A Jewish legend declares that a famed cabalist was vainly pursued by Death through many forms. But at last the grim enemy changed himself into the perfume of a rose, which the magician--his suspicion lulled for the instant--inhaled, and died. In many German cities--Hildesheim, Bremen, and Luebeck among others--it is said that the death of a prebend is heralded by the discovery of a white rose under his seat in the cathedral. 'And,' as J. B. Friederich states (_Symbolik und Mythologie der Natur_, p. 225), 'in the Tyrol the rose has a _deathly_ meaning, since it is there believed that whoever wears an Alpine rose in his hat during a thunderstorm will be struck by the lightning; for which reason it is called the thunder-rose--a name probably derived from the consecration of that flower to Donar, the god of thunder.' The fantastic symbolism of the middle ages twined the Rose into innumerable capricious forms, few of which, however, have any direct derivation from _Nature_. Thus the Rose, from being typical of literal love, became that of Christ; from symbolizing the light of Aurora, it was made significant as the rose-window bearing the cross. The five-leaved rose indicated the love of GOD for Man, as set forth by His five wounds; while the eight-leaved typified that of the believer for the Lord. The Rose also emblemed the Virgin Mary, and from her was reflected through countless works of art and many legends, all of which are 'tenderly beautiful,' and, it may be added, generally rather silly--as, for instance, that of the holy friar Josbert of Doel, who sang daily five hymns in honor of the Virgin; in reward of which, immediately after his death, there grew from his mouth, ears, and nostrils, five roses, each marked with the words of a hymn. It has been usual to say much, of late years, of the 'child-like and earnest,' 'tender and trusting' spirit which inspired these saintly legends, and to praise with them the morbid delicacy of a Fra Angelico. Believe me, reader, when I say that no vigorous and healthy mind ever passed through a period of adoration for and cultivation of mediaeval Roman Catholic Art, who did not eventually see that this _naive_ and innocent art-expression of the foulest, darkest, and most oppressive stage of history, had precisely the same foundation in truth as the love of the French court during the days of the Regency for a shepherd's life and child-like rural pleasures. A wicked and degraded age seeks for relief in contemplating its opposite; a healthy one--like the Greek--glories in itself, and strives to raise self to the highest standard of truth and beauty. None of the symbolisms of the middle ages grew directly from _Nature_--it was based on second-hand reveries, and on emblems from which all juice and life had been drained ages before in the East.