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The cheek of Beauty has ever been the allotted throne ol 
this floral queen, and so it is, and will he; hut alas ! in many 
a fair face, the vermeil hlush has given place to a pallid 
hue. ’Tis in the morning sunshine, and the hilly hreeze 
that the true-tinted rose is worn; but its fresh hues fade and 
blanch in the crowded saloon or the heated ball. It is ot few 
votaries of dissipation’s order that Herrick could say— 
One asked me where the roses grew, 
I bade him not go seek, 
But forthwith bade my Julia show 
A bud in either cheek. 
In order to display their own elegant invention in expla¬ 
natory fables, the classic Bards of old feign the Rose to have 
been originally white; and divers ai'e the causes assigned for 
its change of complexion. Herrick, versifying one lancy, 
tells us— 
’Tis said, as Cupid daunc’t among 
The gods, he down the nectar flung; 
Which on the white rose being shed, 
Made it for ever after red. 
Another legend is, that Venus, hastening to protect Adonis, 
trod on the thorns of the rose, and, her foot being wounded, 
a few drops of her celestial blood served to make the flowers 
blush ever after for their cruelty to their patron divinity. 
Some Poets suppose the Rose to have sprung first, on this 
occasion, from the tears of Venus. Sir Walter Raleigh 
jdaintively introduces this tradition in his poem of “ the 
Shej)herd to the Flowers.” 
