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.