deaths. I would give twenty sheep for a rose-tree in blow.'-' And I am much mistaken,' said Amelia, with the sweetest naïvete, if this very rose-tree was not intended for you.'-' For me! you have lost your senses, child; I have not the honour of knowing the gentleman.'-' But he knows your fondness for Roses; I mentioned it one day before him, the only time I ever met him at Madame de S.'s. Is it not true, Sir, that my unfortunate favourite had eaten up my mother's rose-tree?' I acknowledged it, and I related the course of education of my fifty rose-trees. "Madame de Belmont laughed heartily, and said, 'she owed me a double obligation.'—' Mademoiselle Amelia has given me my recompense for the diamond,' said I to her; I claim yours also, Madame.' Ask, Sir.'- Permission to pay my respects sometimes to you! Granted,' replied she, gaily. I kissed her hand respectfully, that of her daughter tenderly, and withdrew. But I returned the next day-and every day-I was received with a kindness that each visit increased-I was looked on as one of the family. It was I who now gave my arm to Madame de Belmont, to conduct her to the evening parties; she presented me as her friend, and they were no longer dull to her daughter. New-year's day arrived. I had gone the evening before to a sheep-fold in the vicinity to purchase a lamb similar to that I had killed. I collected from the different hot-houses all the flowering rose-trees I could find; the finest of them was for Madame de Belmont; and the Roses of the others were wreathed in a garland round the fleecy neck of the lamb. In the evening I went to my neighbours with my presents.- Robin and the rose-trees are restored to life,' said I, in offering my homage, which was received with sensibility and gratefulness. I also should like to give you a New-year's gift, said Madame de Belmont to me, if I knew what you would best like.' • What I best like-ah, if I only dared to tell you.' If it should chance now to be my daughter'—I fell at her feet, and so did Amelia. 6 Well,' said the kind parent, there then are your New-year's gifts ready found; Amelia gives you her heart, and I give you her hand.' She took the rose-wreath from off the lamb, and twined it round our united hands. And my Amelia," continued the old professor, as he finished his anecdote, passing an arm round his companion as she sat beside him, "my Amelia is still to my eyes as beautiful, and to my heart as dear, as on the day when our hands were bound together with a chain of flowers." Leaving this delightful tale to produce its own effects on your affectionate feelings, I remain, Yours, &c. LETTER XIV. "In the mirror of truth, prithee say, is it shown? Sub Rosa?" Mrs. Spencer. MY DEAR ANNE, THE ROSE, as you are aware, is not only the flower of Love, and the emblem of Beauty, but is also considered the symbol of Secrecy. A kiss is often taken and allowed "under the Rose." A belief that two young companions have become lovers, is a suspicion whispered "under the Rose." The certainty of arrangements for an intended marriage often transpires "under the Rose;" and whenever I greet the full-blown impression of your exquisitely engraven seal, with its appropriate motto -" Sub Rosa," I always anticipate beneath it, if not a poetical kiss or a lover's secret, yet expressions of kindness, and feelings of friendship, which are sacred and inviolate; and for which these letters L on the importance of the Rose must be return. 66 The following passage on the above attribute of our favourite flower, is from Brown's curious work on Vulgar Errors."-" When we desire to confine our words, we commonly say they are spoken under the Rose; which expression is commendable, if the Rose from any naturall propertie may be the symboll of silence, as Nazianzene seems to imply in these translated verses: "Utque latet Rosa Verna suo putamine clausu and is also tolerable, if by desiring a secrecy to words spoke under the Rose, we only mean in society and compotation, from the antient custome in Symposiacke meetings, to wear chaplets of Roses about their heads; and so we condemn not the Germane custome, which over the table, describeth a Rose in the seeling; but more considerable it is, if the original were such as Lemnius and others have recorded; that the Rose was the flower of Venus, which Cupid consecrated unto Harpocrates the God of Silence, and was therefore an emblem thereof, as is declared in this tetrastic: "Est Rosa flos Veneris, cujus quo facta laterent Conviva ut sub eâ dicta tacenda sciant." I have somewhere seen the following lines given as a translation of the foregoing, although they are rather a paraphrase: "The Rose is Venus' pride ;-the archer boy Love's flower of silence, to remind each guest, Happy are we, my dear friend, who live under the auspices of a different state of society; when instead of hanging up the Rose as the guardian of bacchanalian revelry, we introduce the fair sex as a rational and effectual check upon that licence of speech, which the influence of wine has so falsely been supposed to justify. It appears to have been with reference to this attribute of secrecy, that the Rose was adopted not only as a part of the blazon on the arms, but likewise as a cognominal designation of the fraternity of the Rosycrucians, a sect of philosophers which appeared in Germany about 1614, and presently spread themselves through most of the countries of Europe, and out of which has sprung the present system of Freemasonry. The opinion that the Rose was assumed as the symbol of secrecy, and the cross to represent the solemnity of the oath by which the |