Page:The Romance of Nature; or, The Flower-Seasons Illustrated.djvu/241

143 of the East, and the "Feast of Roses," have been made familiar to us by the mention of them in modern works of deserved fame. It would not become so true-hearted a lover of our own dear land as myself to forget that, while gay France entwines her brow with the Fleur-de-lis—Scotland, bonny Scotland, with the Thistle—and green Erin, that emerald gem on the blue sea's breast, has her modest Shamrock—England wreaths her diadem with the queenly Rose. Would that the memory of that emblem were undimmed—that we might look upon our Rose and know its fair fame was unspotted, its leaves unstained by the blood of England's children; but the struggles of the factions, who bore for badges in civil warfare the Red and White Roses, have left an ineffaceable blot upon the annals of both realm and flower. Shakspeare rather lengthily records the choice of the Roses on this occasion, but in terms of less beauty than his thoughts are usually arrayed in.

Herrick, in his "Parliament of Roses," ordains that their place, and that of the rest of the flowers, should be Julia's bosom; an invasion of sweets which would be more available to the garden portrait of a "Ladie faire" (quoted from Fletcher), than to any mortal Dame of such fair proportions as, from her Poet-Lover's numerous compliments, we must imagine the gentle Julia,

I dream't the Roses one time went

To meet and sit in Parliament;