'The Jesuit Rapin, in his Latin poem entitled "Horti" (Paris, 1666), tells how a Dalmatian virgin, persecuted by the amorous addresses of Vertumnus, prayed to the gods for protection, and was transformed into a tulip. In the same poem, he says that the Bellides (cf. bellis, a daisy), who were once nymphs, are now flowers. The story [here] quoted [from Henry Phillips] seems to have been fabricated out of these two passages.'—Athenæum, Sept. 28, 1889.
M. Tarbé shews that the cult of the daisy arose from the frequent occurrence of the name Marguérite in the royal family of France, from the time of St. Louis downward. The wife of St. Louis was Marguérite de Provence, and the same king (as well as Philip III., Philip IV., and Philip V.) had a daughter so named.
Chaucer nearly suffered the same fate himself; see Ho. Fame, 586.
Dr. Köppel notes that the name also occurs in Boccaccio's Amorosa Visione (V. 50) in company with that of Claudian: 'Claudiano, Persio, ed Agatone.'—Anglia, xiv. 237.
He should also have excepted Philomela.