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PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
read £ lowly clown,’ or to divide the phrase into ‘ low lie 
down,’ but the following lines from Browne clearly prove 
‘ lowly down ’ to be the correct term, for he uses it in precisely 
the same sense— 
* The humble Violet that lowly down 
Salutes the gay nymphs as they trimly pass.’ 
Poet's PleasaunceP 
This may prove that Browne called the Violet a Lowly- 
down, but it certainly does not prove that name to have been a 
common name for the Violet. It was, however, the character 
of lowliness combined with sweetness that gave the charm to 
the Violet in the eyes of the emblem-writers: it was for them 
the readiest symbol of the meekness of humility. “ Humilitas 
dat gratiam ” is the motto that Camerarius places over a clump 
of Violets. “ A true widow is, in the church, as a little March 
Violet shedding around an exquisite perfume by the fragrance 
of her devotion, and always hidden under the ample leaves of 
her lowliness, and by her subdued colouring showing the spirit 
of her mortification, she seeks untrodden and solitary places,” 
&c. —St. Francis de Sales. And the poets could nowhere 
find a fitter similitude for a modest maiden than 
“ A Violet by a mossy stone 
Half hidden from the eye.” 
Violets, like Primroses, must always have had their joyful 
associations as coming to tell that the winter is passing away 
and brighter days are near, for they are among 
“ The first to rise 
And smile beneath spring’s wakening skies, 
The courier of a band 
Of coming flowers.” 
Yet it is curious to note how, like Primroses, they have been 
ever associated with death, especially with the death of the young. 
I suppose these ideas must have arisen from a sort of pity for 
flowers that were only allowed to see the opening year, and 
