PERWINKLE. 327 



preserve it very well. Unless the summer prove warm and 

 fine, it must not be set abroad even then ; for, if exposed 

 to much wet or cold, it will soon perish. Very little water 

 will suffice this plant. 



Chaucer repeatedly mentions the Perwinkle : it makes 

 one of the ornaments of the God of Love : 



" His garment was every dele 



Ipurt-raied, and wrought with floures, 



By divers raedeling of coloures ; 



Floures there were of many gise 



Iset by compace in a sise ; 



There lacked no floure to my dome, 



Ne not so moche as floure of brome, 



Ne violet, ne eke pervinke, 



Ne floure none that men can on thinke ; 



And many a rose lefe full long 



Was intermedlid there emong; 



And also on his hedde was set 



Of roses redde a chapilet." 



THE ROMAUNT OF THE ROSE. 



Again in the same poem, the poet, in describing a garden 

 where flowers of all seasons are met together, gives a place 

 to the Perwinkle : 



" There sprange the violet al newe, 

 And fresh pervinke, rich of hewe, 

 And flouris yellowe, white, and rede ; 

 Such plente grew there ner in mede : 

 Ful gaie was all the grounde and queint, 

 And poudrid as men had it peint, 

 With many a freshe and sondry floure, 

 That castin up fol gode savour." 



Rousseau has, to his admirers, given the Perwinkle a 

 double interest. He tells us, that walking with Madame 

 Warren, she suddenly exclaimed, " There is the Perwinkle 

 yet in flower. 11 " Being too short-sighted to see the plant on 

 the earth without stooping, he had never observed the 

 Perwinkle : he gave it a passing glance, and saw it no more 



