"The rose is my favorite flower:
On its tablets of crimson I swore,
That up to my last living hour

I never would think of thee more.

"I scarcely the record had made,
Ere Zephyr, in frolicsome play,
On his light airy pinions conveyed
Both tablets and promise away."

BOWRING'S RUSSIAN ANTHOLOGY.

And a beautiful one in Tasso. There is a striking resemblance between these lines and a passage from Spenser, quoted a few pages back.

"Deh mira, egli cantò spuntar la rosa
Dal verde suo modesta e verginella,
Che mezzo aperta ancora e mezzo ascosa,
Quanto si mostra men, tanto è più bella.
Ecco poi nudo il sen già baldanzosa
Dispiega: ecco poi langue, e non par quella ;
Quella non par, che desiata avanti

Fu da mille donzelle e mille amanti.

"Cosi trapassà al trapassar d'un giorno
Della vita mortale il fiore, e 'l verde."

LA GERUSALEMMA LIBERATA DI TASSO: Canto 16.

"The gentle budding rose, quoth she, behold,
That first scant peeping forth with virgin beams,
Half
ope, half shut, her beauties doth upfold
In its fair leaves, and, less seen fairer seems;

And after spreads them forth more broad and bold,
Then languisheth, and dies in last extremes :
Nor seems the same, that decked bed and bower
Of many a lady late, and paramour:

"So, in the passing of a day doth pass

The bud and blossom of the life of man."

FAIRFAX'S TRANSLATION.

Shakespeare compares the untimely death of Adonis to

the early fading of a Rose :

"Sweet rose, fair flower, untimely plucked, soon faded,

Plucked in the bud and faded in the spring!

Bright orient pearl, alack! too timely shaded!
Fair creature killed too soon by death's sharp sting!
Like a green plum that hangs upon a tree,

And falls, through wind, before the fall should be."

The following lines appear to have been sent with a Rose as a present to Sacharissa:

“Go lovely rose !

Tell her that wastes her time and me,

That now she knows

When I resemble her to thee,

How sweet and fair she seems to be.

Tell her that's young,

And shuns to have her graces spy'd,
That hadst thou sprung

In deserts where no men abide

Thou must have uncommended died.

Small is the worth

Of beauty from the light retired :

Bid her come forth,

Suffer herself to be desired,

And not blush so to be admired.

Then die! that she

The common fate of all things rare

May read in thee;

How small a part of time they share

That are so wondrous sweet and fair."

WALLER.

"Looke as a sweet rose fairely budding forth
Bewrayes her beauties to th' enamoured morne,
Until some keene blast from the envious north
Kills the sweet bud that was but newly borne,
Or else her rarest smels delighting,
Make her herselfe betray,

Some white and curious hand inviting

To pluck her thence away.”

W. BROWNE.

"Tum pater Anchises magnum cratera coronâ

Induit, implevitque mero."

VIRGIL, ENEID, book 3.

“Then father Anchises decked a capacious bowl with a garland, and filled it up with wine."-DAVIDSON'S TRANSLATION.

"To crown the bowl," says Mr. Davidson, "sometimes signifies no more than to fill the cup to the brim; but here it is to be taken literally for adorning the bowl with flowers, according to the ancient custom. Otherwise, implevitque mero would be mere tautology." Horace repeatedly speaks of crowning the bowl with Roses.

The Romans were at great expense to procure Roses in the winter: Suetonius affirms that Nero spent upwards of 4,000,000 of sesterces, about thirty thousand pounds, for Roses, at one supper. Horace alludes to this custom in his thirty-eighth Ode, Book i.

"Mitte sectari, rosa quo locorum

Sera moretur.

Simplici myrto nihil allabores
Sedulo curo."

"Seek not for late-blowing roses; I ask no other crown than simple myrtle."

It is said that the Turks cannot endure to see a Rose-leaf fall to the ground, because, says Gerarde, "some of them have dreamed that the first Rose sprang from the blood of Venus."

It may, perhaps, be worth while to quote Gerarde's translation of a passage from Anacreon, rather for its curiosity than beauty :

"The rose is the honor and beauty of flowers,

The rose is the care and the love of the spring,
The rose is the pleasure of th' heavenly powers:
The boy of fair Venus, Cythera's darling,
Doth wrap his head round with garlands of rose,
When to the dances of the Graces he goes."

This is scarcely to be recognized for the same passage given a few pages back, in the translation of one of our living poets.

Roses, when they are associated with a moral meaning, are generally identified with mere pleasure; but some writers, with a juster sentiment, have made them emblems of the most refined virtue. In the Orlando Innamorato, the famous Orlando puts Roses in his helmet, which guard his ears against a syren; and in Lucian, a man who has been transformed into an ass recovers his shape upon eating some Roses *.

Many species of the Rose preserve their sweet perfume even after death; as the poet observes in the following passage:

"And first of all, the rose; because its breath

Is rich beyond the rest; and when it dies,

It doth bequeath a charm to sweeten death."

BARRY CORNWALL'S FLOOD OF THESSALY, page 2.

The very essence of this sweet perfume is extracted from the flowers; and the altar of Roses is far dearer than gold:

"The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odour which doth in it live.
The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye
As the perfumed tincture of the roses,
Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly,

When summer's breath their masked buds discloses.
But, for their virtue only is their show,

They live unmoved, and unrespected fade;
Die to themselves; sweet roses do not so ;

Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made."

SHAKESPEARE.

But nothing has yet been said to prove the assertion that poets forge chains of Roses; and were this to be omitted, many persons, considering their apparent fragility, might doubt the fact: to avoid so unpleasant a catastrophe, Tasso shall appear and speak for himself:

* Orlando Innamorato, Canto 33, Stanza 33; and Francklin's Lucian, vol. iii. page 236.

"Di ligustri, di gigli, e delle rose

Le quai fiorian per quelle piagge amene,
Con nuov' arte congiunte indi compose

Lente, ma tenacissime catene :

Queste al collo, alle braccia, a i piè gli pose."

"Of privet, lilies, and of roses sweet,

TASSO, Canto 14.

Which proudly flow'red through that wanton plain,
All platted fast, well knit, and joined meet,
She framed a soft, but surely holding chain,

Wherewith she bound his neck, his hands, and feet."

FAIRFAX'S TRANSLATION.

Fairfax translates ligustri woodbines: but when a foreign witness is brought into court, as Tasso is upon this occasion, it is but common justice to see that he is correctly interpreted. Suppose it had pleased the English poet to change Roses into turnips, what would have become of our cause?

We must indulge in one more quotation :

"Ye lilies, and ye shrubs of snowy hue,

Jasmin as ivory pure,

Ye spotless graces of the shining field,

And thou, most lovely rose,

Of tint most delicate,

Fair consort of the morn;

Delighted to imbibe

The genial dew of heaven,

Rich vegetation's vermeil-tinctured gem;

April's enchanting herald,

Thou flower supremely blest,
And queen of all the flowers,

Thou formest around my locks
A garland of such fragrance,
That up to Heaven itself

Thy balmy sweets ascend."

ANDREINI'S ADAM.

Our delicate Eglantine has been scarcely less honoured by the poets than the more luxuriant Roses. It is usually coupled with the Woodbine, as the Lily with the Rose,