[245:1] "Non vivunt contra naturam, qui hieme concupiscunt rosas?"--SENECA, _Ep._ 122.
[250:1] We have an old record of the existence of large double Roses in Asia by Herodotus, who tells us, that in a part of Macedonia were the so-called gardens of Midas, in which grew native Roses, each one having sixty petals, and of a scent surpassing all others ("Hist.," viii. 138).
[252:1] The Damask Rose was imported into England at an earlier date but probably only as a drug. It is mentioned in a "Bill of Medicynes furnished for the use of Edward I., 1306-7: 'Item pro aqua rosata de Damasc,' lb. xl, iiii_li._"--_Archæological Journal_, vol. xiv. 271.
[253:1] The York and Lancaster Roses were a frequent subject for the epigram writers; and gave occasion for one of the happiest of English epigrams. On presenting a White Rose to a Lancastrian lady--
"If this fair Rose offend thy sight, It in thy bosom wear; 'Twill blush to find itself less white, And turn Lancastrian there."
[255:1] "A Rose beside his beauty is a cure."--G. HERBERT, _Providence_.
Reverend Sirs, For you there's Rosemary and Rue; these keep Seeming and savour all the winter long; Grace and remembrance be to you both.[256:1]
Marry, come up, my dish of chastity with Rosemary and bays.
Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices Strike in their numb'd and mortified bare arms Pins, wooden pricks, and sprigs of Rosemary.
There's Rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray, love, remember.
Doth not Rosemary and Romeo begin both with a letter?
Ah, mocker! that's the dog's name; R is for the ----. No; I know it begins with some other letter:--and she hath the prettiest sententious of it, of you and Rosemary, that it would do you good to hear it.
Dry up your tears, and stick your Rosemary On this fair corse.
The Rosemary is not a native of Britain, but of the sea-coast of the South of Europe, where it is very abundant. It was very early introduced into England, and is mentioned in an Anglo-Saxon Herbarium under its Latin name of Ros marinus, and is there translated by Bothen, _i.e._ Thyme; also in an Anglo-Saxon Vocabulary of the eleventh century, where it is translated Feld-madder and Sun-dew. In these places our present plant may or may not be meant, but there is no doubt that it is the one referred to in an ancient English poem of the fourteenth century, on the virtues of herbs, published in Wright and Halliwell's "Reliquiæ Antiquæ." The account of "The Gloriouse Rosemaryne" is long, but the beginning and ending are worth quoting--