book is too big to hold, but we can prop it up on a

reading desk and open at the twenty-first book, which relates to the " Nature of Flowers, and namely those
Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
of Chaplets and Guirlands." I will not change a letter of the old spelling, nor a word of the quaint phrasing, since I chose this translation of Holland's chiefly to have the wording of the English of Gerarde's day : —
" Cato in his Treatise of Gardens ordained as a necessary point, That they should be planted and inriched with such herbs as might bring forth floures for Coronets and Gar- lands. And, in very truth, their diversity is such, that impossible it is to decipher and expresse them accordingly. Whereby wee may see, that more easie it was for dame Nature to depaint and adorn the earth with sundrie pictures to beautifie the fields (I say) with all many of colours, by her handyworke, (especially where she hath met with a grounde to her minde, and when she is in a merrie humour and disposed to play and disport herself) than for any man in the world to utter the same by word of mouth.
" To come again to the varieties of flowers ; verily there is no painter with all his skill, able sufficiently with his pencil to represent one lively garland of flowers ; whether they be plaited and intermedled in maner of nosegaies one with another ; or set in ranks and rowes one by another ; whether they be knit and twisted cord-wise and in chain-work of one sort of flowers, either to wind and wreath about a chaplet, bias, or in fashion of a circle, or whether they be sorted round into a globe or ball, running one through another, to exhibit goodly sight and entire uniformity of a crosse garland."
By which words it may be plainly seen that though there was great variety and much quaintness of arrangement, yet there was also distinct formality ; that set forms were always made, and that each had a signification. Pliny gives an entire chapter
Concerning Roses and Garlands 299
to garlands, coronets, chaplets, and nosegays ; he tells of their shapes, and why they were called co- rollae. He tells that the early Greeks crowned only with leaves and branches of trees, taking no pleasure in " plaiting and broiding of herbes " ; they enriched, however, their triumphal crowns with flowers, chiefly
Arch with the Memorial Rose, Twin Oaks, near Washington, D.C.
Roses; and at last Pausias, the cunning painter, and Glycera, the chaplet-maker, started some new modes for Greek dames of distinction and fashion, through as pretty and vivacious a courtship as ancient history can show.
" This Painter was wonderfully enamoured of said Glycera and courted her by all means he could devise. He
300 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
would seem to counterfeit and represent lively with his pencil in colours what floures whatsoever she wrought and set with her fingers into garlands ; and she again strived avie to change and alter her handiwork every day for to drive him to a non-plus at the length, or at leastwise to put him to his shifts ; insomuch, as it was a very pleas- ant and worthie sight to behold of one side the works of Nature in the woman's hand ; and on the other side the artificiall cunning of the painter. And verily there are at this day to be seen divers painted tables of his workmanship and namely one picture above the rest en- titled Stephanopolocos wherein he painted his sweetheart twisting and braiding coronets and chaplets as her manner
was.':
After an account of the fashioning of these flower- garlands, Winter Coronets are described gravely : these were made of horn shavings dyed in different colors, " pretty and small," a grievous anti-climax ; then came coronets of leaves of latten (a sort of brass) and chaplets of gold and silver spangles ; then ribbons followed. All these garlands were hedged about with much formality ; they could not be commonly worn. One man carelessly thrust his head out of a gallery window when he happened to be wearing a garland of Roses, and he was promptly carried off to prison.
The grouping of various flowers in a garland had much signification. Beaumont and Fletcher wrote in a charmingly rural measure in Pbilaster of the shepherd, " the trustiest, lovingest, gentlest boy": —
" A garland lay by him, made by himself Of many several flowers bred in the bay ;
Concerning Roses and Garlands 301
Stuck in that mystic order, that the rareness
Delighted me.
Then he took up his garland, and did show What every flower, as country people hold Did signify ; and how all, ordered thus, Express'd his grief: And, to my thoughts, did read The prettiest lecture of his country art
That could be wished."
During Rome's magnificence garlands grew in cost and elegance ; choicely aromatic leaves were brought from other lands at great expense ; chap- lets were wrought with needlework and made of silk. There was a formal chaplet of grass, a decora- tion of honor given by consent of the whole people to some hero ; it was sometimes placed on a private soldier with the acclaim of the entire army over his deeds of bravery.
Some years, Thoreau thought, are more directed to the extended observation of nature than are others ; at times nature-love seemed to him epi- demic, as if all were conscious of the fulness and beauty of life. Certainly this past year is what he called a " year of observation of gardens." We can- not tell how far may extend this lively interest in gardens, and, in sequence, in flowers. We may revive the ceremonial use of flowers which Pliny recorded. The Floralia and Fortinalia of those days had triumphal processions and floral decora- tions far beyond anything seen by our eyes. We may take lessons and learn to twine garlands ; bolder still, we may learn to wear them.
After Pliriy has declared that in his day Roses and Violets were the only garland flowers known,
302. Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
he describes the Rose of his time, its manner of growth, and its uses : —
" Roses enter into the composition of sweet ointments and perfumes. Over and besides, the Rose of itself alone as it is hath medicinal virtues, and serveth to many purposes in physick. It goeth into emplastres and collyries or eye- salves, by reason of a certain subtle mordacitie and penetra- tive quality it hath. Furthermore, many delicate and dainty dishes are served up at table, either covered and bestrewed with Rose leaves, or bedewed and smeared all over with their juice which gives no harm to those viands, but give a commendable taste thereto."
Pliny tells of few Roses, but twelve in all ; and gives sadly scant information of each. Johnson, the editor of Gerarde, said of Pliny, his book, " Sometimes he is pretty large, otherwhiles so breefe that scarce anything can there be gathered." Brief he is of Roses. He tells of the Rose of Praeneste, " the latest Rose," believed to be our Provence Rose ; one of Miletus, of a deep and lively red ; another late Rose, with never more than twelve petals, thought to be the Rosa Gallica of Linnaeus; one of Alabanda, " of a baser reckoning, with a weak color turning to white," this perhaps an Eglan- tine, since it is the " Rose growing in a bramble." Another was the Rosa Centifolia^ upon which lovely Rose he was surprisingly severe, saying it graced not garlands, save for the extreme ends. Another, the Grtecula, a large-petalled white Rose, which never opened save when pressed open, has been held to be the Rosa sihestris. He speaks of the Damask
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Concerning Roses and Garlands 303
Rose. He gives this curious statement, that sweet- scented Roses ever have the " cup or knob under the floure " (the calyx), " rough and prickly." He fancied, too, that Roses were changed by soil and cli- mate, having more profuse scent in dry soils. This is said to be corroborated by modern observation ; but I have found all Eglantines stronger scented in moist soils and places ; perhaps the scent of the blos- som itself may not be so, but that of the leaf cer- tainly is. He advises cutting, pruning, and burning Roses ; and he gives a rule to those who " desire Roses to blow early," to dig a trench around the bush and pour in hot water "when the bud begin- neth to be knotted."
One point in the culture of Roses, which was in- sisted upon by Pliny, is just as important to-day ; namely, to dig deep in their cultivation, to move the soil at least to the depth of two feet; and Hor- ace speaks of their growing in beds by themselves — a point also clung to by modern Rose-growers, though not by those who love the whole garden more than any single flower.
Pliny asserted that he had scant opinion of try- ing to concoct certain dishes because they had an influence on the health : he cared not " to mingle Agriculture, Cookery, and Physicke, and thus make a mish-mash and confusion of all things." But he gave thirty-two " searching ' remedies to be made from Roses. The use of Roses in medicine is decidedly unromantic and disillusioning. Ashes of Roses " serve to trim the haires of the eye- brows."
304 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
" Drie Rose Leaves are of good use in physick ; yea the drie Rose cake after the juice and moisture is pressed out of the leaves. Of them be made bags and quilts, yea and drie powders. Wild Rose leaves reduced into a liniment with bear's grease doth wonderfully make hair grow again."
Wine Rosat was thus made, " so saieth Pliny ": -
" A weight of 40 denirs (five ounces) of Rose leaves well stamped, put them into a linen cloth together with a little weight that they may settle downwards and not float about. Let them hang thus in 20 sextars (three gallons) and 2 Wine Quarts of Must. Keep the vessel close stopted for 3 Months, then open it and strain the said floures into the Liquor."
It was a belief of Pliny's era, and indeed until the perfected evolution of the botanical system under Linnaeus, that a plant with no medical virtue was scarcely worth growing. Botany was for a time forced wholly into the service of medicine. So what Pliny saieth of Roses was simply echoed by Parson Herbert centuries later :-
"A Rose besides its beauty is a cure."
" What is fairer than a Rose,
What is sweeter, but it purgeth."
To both Pliny and Herbert's prosaic and utilitarian notions let me reply in the latter's own words : -
" But I Health, not Physic, choose
Only though I you oppose. Say that fairly I refuse,
For my Answer — is a Rose."