THE VIOLET. 203 



preserved for a year or more by repeatedly infusing 

 the petals in vinegar. 



Most persons must have felt the extraodinary 

 power of scents in recalling the memory of long- 

 past years ; before the following lines were written, 



" The smell of violets hidden in the grass, 

 Poured back into my empty soul and frame 

 The times when I remember to have been 

 Joyful and free from blame."* 



Dr. Delany, dean of Down, in his sermon " The 

 Immortality of the Soul Proved,'" quaintly asks, 

 " Hath a doubt, or a denial, or judgment, any colour, 

 or figure, or extension ? Can we properly say a 

 white doubt, or a scarlet denial, or a square judg- 

 ment ? A reflection a foot long, or a foot broad, or 

 of a pound weight?" But we certainly have so 

 much association between colours and scents, that 

 the one easily suggests to us the other ; and there 

 are few people who do not readily understand what 

 is meant when we speak of a brown, a grey, or a 

 green, smell. 



Milton, who is usually most accurate in his ob- 

 servation of nature, makes the remark that 



" In the violet-embroidered vale 

 The love-lorn nightingale, 

 Nightly her sad song mourneth well." 



And it certainly is a curious circumstance that the 

 broad band extending across England, which re- 

 joices in the possession of the sweet-scented Vwla 



* Tennyson. 



