OUR SENTIMENTAL GARDEN 



renouveau, much as with us the pallid, delicate Primrose 

 is held to herald the last of wintry days. 

 The old French name for the latter is Pn'mero/e, sug- 

 gestive by its etymological connection with "prime/' of the 

 youth of the year. We have made of it Primrose, through 

 the usual process of popular phonetic adaptation, which 

 ever tends to make a word sound like something already 

 familiar. So that the old Pnmero/e~meaning simply an 

 early floweret, primulahas become with us "the early 

 rose"! The French dubbed it Primevere a learned 

 equivalent for the Coucou of the rustic tongue, to 

 symbolize the advent of vernal days. 

 The name brings at once to mind the well-known yearning 

 lines : 



" Primavera, gioventu dell* anno ! 



gioventu, primavera della vita ! " 



In France, however, the accepted harbinger of les beaux 

 jours, is not the 



" Pale cowslip, fit for maiden's early bier/ 7 



not the faint Primula but emphatically the Lilac the Syringa 

 Vulgaris/ the joyous fleur des humbles, as contrasted to 

 the noble Rose. 



" Oh, gai ! vive la rose, 

 La rose . . . et les lilas ! " 



runs the refrain of olden days. 



During the last century or two it has grown as common, 



almost, around villages as the hawthorn, the Aulepine 



74 



