32 
The Rose. 
that the celebrated Princess Nourmahal filled an entire canal 
with rose-water, upon which she was in the habit of sailing 
with the Great Mogul. The heat of the sun disengaged the 
essential oil from the liquid, and through its being observed 
floating on the surface, the discovery was made of that far- 
famed perfume, “attar of roses.” 
Another of those extraordinary princesses of antiquity— 
Cleopatra—was pleased to link her fame to what William 
Sawyer, one of our living poets, calls “ the passion-hearted 
rose.” The wily Egyptian once received her. latest lover, 
Antony, in an apartment covered to a considerable depth with 
rose-leaves ; and Antony himself, when dying, begged to have 
roses scattered o’er his tomb. 
Some of the mythologists ascribe the origin of the rose to 
the beautiful Rhodante, Queen of Corinth, who, to escape from 
the persecutions of her lovers, attempted to seclude herself in 
the Temple of Diana; being forced from her sanctuary by the 
clamour of the people, she prayed the gods to metamophosise 
her into a flower, and the rose, into which she was changed, 
still bears the blushes that dyed her cheeks when forced to 
expose herself to public gaze. 
The fragrance with which this “ earth star ” is so richly en¬ 
dowed, is stated by those same poetical ancients to be derived 
from a cup of nectar thrown over it by Cupid ; and its thorns, 
they say, are the stings of the bees with which the arc of his 
bow was strung. 
The Hindoo mythologists (who are not a whit less poetical 
than their Hellenic, Latin, or Mahommedan brethren) say that 
Pagoda Siri, one of the wives of Vishnu, was discovered in a 
rose. What an appropriate bower was that for a lovely god¬ 
dess to recline in ! 
Hebrew liteiature also paid due homage to these glorious 
blossoms, which, as William Sawyer says, are “as bright as if 
their blooms were blooms of light!” One of their suggestive 
fables says that, early one morning, a maiden went into a gar¬ 
den to gather a garland of roses. There they all grew—mere 
buds, just opening to the ripening sun. “ I will not pluck you 
yet,” said the girl; “ the sun shall open you first, that you may 
be still more beautiful, and your scent stronger.” She returned 
at noonday, and found the loveliest roses gnawed by a worm, 
