7 he Rose. 
25 
ing infidelity), were unknown to the ancients ; and, if so, many 
pretty legends connected with those blossoms lose their point. 
Be this as it may, those ancients themselves sometimes fabled 
that the red rose was originally white, but received a rosy hue 
from blood drawn by a thorn from the foot of Venus, as she 
was hastening to the aid of her adored Adonis. Carey fanci¬ 
fully ascribes its ruddy tint to the kisses of Eve ; and some to 
those of the Goddess of Love, from whose bath, Greek writers 
say, it originally sprang; whilst the full-bosomed cabbage rose, 
they say, sprang from the tears of Lycurgus, the enemy of 
Bacchus. One author, in speaking of this flower, asserts that 
in its primitive state it has no thorns, which, he suggestively 
adds, are produced by cultivation. 
Those glorious ancients who regarded the rose as the emblem 
of silence, as well as of love and joy, frequently represented 
Cupid offering one to Harpocrates, the God of Silence ; and, 
as a further illustration of the gentle hint, on festive occasions 
suspended a rose over the table, intimating to the assembled 
guests that the conversation was to be literally, as well as 
metaphorically, “under the rose.’ 5 This latter account is 
generally given as the correct derivation of the saying, “sub 
rosa ,” applied to communications not to be repeated ; but 
some writers say that the rose was once dedicated to Harpo¬ 
crates, and thus became the emblem of taciturnity, for which 
reason, it is averred, it is frequently placed over the confes¬ 
sionals in Roman Catholic churches, indicating the secrecy 
which should attend whatever may be there disclosed to the 
ears of the priest. 
Roses, which, as Herodotus says, from the days when Midas, 
the Phrygian king, had gardens of them, until our own times, 
have ever reigned as queen of flowers, with a beauty only 
equalled by that of “ the rose-bud garden of girls,” and ever 
has that flower, which, Juliet tells us, would smell as sweet if 
called by any other name than that of “ rose,” been the darling 
bloom of poets and lovers. In the romance of “ Perceforet,” a 
hat adorned with roses is a favourite gage d'amour. In Don 
Quixote’s best-beloved fiction, “ Amadis de Gaul,” the captive 
Oriana throws to her lover, as a pledge of her unalterable 
affection, a rose bathed in her own tears. In the well-known 
German collection of romances (“The Book of Heroes,”) a pro- 
