houses, and their union by the marriage of Henry VII. with the heiress of the York family, are prettily typified in the colouring of the York and Lancaster Rose.

In the East, the Rose is an object of peculiar esteem, and the acceptance of this flower when offered is a token of the highest favour. However interesting it might be to collect the various oriental legends and traditions in which the Rose acts a principal part, I must abstain from the attempt, otherwise this single article might be swelled to the size of a decent volume, especially if I should include the many charming illustrations of the love of the nightingale for the Rose. In a fragment by the celebrated Persian poet Attar, entitled Bulbul Namehthe Book of the Nightingale - all the birds appear before Solomon, and charge the nightingale with disturbing their rest by the broken and plaintive strains which he warbles forth in a sort of frenzy and intoxication. The nightingale is summoned, questioned, and acquitted by the wise king, because the bird assures him that his vehement love for the Rose drives him to distraction, and causes him to break forth

into those languishing and touching complaints, which are laid to his charge. Thus the Persians believe that the nightingale in spring flutters around the Rose-bushes, uttering incessant complaints, till, overpowered by the strong scent, he drops stupified on the ground.

Among the ancients it was customary to crown new-married persons with a chaplet of Red and White Roses; and, in the processions of the Corybantes, the goddess Cybele, the protectress of cities, was pelted with White Roses. The pelting with Roses is still common in Persia, being practised during the whole time that these flowers are in blossom. A company of young men repair to the places of public entertainment to amuse the guests with music, singing, and dancing; and, in their way through the streets, they pelt the passengers whom they meet with Roses, and receive a little gratuity in return.

In the middle ages, the queen of flowers contributed to a singular popular festival at Treviso, in Italy. In the middle of the city, the inhabitants erected a castle, the walls of which were formed of curtains, carpets, and

silk hangings. The most distinguished unmarried females of the place defended this fortress, which was attacked by the youth of the other sex. The missiles with which both parties fought consisted of apples, almonds, nutmegs, lilies, narcissuses, violets, but chiefly of Roses, which supplied the place of artillery. Instead of musketry, they discharged volleys of Rosewater and other liquid perfumes, by means of syringes. This entertainment attracted thousands of spectators from far and near, and the emperor Frederic Barbarossa himself accounted it one of the highest diversions that he had ever enjoyed.

In like manner, St. Medard, bishop of Noyon, in France, instituted in the sixth century a festival at Salency, his birth-place, for adjudging one of the most interesting prizes that piety has ever offered to virtue. This prize consists of a simple crown of Roses, bestowed on the girl who is acknowledged by all her competitors to be the most amiable, modest, and dutiful. The founder of this festival enjoyed the high gratification of crowning his own sister as the first Rose-queen of Salency. The lapse of ages,

which has overturned so many thrones and broken so many sceptres, has spared this simple institution; and the crown of Roses still continues to be awarded to the most virtuous of the maidens of that obscure village.

STRAWBERRY.

PERFECTION.

ONE of the most eminent French authors conceived the plan of writing a general history of nature, after the model of the ancients and of several moderns. A Strawberry plant, which by chance grew under his window, deterred him from this rash design. He investigated the Strawberry, and, in doing so, discovered so many wonders, that he felt convinced that the study of a single plant, and of its inhabitants, was sufficient to occupy a whole life. He therefore relinquished his design, gave up the ambitious title which he meditated for his work, and contented himself with modestly calling it 'Studies of Nature."

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From this book, worthy of Pliny and of Plato, may be derived a taste for observation and for the higher class of literature; and it is there especially that the student will find a