SWEET-SMELLING PLANTS 105 



The Rose, which is the emblem of beauty and the pride of Flora, 

 reigns supreme amongst flowers in every part of the globe ; and the 

 bards of all nations have sung its praises. Yet what muse has 

 been able, or language sufficient, to do justice to a plant that has 

 been denominated the Daughter of heaven, the glory of the spring, 

 and the ornament of the earth ? As it is the most common of all 

 that compose the garland of Flora, so it is the most delightful. 

 Every country boasts of it, and every beholder admires it ; poets 

 have celebrated its charms without exhausting their eulogiums, for 

 its allurements increase upon a familiarity, and every fresh view pre- 

 sents new beauties, and gives additional delight. Hence it renovates 

 the imagination of the bard, and the very name of the flower gives 

 harmony to his numbers, as its odours give sweetness to the air. 



' 'Tis one of those dainty flowers which leave a balmy breath 

 Of sweet and innate fragrance when their leaves are closed in death.' 



To paint this universal emblem of delicate splendour in its own 

 hues, the pencil should be dipped in the tints of Aurora, when 

 arising amidst her aerial glory. Human art can neither colour nor 

 describe so fair a flower. Venus herself finds a rival m the Rose, 

 whose beauty is composed of all that is exquisite and graceful. 



Of the birth of the Rose, the queen of flowers, it is related in 

 fable, that Flora, having found the corpse of a favourite nymph, 

 whose beauty of person was only surpassed by the purity of her 

 heart and chastity of mind, resolved to raise a plant from the 

 precious remains of this daughter of the Dryads, for which purpose 

 she begged the assistance of Venus and the Graces, as well as all 

 the deities that preside over gardens, to assist in the transformation 

 of the nymph into a flower, that was to be by them proclaimed 

 queen of all the vegetable beauties. The ceremony was attended 

 by the Zephyrs, wdio cleared the atmosphere, in order that Apollo 

 might bless the new created progeny with his beams. Bacchus 

 supplied rivers of nectar to nourish it, and Vertumnus poured his 

 choicest perfumes over the plant. When the metamorphosis was 

 complete, Pomona strewed her fruit over the young branches which 

 were then crowned by Flora with a diadem that had been purposely 

 prepared by the Celestials to distinguish this empress of flowers. 



' The gods beheld this brilliant birth, 

 And hail'd the Rose— the boon of earth ! 

 With nectar drops, a ruby tide, 

 The sweetly orient buds they dyed, 

 And bade them bloom, the flowers divine 

 Of him who sheds the teeming vine : 

 And bade them on the spangled thorn 

 Expand their bosoms to the morn.' — Moore. 



