NAMES OF FLOWERS. 
139 
and squire bore its fame over the sea to merry England, over 
Alps and Pyrenees also ; in Spain it is still la Margarita ; in 
Italy, la Margherettina. The Italians, by-the-by, have also a pret- 
ty rustic name of their own for it, la pra.tellina, the little fielding. 
And now, when the old towers of feudal castles are falling to 
the ground, when even the monumental statues of knight and 
dame are crumbling into dust where they lie in the churches, now 
at this very day, you may still find the name of la Marguerite upon 
the lips of the peasant girls of France ; you may see them meas- 
uring the love of their swains by the petals of these flowers, pull- 
ing them, one after another, and repeating, as each falls, un i^ii, 
heaucoup, 2^cissio7iement, pas du tout ; the last leaflet deciding the 
all-important question by the word that accompanies it ; alas ! 
that it must sometimes prove pas du tout ! Oddly enough, in 
Germany, the land of sentiment and Vergiessmeinnicht, this flower 
of love and chivalry has been degraded into shall we say 
it, — G'dnsehlume, — Goose-blossom ! Such, at least, is one of its 
names ; we hasten, however, to call it, with others, MasUehe, or 
love-measure : probably from the same fancy of pulling the petals 
to try lovers' hearts by. In England, the Saxon daisy has always 
been a great favorite with rural poets and country-folk, independ- 
ently of its knightly honors, as la Marguerite. Chaucer, as we 
all know, delighted in it ; he rose before the sun, he went a-field, 
he threw himself on the ground to watch the daisy — 
" To seen this flour so yong, so fresh of hew, 
till it unclosed was 
, Upon the smal, soft, swete gras." 
Now can one believe that if the daisy, or the Marguerite, had 
