V I o 



V I o 



The firft fort is a low creeping flower plant, which is in 

 general very highly elleemed for its fragrance. There are 

 different varieties of it, as the fingle blue and white, the 

 double blue and white, and the pale purple ; it is alfo found 

 with white flowers ; and it has been feen wild with double 

 flowers. This variety is in much efteein, both for the fu- 

 perior fize of the flowers, and their extreme fragrancy ; and 

 as they appear later, they keep up the fucceflion. 



The fecond fort is curious, and rare in this country, 

 having no fweet fcent to recommend it. 



The laft fort varies with more than two colours, as purple, 

 blue, yellow, white, improved and enlarged by gai-den cul- 

 ture. There is the low growing, with fmall flowers ; the 

 larger upright, with large flowers ; large Dutch, with 

 largeft flowers ; variegated, yellow ; purple and white 

 flowered ; yellow-flowered, with purple fpots ; purple, with 

 yellow or white fpots ; white, with yellow and purplfe fpots ; 

 entire yellow ; deep and pale vellow ; purple-flowered ; 

 fcentlefs flowered ; fweet-fcented flowered. 



Method of Culture. — The firll fort may be increafed by 

 feeds, or parting the roots. The feeds may be fown in a 

 bed of light earth, foon after they become ripe, in the be- 

 ginning of autumn ; and when they have fome growth, be 

 removed into a fliady border, until the autumn, when they 

 may be fet out where they are to grow. The double- 

 flowered forts afford no feed. The bell mode is, however, 

 by parting the roots in the early autumn, or after they have 

 flowered, and planting them out in the borders, or in beds 

 at good diftances ; at the latter feafon watering them well. 

 When intended for flowers, they (hould not be parted 

 oftener than once in three or four years. 



The fecond and third forts fucceed befl: by being planted 

 in pots filled with loam and bog-earth well mixed, plunging 

 them in the mould of a north border, where they (hould be 

 protected in winter, or removed under a common hot -bed 

 frame. 



The fourth fort rifes readily from fcattered feeds, and 

 may be railed by fowing the feed where the plants are to 

 grow, in the autumn or fpring. 



They may likewife be increafed by planting out the o(f- 

 fet flips of the large bufhy plants, taken off with root-fibres, 

 in the autumn or fpring, in the borders, or in beds for in- 

 creafing their growth. The varieties may be preferved in 

 this way with fafety. 



Thefe plants afford much variety in the borders, and other 

 parts ; and the firft. fort is ufeful for the flowers. It is 

 proper to be planted out on the verges of fhrubberies and 

 wood-walks, as well as in tufts and patches in the borders, 

 clumps, and other parts of plcafure-grounds ; but when 

 cultivated for the purpofe of its flowers, it is bell planted 

 out in rows in beds, or in the borders, at the diftance of 

 a foot. 



Viola, in the Materia Medica. The common fweet 

 violet, or viola odorata of Linnseus, is perennial, grows wild 

 in hedges and ftiady places, and flowers in March. The 

 flowers of the l^. hirta, or hairy, fcentlefs March violet, 

 are often fubftituted for the other in our markets : but this 

 fort may be eafily diftinguifhed ; the herb, by its having 

 ftalks, which trail on the ground, and bear both leaves and 

 flowers, and by the young leaves being hairy ; the flower, 

 by the three lower petals being fpotted with white, and bv 

 their want of fmell. The officinal violet is the I',» fi!>.av of 

 Theophraftus, and the In ro-ojcpujiv of Diofcorides ; it was 

 alfo well known to the Arabian pliyficians, as Mefue com- 

 mends its ufe highly in various inflammatory difeafes. Viola 

 is hkewife frequently mentioned by the Latin poets, who 

 allude to its etfefts as a vulnerary. The recent flowers only 



are now received in the catalogues of the Materia Medica : 

 they have an agreeable fweet fmell, and a mucilaginous 

 bitterifn tafte ; when chewed, they tinge the faliva blue ; to 

 water they readilv give out both their virtue and their fine 

 flavour, but fcarcely impart any tinclure to reAified fpirit, 

 though they impregnate the fpirit with their flavour. Thefe 

 flowers, taken in the quantity of a drachm or two, are [aid to 

 be gently purgative or laxative ; and according to Bergius, 

 and fome others, they pofTofs an anodyne and peftoral qua- 

 lity. The ofiicinal preparation of thefe flowers is a fyrup, 

 vihich to young children anfwers the purpofe of a purgative. 

 This fyrup is ufually prepared from the petals of the culti- 

 vated violet ; and Dr. Withering tells us, that at Stratford- 

 upon-Avon, large quantities of the violet are cultivated for 

 this purpofe ; but the London herb-fhops are chiefly fup- 

 plied from Kent. (See Syrupus.) This fyrup is alfo 

 found ufeful in many chemical inquiries, to deleft an acid or 

 au alkali ; the former changing the blue colour to a red, the 

 latter to a green. The feeds of violets are reported to be 

 ftrongly diuretic, and ufeful in gravelly complaints. The 

 root powdered, in the dofe of a drachm, proves both emetic 

 and cathartic. 



That fpecies of violet called panfy, or heart's-eafe, the 

 •viola tricolor of Linna;us, grows in corn-fields, wafte and 

 uncultivated grounds, flowering all the fummer months. 

 By the vivid colouring of its flowers, it often becomes very 

 beautiful in gardens, where it is diflinguiflied by various 

 names. To the tafte, this plant, in its recent ftate, is very 

 glutinous or mucilaginous, accom.panied with the common 

 herbaceous flavour and rouglmefs. By d:ftillation with 

 water, according to Haafe, it affords a fmr.U quantity of 

 odorous eflfential oil, of a fomewhat acrid tafte. The dried 

 herb yields about half its weight of watery extraft ; the 

 frefh plant about one-eighth. It was formerly reckoned a 

 powerful medicine in epilepfy, afthma, ulcers, fcabies, and 

 cutaneous complaints ; but its prefent charafter is owing to 

 its having been recommended by Dr. Starck, a German phy-" 

 fician, and others, as a fpccific in the crufta laftea of children. 

 He direfts a handful of the frefli, or half a drachm of 

 the dried leaves, to be boiled two hours in half a pint of 

 milk, which is to be ftrained for ufe. This dofe is repeated 

 morning and evening. Brrad, with this decoftion, is alfo 

 to be formed into a poultice, and applied to the part. He 

 obferveg, that when it has been adminiftered eight days, the 

 eruption ufually increafes confiderabl)', and the patient's 

 urine acquires a fmell Hke that of cats. When the medi- 

 cine has been taken a fortnight, the fcurf begins to fall off 

 in large fcales, leaving the flcin clean. The ufe of the re- 

 medy is to be perfifted in, till the fl<in has refumed the 

 natural appearance, and the urine ceafes to have any parti- 

 cular fmeU. Lewis. Woodville. 



■ Viola, Francisco della, in Biography, macftro di 

 cappella to Alfonfo d'Efte, duke of Ferrara, a difciple of 

 Adrian Willaert, the matter of Z-arhno, and one of the in- 

 terlocutors in his " Ragionam.ente." He was the editor of 

 a curious work by his mafter Willaert, publiflied at Ferrara, 

 1558, under the title of " Mufica Noya." 



Viola, in Geography, a river of Spain, in Guipufcoa,- 

 which rifes in the mountains of Adrian, and runs into the 

 fea, at Cumaja. 



Viola, in Ichthyology, a name by which fome authors 

 have called the fmelt. 



Viola Serotlna, the late violet, in Botany, a name given 

 by the ancients to a garden-flower, not properly of the violet 

 kind, but to which we, as well as they, have connefted' the 

 name violet, though with a diftinftive epithet, we call it 

 viola matronalls, or darnels violet. 



Pliny 



