ROSE. 
113 
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 spor¬ 
tive 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 
entertainments, that the sight of the flower 
might remind the guests that the mirthful sal¬ 
lies 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 fif¬ 
teenth century as the badge of the rival houses 
of York and Lancaster, the white being chosen 
by the former, the red by the latter. Shak- 
speare, 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 
