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5 2 0 p f a a t Isorc, Tseger^ /, anel Isijric/*,
crowning his own sister as the first Rose Queen of Salency, in
which obscure village this pleasant institution still exists. At the
present time, however, the Rosiere has a douceur of three hundred
francs presented to her. Of late years the institution of the Rosiere
has been introduced into this country by a Roman Catholic priest
who labours in the east of London. The Academy of Floral Games
at Toulouse, founded in 1322, and still in existence, was wont to
give a Rose as a prize for the best poem. From 1288 to 1589 the
French dukes and peers of all degrees were obliged in the Spring
which followed their nomination to present a tribute of Roses to
Parliament.
The association of the fiower with our own country dates from
a very early period; and we find Pliny doubting whether the name
Albion referred to the white cliffs of our island or the white Roses
which grew there in abundance. In Edward the Third’s reign a
gold coin was struck called the “ Rose noble,” which bore the
figure of a Rose on one of its faces. As the badge of the rival
houses of York and Lancaster, the fiower became celebrated in
English history—the White Rose being the hereditary cognisance
of the house of York, and the Red Rose that of Lancaster. Shakspeare
(in Henry VI.) represents the feud between the two houses
as having originated in the Temple Gardens, where after a fierce
altercation, Warwick addresses Plantagenet thus:—
“ In signal of my love to thee,
Will I upon thy party wear this Rose ;
And here I prophesy, this brawl to-day,
Grown to this faction in the Temple Garden,
Shall send, between the Red Rose and the White
A thousands souls to death and deadly night.”
Like the Gilliflower, the Rose was occasionally taken as a quit-
rent; thus we find in 1576 that the then Bishop of E ly granted to
Sir Christopher Hatton the greater portion of E ly House, Holborn,
for a term of twenty-one years, on consideration of the tenant paying
annually a red Rose for the garden and gate-house, and giving the
Bishop free access to the gardens, with the right of gathering
twenty bushels of Roses every year.
In the East, the Rose is an obje(5t of peculiar esteem.* The
Oriental poets have united the beauteous Rose with the melodious
nightingale; and the fiower is fabled to have burst forth from its
bud at the song of the warbler of the night. The poet Jami says—
“ You may place a handful of fragrant herbs and fiowers before the
nightingale ; yet he wishes not in his constant heart for more than
the sweet breath of his beloved Rose.”
“ Though rich the spot
With every flower this earth has got.
What is it to the nightingale,
I f there his darling Rose is not?”—Moon.
Persia is the veritable land of Roses : nowhere does the queen
of flowers reign in such glorious majesty, Zoroaster himself, the
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p l a n t b o r e , b e g e J jh /, a n i. btjrie/, 5 2 1
apostle of the Persians, and the introducer of the worship of the
sacred fire, is conne6ted in a legend with the Rose. An astrologer
having predi^ed the birth of a child who would dethrone the King
of Babylon, the monarch at once gave orders for the assassination
of all women who were about to become mothers. Thousands
were slain; but one gave birth secretly to the future prophet.
This having come to the King’s ear, he sent for the child, and tried
to kill him with his own hand, but his arm was withered on the
spot. Alarmed, and furious with rage, he had the babe placed on
a lighted stake, but the burning pile changed into a bed of Roses,
on which the little one lay quietly sleeping. Some persons present
saved a portion of the fire, which has been kept up to the present day
in memory of this great miracle. The king made two other attempts
to destroy Zoroaster, but his temerity was punished miraculously by
a gnat, which entered his ear and caused his death. A festival is
held in Persia, called the Feast of the Roses, which lasts the whole
time they are in bloom. \
“ And all is ecstacy, for now
The valley holds its feast of Roses ;
That joyous time, when pleasures pour,
Profusely round, and in their shower
Hearts open, like the season’s Rose,—
The flowret of a hundred leaves,
Expanding while the dew-fall flows, ^
And every leaf its balm receives ! ”—Moords ^Lalla Rookh.
Pelting with Roses is still common in Persia during the time of
the blooming of the fiowers. A band of young musicians repair to
the places of public entertainment to amuse the guests, and on their
way through the streets they pelt the passengers whom they meet
with Roses. The Persians regard the Rosa centifolia as the fiower
of an archangel. Zoroaster affirmed that the Rose was free from
thorns until the entrance into the world of Ahrimanes (the evil
spirit). . ro - T The “ bed of Roses” is not altogether a poetic ficffion. In
ancient days, the Sybarites used to sleep upon mattresses that were
stuffed with Rose-leaves. A similar luxury was afterwards indulged
in, both in Greece and Rome. Men would sit at their meals upon
cushions, and sleep by night on beds of Roses. The tyrant
Dionysius had couches stuffed with Roses, on which he lounged at
his revels. Verres used to travel on a litter reclining on a mattress
stuffed with Roses. He wore, moreover, garlands of Roses round
his head and neck, and had Rose-leaves intertwined in a thin net,
which was drawn over the litter. It was a favourite luxury of
Antiochus to sleep in a tent of gold and silver on a mattress stuffed
with Roses. .
The Indians have a tradition respecting the discovery ot the
mode of preparing the far-famed Attar of Roses, a perfume perhaps
unrivalled in its refreshing qualities. To gratify the voluptuous
Jehanghir, his favourite sultana is said to have had the royal bath
— ....