ROSE. 167 



Thus the flower which Philostratus dedi- 

 cated to Cupid is made to speak the language 

 of love. We are told that some persons 

 have passed through life without feeling the 

 arrows of the young god ; and we read of 

 others who could not endure the sight or 

 smell of roses. Mary de Medicis, it is said, 

 detested roses even in paintings, and the 

 Knight of Guise fainted at the sight of a 

 rose. These strange aversions are unnatural, 

 and the objects deserve our pity. 



Man alone seems born sensible to the de- 

 light of perfumes, and employs them to give 

 energy to his passions, for animals and in- 

 sects in general shun them. The beetle is 

 said to have such an antipathy to roses, that 

 the odour of this flower will cause its death ; 

 from which the ancients devised the allegory, 

 to describe a man enervated by luxury, by 

 representing him under the image of a beetle 

 expiring surrounded by roses. 



Madame de Genlis tells us that formerly the 

 rose was considered so precious in France 

 that in several parts of that country the in- 

 habitants were not allowed to cultivate it, as 

 if all but the powerful were unworthy of such 

 a gift ; and at other times we find it men- 

 tioned among the ancient rights of manors, 

 to levy a tax or tribute of so many bushels of 



m 4 



