126 



THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



" The white pink, and the pansie streaked 

 with jet, 

 The glowing violet." 

 Although he says that when Eve re- 

 posed in Paradise : — 



" Flowers were her couch, 

 Pansies, and violets, and aspodel, 

 And hyacinth, earth's freshest softest lap." 



The trivial and local names of the 

 violets are legion — V. tricolor having 

 perhaps the most. Many of these are 

 of an amatory character, as " Love-in- 

 idleness," " "Love-in-idle,'* meaning 

 in vain, " Come kiss me quick,'* &c. 

 These and others probably from the 

 attractive beauty and coquettish char- 

 acter of the flowers, hanging their j 

 heads as if half exposing their charms ! 

 to the full glare of the sun, whilst ! 

 seeming as if shyly staring at all be- j 

 holders. The well-known lines of 

 Shakspeare, where in courtier language 

 he flattered his royal mistress, and at 

 the same time expressed a popular 

 superstition regarding the violet : — 



" Cupid all arm'd, a certain aim he took 

 At a fair vestal throned in the west, 

 And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his 

 bow 



As it should pierce a hundred thousand 

 hearts ; 



But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft 

 Quenched in the chaste beams of the watery 

 moon, 



And the imperial votress passed on 



In maiden meditation, fancy free. 



Yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell : 



It fell upon a little western flower ; — 



Before milk-white ; now purple with love's 



wound ; — 

 And maidens call it, love-in-idleness. 



Fetch me that flower— the herb I showed 



thee once — 

 The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid 

 Will make or man or woman madly dote 

 Upon the next live creature that it sees." 

 " Three-faces-under-a-hood," " Herb 

 Trinity," refers to the three blended 

 colours of the corolla. " Cats faces," 

 a local Scotch name in allusion to the 

 face-like features of the flowers. 

 " Pansy," a favourite name with every- 

 body. Ophelia says — 



" There's pansies that's for thoughts." 



This is a corruption of the Prench 

 ^'pensee,'' thought, and has been 

 referred to the French gallants, 

 when they presented violets to their 

 lady-loves, saying " Penser-a-moi " 

 — think of me. More doubtfully 

 it has been derived from the Latin 

 Panacea. " Violet " is the Anglicised 

 form of the generic Latin name Fiola, 

 French " violette" although some 

 would give it a Celtic origin from 

 " fail " smell, "fail-chuach " being the 

 Gaelic name for violet. Be that as it 

 may the name " violet " had once a 

 much wider range in botany than is- 

 now assigned to it, including many 

 odoriferous plants, such as the wall- 

 flower, although now botanically re- 

 stricted to the present genus, it still 

 lingers in combination as in the 

 "Dame's Violet" [Hesperis matron- 

 alis), deliciously fragrant; the "water 

 violet " {Hottonia palustris) ; the 

 " tooth violet " {Lentaria bulbifera), 

 and others. 



