50 FAMILIAR GARDEN FLOWERS. 



flowered relations. In the " Grete Herball " it is called 

 " Mary Gowles/' Dr. Prior, in his " Popular Names of 

 British Plants," remarks that " it is often mentioned by 

 the older poets under the name of gold simply/' Not- 

 withstanding- all this, the marigold became the flower of the 

 Virgin Mary, if it was not so originally. The name being 

 once corrupted, the association with a personage followed, 

 and in the latest days of history, say the seventeenth 

 century, it became the symbol of Queen Mary. The cele- 

 brated Child's Bank, that was so long associated with old 

 Temple Bar, had for its sign the marigold, and the motto 

 AINSI MON AME, which necessarily applies to a sunflower. 

 This appears to discomfit us ; but no, the marigold is 

 a sunflower, quite as much a sunflower as the gigantic 

 American plant that is now known by the name. In the 

 poem by George Wither, quoted at page 63, we read 



that 



" Every morning she displayes 

 Her open brest, when Titan spreads his rayes." 



In Perdita's garland for men of middle age we find 



" The marigold that goes to bed with the sun, 

 And with him rises weeping." 



Winter's Tale, iv. 3. 



In the fifty-fourth sonnet of Drummond we have 



" Absence hath robb'd thee of thy wealth and pleasure, 

 And I remain, like marigold of sun 

 Depriv'd, that dies by shadow of some mountain." 



That the marigold was often regarded as especially 

 emblematic of the Virgin Mary is certain. We see 

 marigold windows in Lady chapels, and we may call them 

 sunflowers if it suits us to do so, but the plant we now 

 know as the sunflower was certainly unknown in Europe 



