Page:The Romance of Nature; or, The Flower-Seasons Illustrated.djvu/104

46 Ben Jonson, with most of the old poets, studiously preserved the sense of the name given to each flower: for instance, instead of daisy, a word which at first seems to mean nothing, he says "bright day's-eyes," the flower having received that name from its habit of closing up in rainy weather and at night. Besides "eye of the day," it was also named "marguerite," a pearl, under which title it is celebrated by Chaucer.

Chaucer's love of the daisy is most fully and beautifully expressed in the "Prologue to the Legende of goode Women," one of the many gems we find in his works. He describes his great fondness for study, and how he delights in reading his "olde bookes," for which he has such faith and credence that no sport nor game can entice him away from them,