THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 



63 



The violet was among the plants sacred to Venus. In 

 medieeval folk-lore to dream of it denoted advancement in 

 life. A common superstition in the old world associated 

 the blooming violets in the autumn with an approaching 

 epidemic, perhaps as a green Christmas made the fat 

 churchyard. Shakespeare especially loved the "violet 

 blue," to throw a perfume upon which was ''wasteful and 

 ridiculous excess." To him the sweet south wind "blows 

 upon a bank of violets." They are worthy to spring 

 from the grave of the gentle Ophelia. In another place 

 they are spoken of as "sweeter than the lids of Juno's 

 eyes." We love to think of the poet strolling on a spring 

 morning, perhaps with fair Anne Hathaway, and pluck- 

 ing the violets in the woods by Avon. 



Whenever throughout the plays the flower is intro- 

 duced, there is presented to our minds at once a scene of 

 peace and beauty. For instance, take the song "In Love's 

 Labor Lost" : 



"When daisies pied and violets blue. 



And lady-smocks all silver white. 

 And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue 



Do paint the meadows with delight." 



The violet is beloved, by our English poets as far back 

 as Chaucer. Even the early ballads, the authorship of 

 which is unknown, are sweet with violets. In Percy's 

 "Reliques" we read : 



"For violets plucke't, the sweetest showers 

 Will ne'er make grow again." 



and 



"The violets that first appear. 



By your purple mantles known." 

 Skipping Milton, who, in his earlier poems had a passion 

 for flowers, and remembered the "glowing violet," and 

 who finds Aurora lying 



"On beds of violet blue 

 And fresh -blown roses washed in dew," 



and coming to the modern poets, of course Wordsworth, 



