Part 80 (1/2)

(4) _Hermia._

In the wood where often you and I Upon faint Primrose-beds were wont to lie.

_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act i, sc. 1 (214).

(5) _Perdita._

Pale Primroses, That die unmarried, ere they can behold Bright Phbus in his strength.

_Winter's Tale_, act iv, sc. 4 (122).

(6) _Ophelia._

Like a puff'd and reckless libertine, Himself the Primrose path of dalliance treads And recks not his own rede.

_Hamlet_, act i, sc. 3 (49).

(7) _Porter._

I had thought to have let in some of all professions that go the Primrose way to the everlasting bonfire.

_Macbeth_, act ii, sc. 3 (20).

(8)

Primrose, first-born child of Ver Merry spring-time's harbinger, With her bells dim.

_Two n.o.ble Kinsmen_, Introd. song.

(9)

Witness this Primrose bank whereon I lie.

_Venus and Adonis_ (151).

Whenever we speak of spring flowers, the first that comes into our minds is the Primrose. Both for its simple beauty and for its early arrival among us we give it the first place over

”Whatsoever other flowre of worth And whatso other hearb of lovely hew, The joyous Spring out of the ground brings forth To cloath herself in colours fresh and new.”

It is a plant equally dear to children and their elders, so that I cannot believe that there is any one (except Peter Bell) to whom

”A Primrose by the river's brim A yellow Primrose is to him-- And it is nothing more;”

rather I should believe that W. Browne's ”Wayfaring Man” is a type of most English countrymen in their simple admiration of the common flower--

”As some wayfaring man pa.s.sing a wood, Whose waving top hath long a sea-mark stood, Goes jogging on and in his mind nought hath, But how the Primrose finely strews the path, Or sweetest Violets lay down their heads At some tree's roots or mossy feather beds.”