( 12 ) 



Buttercups and Daisies. By Mr James Hardy. 



" We perceive numbers of individual substances so like in their obvious 

 qualities, that the most unimproved tribes of men consider them as of one 

 species, and give them one common name." 



ReidPs Essays on the Powers of the Human Mind, Essay 6, Chap. iv. 



The terms goulon, goulion, goulans, gUlans, gowlons, gollande, guild, 

 gild, gules, and gowan, as applied to plants, are obviously related, and 

 appear to derive their origin from the Anglo-Saxon gold, or, if we wish 

 to consult a more remote parentage from the Suio- Gothic, guly gol, 

 yellow.* •* In the south," [of England] says Bay, ** we usually call 



♦ Dr Jamieson, Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language. From 

 the same root seems to proceed the heraldic colour, gules, red. However 

 differently the two colours, red and yellow, impress the visual nerve, the ideas 

 respecting them appear once to have been nearly allied. There is in percep- 

 tion, as well as in nature, an intermediate colour, in which both are bl.ended, 

 viz. orange. The heraldic colour or is " yellow as gold." Forster, in an 

 etymological account of colours, in the Perennial Calender, p. 432, suspects 

 that yellow and red spring from synonymous roots. The former he derives 

 from the A. S. geaelgan, to inflame, and it signifies the colour of flame ; the 

 latter he suspects to have some connection with the word rar/, as applied to 

 the bright light of the sunbeams. In confirmation of this conjecture, it may 

 be observed, that, in Dr Turner's Herbal, Part 2d, fol. 49, it is said that, of 

 the flower of the wild pomegranate, " there are diverse kyndes." " Som 

 white, som red like cfolde, some of ye color of a rose." The word yellow 

 (A. S. gelew), is obviously connected with gul or gol, whatever be the ulti- 

 mate root of these terms. " The Italian giallo, and the French jaune, allowing 

 for the discrepances of dialect, bear similar relations. Hence also the gules- 

 ought, or guelsought ^similar to the " long sought," or inflammation of the 

 lungs), occurring in Turner's Herbal, as a name for the jaundice. The Welsh, 

 at the present day, observing a similar analogy, denominate the Barberry 

 bush, from the reputed virtues of the inner bark in curing the yellow jaun- 

 dice, the prin clevot millin, signifying the yellow disease tree.t (Farmers* 

 Mag., Aug. 1809). Gall, the bile, is not unlikely from the same root as — 

 " That colour which on gold we think so fair, 

 That hue which most adorns the tressed hair ; 



t The repute of this shrub extends also to Berwickshire, and has perhaps procured it the 

 place which it frequently occupies in the corner of the cottage garden, but I am disposed to 

 beliere, that the credit it has obtained is not native. In an old work, in black letter, en- 

 titled, " A most excellent and perfecte homish apothecarye, or homely physick booke, for all 

 the grefes and diseases of the bodye. Translated out of the Almaine speeche into English, 

 by Jhon HoUybush. Imprinted at CoUen, 1561," there is given the following " true me- 

 dicine for the jatmdiB." " Take the wood of Berberis, pyll the upper shell wyth the leaves 



