THE ROSE. 
171 
The Romans, however, appear to have esteemed flowers more than the Greeks, and the 
origin of this greater regard for them may not improbably be found in the imitation of 
that luxury and splendour which the Romans had witnessed in Eastern countries. Yet, 
from the writings of both the Greek and Roman poets, we must infer a prevalent love of 
flowers, and that there existed a disposition to rear them with care. By these writers, 
flowers are made objects of constant allusion, of the most beautiful and touching comparisons. 
“ The ‘fair-clustering ’ Narcissus, and the ‘ gold-gleaming ’ Crocus, were reckoned among 
the glories of Attica, as much as the Nightingale, the Olive, and the Steed ; and the 
Violet was as proud a device of the Ionic Athenians, as the Rose of England, and the 
Lily of France. ”* 
Such, indeed, among the Romans was the taste for flowers, that we find Horace 
lamenting that fields, once given to the plough, w r ere now dedicated to the cultivation of 
flowers and shrubs, and, as he says, 
Where flourish’d once the Olive shade, 
And its rich Master’s cares repaid ; 
The Violet and Myrtle greets 
The sense — a luxury of sweets. — Francis. 
The cultivation of flowers, as one of the delights of the country, is frequently mentioned 
by Cicero, in his work on ‘ Old Age; ’ and Virgil in his fourth Georgic, says, 
Now — did I not (so near my labour’s end) 
Strike sail, and hast’ning to the harbour tend — 
My song to flowery gardens might extend ; 
To teach the vegetable arts ; to sing 
The Psestan Roses, and their double Spring. — Dryden . 
The first Rose of Spring is mentioned by Virgil when describing the delights of the 
* old Corycian swain,’ when he says of him — 
To quit his care, he gather’d first of all, 
In Spring, the Roses. — Dryden. 
Horace, on the other hand, alludes to the last Rose of Summer, when he bids his 
attendant 
Search not where the curious Rose 
Beyond his season loitering grows. — Francis. 
‘ The moral which Burns drew from his “ mountain daisy ” had been marked before 
by Virgil,f when, relating the death of Euryalus, he says, 
His snowy neck reclines upon his breast, 
Like a fair flower by the keen share oppress’d. — Dryden. 
and more than once it is alluded to by Catullus. Indeed, a glance at the Eclogues, the 
Georgies, and the Fasti of Ovid, will show the same love of flowers in their authors, which 
evidently animated Aristophanes when he describes the gentleman of “ merry old Athens ” 
as “ redolent of honey-suckle and holidays,”! and when we remember, that from the last 
writer we learn that at Athens flowers were sold in the markets. 
The earliest mention made of the Rose is generally attributed to Homer and to 
Anacreon, but considerable doubt exists, as to whether the plant mentioned by these 
writers is identical with that subsequently mentioned under the same name, and now 
known to us. Some learned writers of the present day have come to the conclusion, that 
the Odes, usually attributed to Anacreon, are the compositions of an author who lived long 
after the period during which Anacreon flourished, and that a Rose-blossom, possessing the 
characters described in those spurious Odes, was not known to the Greeks at the time of 
Anacreon. 
On the consideration of this point it would be out of place here to enter fully, and for the 
present we must be content to date the commencement of our history of the Rose with the 
account given by Theophrastus, in his History of Plants, which was published b. c. 314. 
Quarterly Review, July, 1842, p. 198. 
+ Edinburgh Review, July, 1842, p. 198. 
+ Ibid. 
