263 
PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
As an ornamental Rose the Damask Rose is still a favourite, 
though probably the real typical Rosa damascena is very seldom 
seen—but it has been the parent of a large number of hybrid 
Roses, which the most critical Rosarian does not reject. The 
whole family are very sweet-scented, so that “ sweet as Damask 
Roses” was a proverb, and Gerard describes the common 
Damaske as “ in other respects like the White Rose; the espe- 
ciale difference consisteth in the colour and smell of the floures, 
for these are of a pale red colour and of a more pleasant smell, 
and fitter for meate or medicine.” 
The Musk Roses (No. i) were great favourites with our fore¬ 
fathers. This Rose (R. moschata) is a native of the North 
of Africa and of Spain, and has been also found in Nepaul. 
Hakluyt gives the exact date of its introduction. “ The turkey 
cockes and hennes,” he says, “were brought about fifty yeres 
past, the Artichowe in time of King Henry the Eight, and of 
later times was procured out of Italy the Muske Rose plant, the 
Plumme called the Perdigwena, and two kindes more by the 
Lord Cromwell after his travel.”— Voiages, vol. ii. It is a long 
straggling Rose, bearing bunches of single flowers, and is 
very seldom seen except against the walls of some old houses. 
“You remember the great bush at the corner of the south wall 
just by the blue drawing-room windows; that is the old Musk 
Rose, Shakespeare’s Musk Rose, which is dying out through 
the kingdom now .”—My Lady Ludlow , by Mrs. Gaskell. 
But wherever it is grown it is highly prized, not so much for 
the beauty, as for the delicate scent of its flowers. The scent 
is unlike the scent of any other Rose, or of any other flower, 
but it is very pleasant and not overpowering ; and the plant 
has the peculiarity that, like the Sweet Brier, but unlike other 
Roses, it gives out its scent of its own accord and unsought, 
and chiefly in the evening, so that if the window of a bedroom 
near which this rose is trained is left open, the scent will soon 
be perceived in the room. This peculiarity did not escape the 
notice of Bacon. “ Because the breath of flowers,” he says, 
“ is far sweeter in the air (when it comes and goes like the 
warbling of music) than in the hand, therefore nothing is more 
