“She [the Queen] may be called Marygolde well, Of _Marie_ (chiefe) Christes mother deere, That as in heaven she doth excell, And _golde_ on earth to have no peere, So certainly she shineth cleere, In grace and honour double fold, The like was never erst seen heere, Such as this flower the Marygolde.” The flower was a favourite one in the middle ages, deriving the first part of its name from the Virgin Mary. No mention of the actual use of the sign, however, has been met with previous to 1638, when it appears on the title-pages of Francis Eglisfield, a bookseller in St Paul’s Churchyard. His name still occurs at the same house in 1673,[335] when it was also the sign of “Mr Cox, milliner, over against St Clement’s Church in the Strand.”[336] This must have been the same house in which Richard Blanchard and Francis Child, the goldsmiths, kept their “running cashes.”[337] It is the oldest banking firm in London. Francis Child, the founder, was, in the reign of Charles I., apprenticed to a goldsmith, William Wheeler, whose shop stood on the same spot now occupied by the bank. He married his master’s daughter, and thus laid the foundation of his immense fortune. Many bills and other papers relating to Nell Gwynn are still preserved by this firm, as well as various documents concerning the sale of Dunkerque. Alderman Blackwell, who was ruined by the shutting up of the Exchequer in the reign of Charles II., was at one time a partner in this house. It was here that Dryden deposited the £50 offered for the discovery of the bullies of the “Rose-alley cudgel ambuscade.”[338] The old sign of the house is still preserved by their successors, together with various relics of the Devil Tavern, on the site of which it was built. Only a few other flowers occur, mostly modern introductions. The DAISEY, Bramley, Leeds; the TULIP, Springfield, Chelmsford; the LILIES OF THE VALLEY, Ible, near Wirksworth; the SNOWDROP, near Lewes; WOODBINE Tavern, South Shields; and the FOREST BLUE BELL, Mansfield. The Blue Bell is very common, but, _inter doctores lis est_, whether it signifies the little blue flower, or a bell painted blue. As a sequel to the flowers, we may name the MYRTLE tree, of which there are two in Bristol, and the ROSEMARY BRANCH, in Camberwell, and in many other places. Rosemary was formerly an emblem of Remembrance, in the same way as the Forget-me-not is now; “There’s Rosemary, that’s for _remembrance_,” says Ophelia, (Hamlet, ac. iv., s. 5,) and in Winter’s Tale, Perdita says:-- “For you, there’s Rosemary and Rue, these keep Seeming and savour all the winter long, Grace and _remembrance_ be to you both.” _Winter’s Tale_, ac. iv., s. 4. Hence Rosemary and gloves were of old presented to those who followed the funeral of a friend.