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Primrose itself, and in two of these he connects it with 
death— 
“ Bring the rathe Primrose that forsaken dies, 
• ••••• 
And every flower that sad embroidery wears.”— Lycidas. 
“ O fairest flower, no sooner blown but blasted, 
Soft silken Primrose fading timelesslie ; 
Summer’s chief honour, if thou hadst outlasted 
Bleak winter’s force that made thy blossoms drie.” 
On the Death of a Fair Infant. 
His third account is a little more joyous— 
“Now the bright morning star, daye’s harbinger, 
Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her 
The flowery May, who from her green lap throws 
The yellow Cowslip and the pale Primrose.” 
On May Morning. 
And nearly all the poets of that time spoke in the same 
strain, with the exception of Ben Jonson and the two Fletchers. 
Jonson spoke of it as “the glory of the spring” and as “the 
spring’s own spouse.” Giles Fletcher says— 
“ Every bush lays deeply perfumed 
With Violets ; the wood’s late wintry head, 
Wide flaming Primroses set all on fire.” 
And Phineas Fletcher— 
“ The Primrose lighted new her flame displays, 
And frights the neighbour hedge with fiery rays. 
And here and there sweet Primrose scattered. 
• • « « • • 
Nature seem’d work’d by Art, so lively true, 
A little heaven on earth in narrow space she drew.” 
I can only refer very shortly to the botanical interest of the 
Primula, and that only to direct attention to Mr. Darwin’s 
paper in the “Journal of the Linnaean Society,” 1862, in which 
he records his very curious and painstaking inquiries into the 
dimorphism of the Primula, a peculiarity in the Primula that 
gardeners had long recognized in their arrangement of Prim- 
