Conf. Aman. lib. sept. (3, 130. Paulli).
And in the treatise of Walter de Biblesworth (13th century) is—
"Primerole et primeveyre (cousloppe)
Sur tere aperunt en tems de veyre."
I should think there is no doubt this is our Primrose. Then we have Chaucer's description of a fine lady—
"Hir schos were laced on hir legges hyghe
Sche was a Primerole, a piggesneyghe
For any lord have liggyng in his bedde,
Or yet for any gode yeman to wedde."
The Milleres Tale.
I have dwelt longer than usual on the name of this flower, because it gives us an excellent example of how much literary interest may be found even in the names of our common English plants.
But it is time to come from the name to the flower. The English Primrose is one of a large family of more than fifty species, represented in England by the Primrose, the Oxlip, the Cowslip, and the Bird's-eye Primrose of the North of England and Scotland. All the members of the family, whether British or exotic, are noted for the simple beauty of their flowers, but in this special character there is none that surpasses our own. "It is the very flower of delicacy and refinement; not that it shrinks from our notice, for few plants are more easily seen, coming as it does when there is a dearth of flowers, when the first birds are singing, and the first bees humming, and the earliest green putting forth in the March and April woods; and it is one of those plants which dislikes to be looking cheerless, but keeps up a smouldering fire of blossom from the very opening of the year, if the weather will permit."—Forbes Watson. It is this character of cheerfulness that so much endears the flower to us; as it brightens up our hedgerows after the dulness of winter, the harbinger of many brighter perhaps, but not more acceptable, beauties to come, it is the very emblem of cheerfulness. Yet it is very curious to note what entirely different ideas it suggested to our forefathers. To them the Primrose seems always to have brought associations of sadness, or even worse than sadness, for the "Primrose paths" and "Primrose ways" of Nos. [6] and [7] are meant to be suggestive of pleasures, but sinful pleasures.
Spenser associates it with death in some beautiful lines, in which a husband laments the loss of a young and beautiful wife—
"Mine was the Primerose in the lowly shade!