Oxford, Jan. 9. 1850.
New Year's Day Custom.—I shall be glad if any of your readers can inform me of the origin and signification, of the custom of carrying about decorated apples on New Year's Day, and presenting them to the friends of the bearers. The apples have three skewers of wood stuck into them so as to form a tripod foundation, and their sides are ornamented with oat grains, while various evergreens and berries adorn the top. A raisin is occasionally fastened on each oat grain, but this is, I believe, and innovation.
SELEUCUS.
Under the Rose.—That the English proverbial expression, Under the Rose, is derived from the confessional, is, I believe, generally admitted: but the authorship of the well-known Latin verses on this subject is still, as far as I am aware, a rexata quæstio, and gives a somewhat different and tantaleau[1] meaning to the adage:—
"Est Rosa flas Veneris, quem, quo sua furta laterent,
Harpoerati, Matris dona, dicavit Amor.
Inde rosam mensis hospes suspendit amicis,
Convivæ ut sub ca dicta tacenda sciant."
Can any of your correspondents obligingly inform me to whom these not inelegant or unclassical lines are to be attributed?
ARCHÆUS.