THE ROSE.
In my description of flowering trees and shrubs, I must not omit the Rose, the most celebrated and the most beautiful of flowers: the delight of mankind in all ages and in every country; the pride of all gardens, and the chief ornament of the field and woodside; the poetic emblem of love and the symbol of truth, inasmuch as its beauty is accompanied by the virtues of sweetness and purity. In every language have its praises been sung, and poets have bestowed upon it all the epithets that could be applied to a direct gift from Heaven. From its graces, too, they borrow those images they would bestow upon the living objects of their idolatry. The modest blush of innocence is but the tint of the Rose; its hues are the flush of morning and the “purple light of love.” The nightingale is supposed to have become the chief of singing birds by warbling the praises of the Rose, inspired by the beauty of this flower with that divine ecstasy which characterizes his lay. In all ages the Rose has had part in the principal festivities of the people, the offering of love and the token of favor; the crown of the bride at bridal feasts, and the emblem of all virtue and all delight.
So important a shrub as the Rose cannot be an inconspicuous feature either in our wild or our domestic scenery. Every wood contains one or two species in their wild state, and every enclosure in our villages some beautiful foreign roses, which are equally familiar to our sight. I have nothing to say of the multitude of improved varieties lately introduced by florists. There is a point of perfection that cannot be surpassed in the improvement of any species of plant. An additional number of petals does not always increase the beauty of a flower. In the scale of all kinds of perfection, both physical and moral, there is a degree beyond which improvement is only the addition of insipidity.