ROSE. 
121 
was well known, even in those early times, that 
when the heart is full the mouth will run over, 
especially during the intoxication of mirth or 
of pleasure, the ancients feigned that sportive 
Cupid presented a Rose to Harpocrates, the 
grave god of silence, and thus made this flower 
a symbol of secrecy and silence. As such, a 
Rose was fastened up over the table at enter¬ 
tainments, that the sight of the flower might 
remind the guests that the mirthful sallies in 
which any of them might indulge were not 
to be proclaimed in the market-place. This 
custom gave rise to the saying “ under the 
rose,” which was equivalent to an injunction of 
secrecy. 
The Rose became celebrated in English his¬ 
tory, from its having been adopted in the fifteenth 
century as the-badge of the rival houses of York 
and Lancaster, the white being chosen by the 
former, the red by the latter. Shakspeare, in 
his Henry the Sixth, represents this feud as 
having originated in the Temple Garden. The 
Earls of Somerset, Suffolk, and Warwick, 
Richard Plantagenet, nephew and heir of Ed¬ 
mund Mortimer, with Vernon, and another 
6 
