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 or 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 Primroses as "pin-eyed" and "thrum-eyed." It is perhaps owing to this
dimorphism that the family is able to show a very large number of
natural hybrids. These have been carefully studied by Professor Kerner,
of Innspruck, and it seems not unlikely that a further study will show
that all the European so-called species are natural hybrids from a very
few parents.

Yet a few words on the Primrose as a garden plant. If the Primrose be
taken from the hedges in November, and planted in beds thickly in the
garden, they make a beautiful display of flowers and foliage from
February till the beds are required for the summer flowers; and there
are few of our wild flowers that run into so many varieties in their
wild state. In Pembrokeshire and Cardiganshire I have seen the wild
Primrose of nearly all shades of colour, from the purest white to an
almost bright red, and these can all be brought into the garden with a
certainty of success and a certainty of rapid increase. There are also
many double varieties, all of which are more often seen in cottage
gardens than elsewhere; yet no gardener need despise them.

One other British Pri