The Greeks adored the rose, and the Romans bestowed praises on this flower of the highest antiquity. Anacreon sang its primal birth. Homer praised its form of grace, and borrowed the brilliant colors to paint the glowing richness of the rising sun. Herodotus exulted over the sixty-petaled varieties which grew spontaneously in the gardens of Midas in Macedonia. Catullus vaunted its charms, and Horace admired the "richly-tinted face whose bloom is soon fled." Virgil contrasts the pale sallow with the blushing hues, and extols the roses of Pastum with their "double spring." These costly ornamental gardens, destroyed almost ten centuries ago, no longer shed the morning fragrance of rose perfume. Nettles and brambles entangle the footpath of the traveller, and as a poetic memory the cyclamen and the violet now trail among the debris of the old city. Ansonius, at the very end of Latin literature, draws from the rosaries of Pastum a picture of beauty doomed to premature decline, "and watched the luxurious rose-beds all dewy in the young light of the rising dawn star." Roses bore away the palm from all the flowers during the sovereignty of Augustus and subsequent rulers; but Cicero did not approve of the custom of those who were given to luxurious entertainments of taking their meals reclining on rose leaves.

Verres, a Roman Governor of Sicily, gave audiences with wreaths of roses around his neck and upon his head, sitting upon a cushion made of the finest Malta linen, full of sweet-scented rosebuds. Cleopatra and Nero extravagantly decorated their banqueting halls with rosy ornaments and garlands, and distinguished guests were greeted amid roseate bowers, while the merry dance went round in an atmosphere redolent with roseal odors. Every evidence exists that we must connect the rose with the love of antiquity, for the ancients preserved its luxury, and it was the ornament of their festivals, their altars and their tombs, while their poets made the rose the symbol of innocence and modesty, of grace and beauty. It is even probable that the Romans had roses of similar species with some of those we now cultivate, since they practiced sowing the seed, as well as propagated by cuttings, by budding and grafting. Hothouse growth was also understood and practiced, says Seneca, and it was a boast to have carried to perfection this flower, so far as to surpass the cultivators of Alexandria, Memphis and Rhodes. That the rose never tires is shown by its reputation through all ages.

A hundred generations have passed attended by revolution of empires and desolating invasions, but time has not detracted from the loveliness of beauty's queen, nor has renewed associates made the rose less alluring.

Memory bears us up the stream of time, when we are to believe that the roses in the famous gardens of the East were as pure and constant as now, relics of Eden's bowers, "sweet nurslings of the vernal skies, bathed in soft airs." The same resistless beauty was doubtless manifest, flaunting in the shades of early morn; the same sunshine loved them then, because they were so fair; the same closing and fading of the petals was descried under the dropping of the gloaming dews. In their original clime, where the powers of admiration were never exhausted, the Syrian and Musk rose, replete with dewy wine, covered the sacred ground. No frost candied the grass, emblems of life continually existed, and roses glowed in gemlike tinges, hanging in cataracts from the gray walls of the fortified villages, topped by a crown of foliage. Amid such scenes the traveller exclaimed, in admiration, " Who can paint like nature ?" as one beholds this shadowy curtain of gorgeous colors on mouldering stone-work, when the sun goes down behind the amethyst-tinted hills.

In summer time, in our favored locality, the admirer of the rose can find refreshment, rest and peace in this parterre, as he surveys with delight his favorite collection, whose brightness and sweetness bring tender memories, solaces and hopes; while the reflections awakened by floricultural nomenclature afford new sources for enjoyment. This companionship of distinguished acquaintances attired in rich apparel - the Counts and Duchesses, Princes and Barons, Queens and Empresses, Lords and Marquises, Ladys and Sirs, Madames and Mademoiselles, are a royal family grand and graceful when expanded to fullest beauty of flowers, purple, red and white, amidst rosebuds, blushing through their bowers of green, more lovely because more concealed. Providence, R. I.