 

 and planted on their graves. Hence the line 

 of Propertius : 



Et tenerd poneret ossa rosd ,• 

 " And lay his bones in soft roses." 



And Anacreon, speaking of it* says, that 

 it protects the dead, 



" Preserves the cold, inurned clay, 

 And marks the vestige of decay." 



Moore's Anacreon. 



This ancient custom of decorating graves 

 with flowers, the symbols of fleeting morta- 

 lity, has almost passed from recollection in 



