THE COWSLIP. 91 



of flower. Linnaeus went so far as to group the primrose, 

 the cowslip, and these various intermediate forms tog-ether, 

 and to consider them but so many variations of one typical 

 specific form. The whole question is one of great interest, 

 though its full consideration would be foreign to the aim 

 proposed in our present pages, for the primrose and the 

 cowslip, though passing imperceptibly into each other, are 

 in themselves so different that our readers may, for all 

 practical purposes, feel full justification in believing in the 

 distinct individuality of the flowers that in the one case 

 we call primroses, and in the other, cowslips. 



The cowslip contains a large quantity of honey, and is, 

 therefore, a great favourite with the bees, and many of our 

 readers will recall the lines in the Tempest 



" Where the hee sucks, there suck I, 

 In a cowslip's bell I lie." 



It is also in many parts of the co-untry in request for the 

 making of wine. In olden times the cowslip was deemed 

 particularly beneficial in all paralytic ailments, and is often 

 called the palsy wort, or Herba paralysis. The common 

 name, paigle, it has been suggested, is a corruption of 

 these monkish names, but such a derivation appears to 

 us, we must confess, decidedly strained and far-fetched. 

 As the head of flowers is sufficiently like a bunch of 

 hanging keys to have earned it the name of Herb-Peter, as 

 we have already seen, and to make it in Germany the 

 schlusselblume, or key-flower, the theory has been started, 

 that possibly the word paigle may have originated in the 

 Middle Ages as a vulgar corruption of the Latin clavis. 

 The Anglo-Saxon name is cuylippe or cnslippe. 



The old writers, as was their wont in most other cases, 



