VIE. THE STEM. 145 



most gratuitous is that of ' Lucy ' for c Gentian,' because 

 the King of Macedon, from whom the flower has been sc 

 long named, was by no means a person deserving of so 

 consecrated memory. I conceive no excuse needed for re- 

 jecting Caryophyll, one of the crudest and absurdest words 

 ever coined by unscholarly men of science; or Papiliona- 

 cese, which is unendurably long for pease ; and when we 

 are now writing Latin, in a sentimental temper, and wish , 

 to say that we gathered a daisy, we shall not any more 

 be compelled to write that we gathered a * Bellidem per- 

 ennem,' or, an Oculum Diei.' 



I take the pure Latin form, Margarita, instead of Mar- 

 gareta, in memory of Margherita of Cortona,* as well as 

 of the great saint : also the tiny scatterings and sparklings 

 of the daisy on the turf may remind us of the old use of 

 the word Margaritas,' for the minute particles of the Host 

 sprinkled on the patina " Has particnlas ^piSas vocat 

 Euchologium, fjiapyapira? Liturgia Chrysostorni." f My 

 young German readers will, I hope, call the flower Gret- 

 schen, unless they would uproot the daisies of the Rhine, 

 lest French girls should also count their love-lots by the 

 Marguerite. I must be so ungracious to my fair young 

 readers, however, as to warm them that this trial of their 

 lovers is a very favourable one, for, in nine blossoms out of 



* See Miss Yonge's exhaustive account of the name, * History of 

 Christian Names, 1 vol. i., p. 265. 



f Du Cange.) The word ' Margarete ' is given as heraldic English 

 for pearl, by Lady Juliana Berners, in the book of St. Albans. 



