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every three years, on the day of the commencement of the floral games, among other ceremonies to be observed, the members of the academy should visit and spread flowers upon her tomb. Ronsard, the French poet, having gained the first prize in the floral games, received, in place of the accustomed rose, a silver image of Minerva. Mary, Queen of Scots, was so much delighted with Ronsard's beautiful poetry on the Rose, that she sent him a magnificent rose of silver, valued at £500, with this inscription:-"A. Ronsard, l'Apollon de la source des Muses."

CHAPTER XI.

LUXURIOUS USE OF THE ROSE.

The ancients possessed, at a very early period, the luxury of roses, and the Romans brought it to perfection by covering with beds of these flowers the couches whereon their guests were placed, and even the tables which were used for banquets;* while some emperors went so far as to scatter them in the halls of their palaces. At Rome, they were, at one time, brought from Egypt in that part of the year when Italy could not produce them; but af terwards, in order to render these luxuries more easily attainable during the winter by the leaders of the ton in that capital city of the world's empire, their gardeners found the means of producing, in green-houses warmed by means of pipes filled with hot water, an artificial temperature, which kept roses and lilies in bloom until the last of the year. Seneca declaimed, with a show of ridicule, against these improvements; but, without being discouraged by the reasoning of the philosopher, the Romans carried their green-houses to such perfection that, at length, during the reign of Domitian, when the Egyptians thought to pay him a splendid compliment in honor of his birthday, by sending him roses in the midst of winter, their present excited nothing but ridicule and disdain, so abundant had winter roses become at Rome by the efforts of art. Few of the Latin poets have been

"Tempora subtilius pinguntur tecta coronis,

Et latent injecta splendida mensa Rosa." (OVID, lib. v.) "Non vivunt contra naturam, qui hieme concupiscunt Rosam? Fomentoque aquarum calentium, et calorum apta imitatione, bruma lilium florem vernum, exprimunt." (Seneca, epistle 122-8.)

more celebrated for their epigrammatic wit than Martial; and his epigram "To Cæsar, on the Winter Roses," serves to show that the culture of roses at Rome was carried to such perfection as to make the attempts of foreign competitors subjects only for ridicule.

"The ambitious inhabitants of the land watered by the Nile have sent thee, O Cæsar, the roses of winter, as a present valuable for its novelty. But the boatman of Memphis will laugh at the gardens of Pharaoh as soon as he has taken one step in thy capital city-for the spring, in its charms, and the flowers in their fragrance and beauty, equal the glory of the fields of Pæstum. Wherever he wanders or casts his eyes, every street is brilliant with garlands of roses. And thou, O Nile, must now Send us thy harvests, and we

yield to the fogs of Rome. will send thee roses."

By this passage it is evident that the cultivation of Roses among the ancients was much farther advanced than is generally supposed. In another epigram Martial speaks again of roses, which were formerly seen only in the spring, but which, in his time, had become common during the winter. We are, also, but copyists of the Romans in the cultivation of flowers in windows; for vases of every style of beauty, and filled with roses, were a frequent ornament of their windows. Martial says that a miserly patron had made him a present of a very small estate, and adds that he has a much better country place in his window. Much that illustrates the use which the ancients made of roses in their ceremonies, in their festivals, and in their domestic life, may be found in various. authors, evincing still more how very common the use of them had become. Florus relates that Antiochus, king of Syria, being encamped in the island of Euboea, under woven tents of silk and gold, was not only accompanied by a band of musicians, but that he might yet more enhance his pleasures, he wished to procure roses; and

although it was in the midst of winter, he caused them to be collected from every quarter.

The gallants of Rome were in the habit of presenting their favorite damsels with the first roses that appeared in spring; and "Mea rosa was an affectionate expression they often used to their betrothed.

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We frequently find in old Latin authors an entire abandonment to pleasure and excessive luxury, signified by such expressions as “living in the midst of roses,” “sleeping on roses," etc. (“Vivere in rosa,” “dormire in rosa.”)

Seneca speaks of Smyndiride, the most wealthy and voluptuous of the Sybarites, who could not sleep if a single one of the rose-petals with which his bed was spread, happened to be curled.

Cicero, in his "De finibus," alludes to the custom which prevailed at Rome at that time, of reclining at the table on couches covered with roses; and comparing the happiness which virtue gives to the pleasures of luxury says, that "Regulus, in his chains, was more happy than Thorius drinking on a couch of roses, and living in such a manner that one could scarcely imagine any rare and exquisite pleasure of which he did not partake."

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The same author, in his celebrated speech against Verres, the greatest extortioner whose name is recorded in history, reproached him not only with the outrageous. robberies and cruelties which he committed during the three years that he was governor of Sicily, but yet more with his effeminacy and licentiousness. "When spring commenced," said the Roman orator, "that season was not announced to him by the return of Zephyr, nor by the appearance of any heavenly sign; it was not until he had seen the roses bloom that spring was visible to his voluptuous eye. In the voyages which he made across the province, he was accustomed, after the example of the kings of Bithynia, to be carried in a litter borne by eight men, in which he reposed, softly extended upon cushions

made of transparent material, and filled with roses of Malta, having in his hand a net of the finest linen, and equally full of these flowers, whose fragrance incessantly gratified his eager nostrils."

Latinus Pacatus, in his eulogium on the Emperor Theodosius, inveighs against the luxury of the Romans, whose sensual desires, he says, were not satisfied until they had reversed the order of the seasons, and produced roses in the winter season to crown their cup of wine, and until their Falernian, during the summer, was cooled in large vessels filled with ice. The forcing of roses in winter is no longer extensively practiced in Rome; but during the summer they are abundant, and we recollect being much struck with admiration of some beautiful hedges of the Daily rose in the villas near Rome.

After reading the preceding statements of the abundance of roses among the ancient Romans, it is with some surprise that we recollect the great scarcity of that flower during the gayest and most animated festival of the modern Romans-the Carnival. As we slowly walked along the Corso, submitting with as quiet a grace as possible to the various fantastic tricks of the masked figures around us, and occasionally pelted with handfuls of sugar-plums from the windows, or passing carriages, we looked in vain for roses or camellias in the numerous bouquets that were cleaving the air around us. Little bouquets of violets were numerous, and the air was thick with them, as our eyes, nose, and mouth, could bear striking witness; and we recollect, too, the contemptuous curl of the lip, and rush of the aristocratic blood into the face of a fair English girl in one of the carriages whose blue eyes had been nearly closed by an awkward cast of one of these little bouquets from the hand of a plebian performer. But we only recollect catching a glimpse now and then of a single rose or camellia, skillfully passed by a cavalier below into the hands of some dark-eyed beauty in the balconies

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