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."

_Britannia's Pastorals_, i, 5.

It is the first flower, except perhaps the Daisy, of which a child
learns the familiar name; and yet it is a plant of unfailing interest to
the botanical student, while its name is one of the greatest puzzles to
the etymologist. The common and easy explanation of the name is that it
means the first Rose of the year, but (like so many explanations that
are derived only from the sound and modern appearance of a a name) this
is not the true account. The full history of the name is too long to
give here, but the short account is this--"The old name was Prime
Rolles--or primerole. Primerole is an abbreviation of Fr.,
_primeverole_: It., _primaverola_, diminutive of _prima vera_ from _flor
di prima vera_, the first spring flower. _Primerole_, as an outlandish
unintelligible word, was soon familiarized into _primerolles_, and this
into _primrose_."--DR. PRIOR. The name Primrose was not at first always
applied to the flower, but was an old English word, used to show
excellence--

"A fairer nymph yet never saw mine eie,
She is the pride and Primrose of the rest."

SPENSER, _Colin Clout_.

"Was not I [the Briar] planted of thine own hande
To bee the Primrose of all thy lande;
With flow'ring blossomes to furnish the prime
And scarlet berries in sommer time?"

SPENSER, _Shepherd's Calendar--Februarie_.

It was also a flower name, but not of our present Primrose, but of a
very different plant. Thus in a Nominale of the fifteenth century we
have "hoc ligustrum, a Primerose;" and in a Pictorial Vocabulary of the
same date we have "hoc ligustrum, A{ce} a Prymrose;" and in the
"Promptorium Parvulorum," "Prymerose, primula, calendula,
ligustrum"--and this name for the Privet lasted with a slight alteration
into Shakespeare's time. Turner in 1538 says, "ligustrum arbor est non
herba ut literator[=u] vulgus credit; nihil que minus est quam a
Prymerose." In Tusser's "Husbandry" we have "set Privie or Prim"
(September Abstract), and--

"Now set ye may
The Box and Bay
Hawthorn and Prim
For clothe's trim"--(_January Abstract_).

And so it is described by Gerard as the Privet or Prim Pri