ome, though it somewhat varies
according to its situation, but its most chosen habitat seems to be a
well-kept lawn. There it luxuriates, and defies the scythe and the
mowing machine. It has been asserted that it disappears when the ground
is fed by sheep, and again appears when the sheep are removed, but this
requires confirmation. Yet it does not lend itself readily to gardening
purposes. It is one of those--

"Flowers, worthy of Paradise, which not nice art
In beds and curious knots, but Nature's boon
Pour'd forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain,
Both where the morning sun first warmly smote
The open field, and where the unpierc'd shade
Imbrown'd the noontide bowers."

_Paradise Lost_, iv, 240.

Under cultivation it becomes capricious; the sorts degenerate and
require much care to keep them true. As to its time of flowering it is
commonly considered a spring and summer flower; but I think one of its
chief charms is that there is scarcely a day in the whole year in which
you might not find a Daisy in flower.

I have now gone through something of the history, poetry, and botany of
the Daisy, but there are still some few points which I could not well
range under either of these three heads, yet which must not be passed
over. In painting, the Daisy was a favourite with the early Italian and
Flemish painters, its bright star coming in very effectively in their
foregrounds. Some of you will recollect that it is largely used in the
foreground of Van Eyck's grand picture of the "Adoration of the Lamb,"
now at St. Bavon's, in Ghent. In sculpture it was not so much used, its
small size making it unfit for that purpose. Yet you will sometimes see
it, both in the stone and wood carvings of our old churches. In heraldry
it is not unknown. When Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, was about to
marry Margaret of Flanders, he instituted an order of Daisies; and in
Chifflet's Lilium Francicum (1658) is a plate of his arms, France and
Flanders quarterly surrounded by a collar of Daisies. A family named
Daisy bear three Daisies on their coat of arms. In an old picture of
Chaucer, a Daisy takes the place in the corner usually allotted to the
coat of arms in mediaeval paintings. It was assumed as an heraldic
cognizance by St. Louis of France in honour of his wife Margaret; by the
good Margaret of Valois, Queen of Navarre; by Margaret of Anjou, the
unfortun