The Violet. 25 



variable flower, are scarcely less numerous than the names which 

 have been bestowed upon it. Pansy is a corruption of the 

 French name PcmCe, thought, as Ophelia says, " and there's 

 Pansies, that's for thoughts." This plant spreads itself every- 

 where, growing in corn-fields and waste as well as cultivated 

 grounds ; it will grow in any soil and situation, but the self- 

 grown plants degenerate very rapidly, producing only small 

 dingy flowers. It is a plant that must be in company to shi'ne, 

 as its own perfume is weak, and it requires a cluster to produce 

 much effect, both in regard to sight and smell. So rich and 

 varied are the tints, in purple and gold, of this flower, exceeding 

 far the workmanship of art, that it is impossible ever to find two 

 Pinks of my John, as it has been whimsically called, alike. The 

 fresh plant has an extremely glutinous taste, and makes, accord- 

 ing to Bergius, a useful mucilaginous purgative. It has been 

 celebrated, both in ancient and modern times, as a remedy for 

 the Crust a Lactea of infants, which is an eruption of broad 

 pustules, full of a glutinous liquor, forming white scabs when 

 ruptured ; for this purpose a handful of the fresh herb, or half a 

 drachm of it dried, boiled two hours in milk, is to be taken night 

 and morning. Bread, with this decoction, is to be made into a 

 poultice and applied to the affected part ; for the first eight days 

 it makes it worse, but when finally persevered in is almost sure 

 to cure. It has also been useful as an expectorant, which power 

 it owes to an alkaline principle, common to the genus, called 

 Violine. This is of a white color, very soluble in alcohol, slightly 

 so in water, and forms salts with the acids. As it exists in the plant 

 in the state of a malate, magnesia is given to the malic acid, with 

 which it combines and sets free the Violine, which is afterwards 

 extracted from the precipitated matters ; it is a powerful poison. 

 Nuttali says, that the most successful mode of cultivating the 

 various species in our own country, is in a moist or shaded rock 

 border, which is nothing more than a low mound, held together 

 by scattered angular stones. Phillips, an English writer of much 

 eminence, says, that the sweet Violet, when growing naturally, is 

 found on banks where the soil is light, and where it has a partial 

 shade. It seems to love a mixture of chalk in the earth, as we have 

 observed that it propagates itself most rapidly in such situations 

 both by its runners,in the manner of strawberries, and also by seed. 

 He goes on to remark, that in the spring he found the banks be- 



