VIOLET TRIBE 85 



induce faintness and giddiness in particular constitutions, as I have witnessed. 

 Triller mentions a case in which they produced apoplexy." But peculiar 

 effects are produced by the odour of other flowers besides Violets, the rose 

 even not excepted. 



The Violet has ever been prized as an old English flower ; and we find the 

 " cool Violet," as Spenser calls it, named in the list of those which were present 

 in all the old floral usages. Thus, in Dr. Roger Hacket's celebrated sermon, 

 entitled "A Marriage Present," the author introduces as flowers fitted to be 

 used at weddings, Violets, and the roses called Maiden's Blushes, though the 

 rosemary was praised beyond them all, as " medicinable for the head, and Avell 

 affecting the heart," an opinion which poets of the day fully declai-ed to be 

 general. From Googe's translation of that old work, " The Popish Kingdome," 

 we find that the Violet was among the flowers used in the old ceremony called 

 "Creeping to the Crosse," when, on Good Friday, priests, clad in crimson, and 

 "singing dolefully," carried the image of the cross, accompanied by another 

 image, representing a person just dead. 



' ' With tapers all the people come, 



and at the barriars stay, 

 AVhere dowue upon their knees they fall, 



and night and day they pray ; 

 And Violets, and every kind 



of flowres about the grave 

 They straw, and bring in all their giftes 



and presents that they have." 



The Abbot Neckam gives us his idea of a " noble garden," which he says 

 should be arranged with roses, lilies, sunflowers, Violets, and poppies ; he 

 mentions also the narcissus. Mr. Macaulny, in his paper on the " Flower 

 Gardens of the Ancients," remarks: — "The Athenians always had flower- 

 gardens attached to their country houses. One of those which Anacharsis 

 visited he thus describes : ' After having crossed a court-yard full of fowls and 

 other domestic birds, we visited the stables, sheep-folds, and likewise the 

 flower-gardens, in which we successively saw bloom narcissuses, hyacinths, 

 irises, Violets of different colours, roses of various species, and all kinds of 

 different plants.' " The Violet was, in early times, in our country, regarded 

 as an emldem of constancy. Thus an old poem says — 



" Violet is for faithfulnesse, 

 Whicli in me shall abide ; 

 Hoping, likewise, that from your heart 

 You will not let it slide." 



The Troubadours classed it Avith the wallflower, as an emblem of this 

 virtue. Their prize of a golden Violet, awarded to the best versifier, proves, 

 too, how much the flower was esteemed by them. 



This Violet, though usually of very dark blue, is sometimes found of pale 

 lilac hue. White Sweet Violets are very common ; and the Rev. W. T. Bree 

 found this flower of a red colour at Castle-hill, Allesley, and on the mount of 

 Warwick Castle. Botanists have also found the red Violet in other countries. 

 We used in childhood to think the white blossoms more fragrant than the 

 blue ones, and they probably are so. Mr. Knapp, in his "Journal of a 

 Naturalist," mentions a pretty pi'actice of country children with these 



