This, my dear Anne, you will probably think, is
rather a funereal letter, and yet it forms not the
least interesting chapter, in the biography of our
favourite flower. Young as you are, there have
been rosy-bosomed days in the spring of your exist-
ence, which have passed away without leaving either
their brightness or their fragrance behind them;
and yet the Roses of youth, health, and beauty,
continue to adorn you-long may the best of these
blessings be yours-and distant be the time, when
the rose-tree shall be planted over your grave!
will conclude this letter in the language of "The
divine Herbert," as he is usually styled.

"Sweet day! so cool, so calm, so bright;
The bridal of the earth and sky,

Sweet dews shall weep thy fall to-night,
For thou must die.

"Sweet ROSE! whose hue, angry and brave,
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye;

Thy root is ever in its grave,

And thou must die.

"Sweet spring! full of sweet days and Roses;
A box where sweets compacted lie;
My music shews you have your closes,

And all must die."

I

I remain,

Yours, &c.

LETTER VIII.

"The Rose the poets strive to praise,
And for it would exchange their bays."

Anacreon.

MY DEAR ANNE,

I INTIMATED in my first letter, that the Rose was an universal favourite; it has indeed been celebrated in most of the languages of the "babbling earth," by ancient or modern writers; and I intend in the present letter, to transcribe for your gratification, such proofs and illustrations of this fact, as I happen to recollect; together with such of the original words, signifying "The Rose," in different languages, as I possess.

Undoubtedly the most ancient, as well as the most interesting book in the world, is the Bible: and according to our translation, the Rose, yan -Chabhatzeleth, in the original, is twice mentioned: first, in the book of Canticles, chap. ii. ver. 2, "I am the Rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys;" and again in Isaiah, chap. xxxv. ver. 1, "The

wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the Rose." Whether in the former of these passages, the proper translation is "Rose of the field," in allusion to the commonness of the flower, as some suppose; or whether it ought to be "Rose of Sharon," in reference to its superiority, as connected with that "excellency of Carmel and Sharon,” of which Isaiah speaks, I do not know: but this is certain, that Judea, amidst its general and celebrated fruitfulness, produced the rose-bush and its flowers in great perfection. Doubday, an old traveller in the Holy Land, mentions hedges formed of rosebushes, intermingled with pomegranate-trees; and Sandys, another traveller, seems to have found them growing wild, and in great plenty, not far from Jerusalem. He mentions passing "thorow valleys of their Roses voluntarily plentiful." Some conception of their plenty, indeed, may be formed, from a circumstance mentioned by Doubday; he states, that when the Eastern Christians made one of their processions in the church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, which lasted at least two hours, many men attended it with sacks full of the leaves of Roses, which they threw by great handfulls on the people, and indeed in such prodigious quantities, as that many were quite covered with them, and the pavement all strewed over. There were also others with bottles of rose-water, which they threw every where upon people's faces. Harmer, from whom

most of the foregoing notices are taken, gives an opinion, as deducible therefrom, with which you will be pleased: "May we suppose," says he, "that as rose-leaves now are made use of to strew the pavement about the sepulchre of our LORD, they were used in that procession that almost immediately preceded his death, of which the Evangelists have given an account, particularly St. Mark and St. Mathew? Many spread their garments in the way: and others cut down branches off the trees, and strewed (them) in the way. If rose-bushes grew there on Mount Olivet, they might very naturally cut off branches full of Roses, and shaking them, strew the path of our LORD with the beautiful, but untenacious leaves of those flowers." So much, my dear friend, for the Roses of Palestine.

Next in antiquity to the Hebrew Scriptures, is the poetry of Homer, and the Greek language in which it is written: this prince of profane writers, although he nowhere celebrates the flower, yet he frequently reminds us of it, by his regular use of the epithet," rosy-fingered morn;" and especially in the Twenty-third Iliad, from which it would seem, that the ancients used Roses in their preparations for embalming deceased friends; for Venus is described as anointing the body of Hector to preserve it from corruption:

"Celestial Venus hovered o'er his head,

And roseate unguents, heavenly fragrance! shed."

The original Greek word for the Rose is 'Podov, Rhodon, and is often, as I have just said, used as an expressive epithet to describe the dawn of day: Anacreon, following Homer, says,

"Aurora with a blushing ray,

And rosy fingers, spreads the day."

And our own poets, Dryden and Milton, likewise use it :

"The rosy-fingered morn appears,

And from her mantle shakes her tears."

Dryden.

"The morn,

Wak'd by the circling hours, with rosy-hand

Unbarr'd the gates of light."

Milton.

Among the Greek Fragments attributed to the famous Sappho, with whose history you are acquainted, and who was honoured with the title of "the Truth Muse," there is one on the Rose, which is exceedingly beautiful: as I know you highly admire Boyd's translation, I send you the version of Fawkes, that you may compare them together.

"Would Jove appoint some flower to reign
In matchless beauty on the plain,
The Rose (mankind will all agree),
The Rose the queen of flowers should be;
The pride of plants, the grace of bowers,
The blush of meads, the eye of flowers;