“Sharpe prickes preserue the Rose, on euerie parte, That who in haste to pull the same intendes, Is like to pricke his fingers, till they smarte? But being gotte, it makes him straight amendes It is so freshe, and pleasant to the smell, Thoughe he was prick’d, he thinkes he ventur’d well. And he that faine woulde get the gallant rose, And will not reache, for feare his fingers bleede; A nettle, is more fitter for his nose? Or hemblocke meete his appetite to feede? None merites sweete, who tasted not the sower, Who feares to climbe, deserues no fruicte, nor flower.” In the Emblems of Otho Vænius (p. 160), Cupid is plucking a rose, to the motto from Claudian, “ARMAT SPINA ROSAS, MELLA TEGUNT APES,”—Englished, “_No pleasure without payn_.” “In plucking of the rose is pricking of the thorne, In the attayning sweet, is tasting of the sowre, With ioy of loue is mixt the sharp of manie a showre, But at the last obtayned, no labor is forlorne.” The pretty song from _Love’s Labours Lost_ (act iv. sc. 3, l. 97, vol. ii. p. 144), alludes to the thorny rose,— “On a day—alack the day! Love, whose month is ever May, Spied a blossom passing fair Playing in the wanton air: Through the velvet leaves the wind. All unseen, can passage find; That the lover, sick to death, Wish himself the heaven’s breath. Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow; Air, would I might triumph so! But, alack, my hand is sworn Ne’er to pluck thee from thy thorn.” The scene in the Temple-garden; the contest in plucking roses between Richard Plantagenet and the Earls of Somerset, Suffolk, and Warwick (_1 Henry VI._, act ii. sc. 4, lines 30–75, vol. v. pp. 36, 37), continually alludes to the thorns that may be found. We may sum the whole “brawl,” as it is termed, into a brief space (l. 68),— “_Plan._ Hath not thy rose a canker, Somerset? _Som._ Hath not thy rose a thorn, Plantagenet? _Plan._ Ay, sharp and piercing, to maintain his truth; Whiles thy consuming canker eats his falsehood.” “True as the needle to the pole,” is a saying which of course must have originated since the invention of the mariner’s compass. Sambucus, in his _Emblems_ (edition 1584, p. 84, or 1599, p. 79), makes the property of the loadstone his emblem for the motto, _The mind remains unmoved_. Mens immota manet. [Illustration: _Sambucus, 1584._]