*5 2 
SHAKESPEARE’S GARDEN 
The delicate scent is, however, the most constant 
theme ; thus we get : 
The forward violet thus did I chide : 
Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells, 
If not from my love’s breath ? 
Sonnet xcix. 
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, 
To throw a perfume on the violet, 
To smooth the ice, or add another hue 
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light 
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish, 
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess. 
King John , IV. ii. n. 
For the combination of colour and odour we cannot 
better 
Violets dim, 
But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes 
Or Cytherea’s breath. 
Winter's Tale, IV. iv. 120. 
The delicate veining of the petals is thus spoken of : 
These blue-vein’d violets whereon we lean 
Never can blab, nor know not what we mean. 
Venus and Adonis, 125. 
Perhaps of all Warwickshire flowers none are so 
plentiful as violets; our own little churchyard of 
Whitchurch is sheeted with them. They grow in 
every hedgebank, until the whole air is filled with 
their fragrance, and even the wood-violets and their 
allies are equally common. The wastes near Strat¬ 
ford are sometimes purple as far as eye can see with 
the flowers of V. canina, L. Our English violets are 
twelve in number, including some, such as V. rupestrls 
and V. stagnina, of great rarity; one the pansy, has been 
already dealt with. The best known are the marsh, 
sweet, hairy, and wood violets, and their varieties, 
while in the north we get Viola lutea, Huds. The 
cultivated species are chiefly from Southern Europe. 
