perfumes those bones which the voice of the All-Powerful would one day restore to life."

The Roman Catholics of this day admit flowers to their churches and ceremonies, and on feast days they adorn the altars with bouquets and garlands. At the most imposing of these solemnities, the day of the "Fête-Dieu," rose petals, during the processions, are scattered in the air, and blended with the perfume of censers, directed towards the Host; in many of the towns, particularly those in the south of France and of Europe, the streets through which the procession passes are scattered throughout with fragrant herbs and flowers of every kind.

Since the extinction of paganism in a greater part of the world, the custom of wearing crowns of flowers at festivals has passed entirely away. Women only use roses as an ornament for their hair, or employ them in different parts of their toilet. In our own country the toilet of a bride is never considered perfect unless she wears a wreath of roses and other flowers, whose snow-white hue is an emblem of her departing maidenhood. Sometimes she is provided only with a bouquet of white roses and camellias, and her bridesmaids wear similar ornaments of nature's manufacture.

The Rose is abundantly used by children in their beautiful celebration of May-day. We well recollect our own enjoyment of one of these scenes some seven years since. We were returning from a ride in the vicinity of Charleston, S. C., on the first day of this, the sunniest of the months of Spring—a day dedicated not to the spirit of motion, and celebrated not by processions of furniture carts, amid the bustle and noise of a populous city, but dedicated there, at the sunny south, to innocent and joyous festivity, and celebrated amid all the fresh and fragrant luxuriance of southern vegetation, surrounded by the delicate sweetness of the magnolia, the Rose, and other flowers, while the mocking-bird, with its sweet and varied note, is the minstrel for the occasion. Riding quietly along the road, we were suddenly stopped by a procession which had just dismounted from a number of carriages in a beautiful grove hard by. It consisted

CHAPTER IV.

THE ROSE IN THE MIDDLE AGES.

N Great Britain, according to Loudon, "one of the earliest notices of the Rose occurs in Chaucer, who wrote early in the 13th century; and in the beginning of the 15th century, there is evidence of the Rose having been cultivated for commercial purposes, and of the water distilled from it being used to give a flavor to a variety of dishes, and to wash the hands at meals-a custom still preserved in some of the colleges, and also in many of the public halls within the city of London."

In 1402, Sir William Clopton granted to Thomas Smyth a piece of ground called Dokmedwe, in Haustede, for the annual payment of a rose to Sir William and his heirs, in lieu of all services. The demand for roses formerly was so great, that bushels of them were frequently paid by vassals to their lords, both in England and France. The single rose, paid as an acknowledgment, was the diminutive representation of a bushel of rosesas a single peppercorn, which is still a reserved rent, represents a pound of peppercorns-a payment originally of some worth, but descending by degrees to a mere formality. Among the newyear gifts presented to Queen Mary in 1556, was a bottle of rosewater; and in 1570 we find, among the items in the account of a dinner of Lord Leicester, when he was Chancelor of the University of Oxford, three ounces of rose-water. In an account of a grant of a great part of Ely House, Holborne, by the Bishop of

eral furious civil wars, after having flooded the whole kingdom with blood, and after the tragical death of three kings, Henry VII., of the house of Lancaster, re-united, in 1486, the two families by marrying Elizabeth, the heiress of the house of York. The adoption of the red rose, by the house of Lancaster, was at a period far prior to these civil wars. About 1277, the Count of Egmont, son of the King of England, and who had taken the title of Count of Champagne, was sent by the King of France to Provence, with some troops, to avenge the murder of William Pentecôte, mayor of the city, who had been killed in an insurrection.

When this prince returned into England, after executing his orders, he took for his device the red rose, that Thibaut, Count of Brie and of Champagne, had brought from Syria, on his return from the crusade some years before.-That Count of Egmont was the head of the house of Lancaster, who preserved the red rose on their arms, while the house of York, on the other hand, adopted the white rose as their device.

An anecdote is told of the Prince of Bearne, afterwards Henry IV. of France, who was not 15 years of age when Charles IX. came to Nerae, in 1566, to visit the court of Navarre.

The fifteen days that he spent there, were marked by sports and fêtes, of which, the young Henry was already the chief ornament. Charles IX. loved to practice archery; in providing for him that amusement, they thought that none of his courtiers, not even the Duke of Guise, who excelled at this sport, would venture to prove himself more adroit than the monarch. The young Henry, however, advanced, and at the first shot, carried off the orange, which served for a mark. According to the rules of the sport, he wished, as victor, to shoot first in the next trial; the King opposed it, and repulsed him with warmth; Henry stepped back a little, drew his bow, and directed the arrow against the breast of his adversary; the monarch quickly took shelter behind the largest of his courtiers, and requested them to take away "that dangerous little cousin." Peace being made, the same sport was continued on the following day; Charles found an