47 
This Violet is merely a variety of the sweet-seented 
Purple. Lord Bacon asserts that “white Violets are 
more inodorous than flowers of the same kind coloured.” 
He also attributes their want of colour to poverty of 
soil. “It is obserred that Violets that are coloured, 
if they be neglected, and neither watered, new moulded, 
nor transplanted, will turn white, and probably the 
white with much culture may tum coloured; for the 
white colour proceeds from scarcity of nourishment, 
except in flowers that are only white and admit of no 
other colour.” 
This statement, though penned by so great a philo¬ 
sopher, naturalists in the présent more enlightened âge 
déclaré to be quite erroneous. 
As a theme for poets, the Violet has ever been a 
favourite. Besides uniting a simple loveliness of form, 
a riehness of tint which the vestments of kings strive 
m vain to equal, with a fragrance that man would 
imitate, but owns he cannot, they are among the first- 
lings of the year, and indeed often when untimely frosts 
hâve eut off many an opening bud, we spy beneath 
some shaded hedge-row these little flowers, blossoming 
unharmed. 
