poems recited on May 4, 1324. The 

 prize was given to Armand Vidal, 

 whose verses were in honour of the 

 Virgin. Other cities instituted similar 

 festivals, and a violet of gold was 

 always a prize, but no city ever gained 

 such fame for her sweet singers as 

 Toulouse. 



At a later period, in England, an 

 old book on the manners and cus- 

 toms of Elizabethan times gives also 

 many receipts for cooling waters and 

 other medicaments. For the " dumps," 

 a disease which has still survived, a 

 favourite prescription called for roses, 

 violets, capers, feverfew, saflfron, rose- 

 mary, sweet apples, scordium, wine, 

 tobacco, and cider. Borage and bug- 

 loss expelled melancholy. 



Lord Bacon, who discoursed pleas- 

 ingly on gardens and flowers, has this 

 about one violet : " That which above 

 all others yields the sweetest smell 

 43 



