146 OUR ROCK-GARDEN 



he calls almond butter. "Almon butter," he tells 

 us, "made with fyne sugar and good rose water, 

 and eaten with the flowers of many Vyolettes is a 

 commendable dysshe, specyallye in Lent when the 

 vyolettes be fragrant : it reiayseth the herte, it 

 doth comforte the brayne, and doth qualyfe the 

 heate of the lyuer." 



The violet was accepted by our forefathers as a 

 symbol of constancy, humility, and lowly worth. 

 Maplet, for instance, recites its "effectuous good in 

 working " and points out that instead of its virtues 

 making it conceited "so muche ye more it is saide 

 to holde downe his head, and to bende and bow 

 his bodie downward to the earth," while the poets 

 unanimously sing its praises, as references to Barton, 

 Carew, Clare, Spenser, Drayton, Shakespeare, 

 Keats, Shelley, Milton, Scott, Wordsworth, and 

 others will abundantly show, though we cannot 

 spare space to reproduce them. If our readers, 

 however, like to take, as an example, Shakespeare, 

 and look through "Measure for Measure," "The 

 Midsummer-Night's Dream," " Twelfth Night," 

 " The Winter's Tale," "King John," "Richard II.," 

 " Henry V.," and " Hamlet," they will, at all events, 

 have made a start in gathering material for an 

 interesting literary excursus on violet-appreciation. 



Visitors to Switzerland in the early Summer can- 

 not fail to have been impressed with the wealth of 

 wild flowers on the mountain slopes, and will recall 



