102 PROSERPINA. 



22. I do not care much to assert or debate my reasons for 

 the changes of nomenclature made in this list. The most 

 gratuitous is that of ' Lucy ' for * Gentian/ because the King 

 of Macedon, from whom the flower lias been so long named, 

 was by no means a person deserving of so consecrated memory. 

 I conceive no excuse needed for rejecting Caryophyll, one of 

 the crudest and absurdest words ever coined by unscholarly 

 men of science ; or Papilionacese, which is unen durably long 

 for pease ; and when we are now writing Latin, in a senti- 

 mental temper, and wish to say that we gathered a daisy, we 

 shall not any more be compelled to write that we gathered a 

 1 Bellidem perennem,' or, an ' Oculum Diei/ 



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

 eta, 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 

 ' Margarita?,' for the minute particles of the Host sprinkled 

 on the patina " Has particulas /xeptSa? vocat Euchologium, 

 /xapyapiVas Liturgia Chrysostomi." -j- My young German readers 

 will, I hope, call the flower Gretschen, unless they would up- 

 root the daisies of the Rhine, lest French girls should also 



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

 Christian Names ' 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. Albaas. 



