M. Boisjolin also notices this flower as the emblem

of modesty

L'obscure Violette, amante des gazons,

Aux pleurs de leur rosée entremêlant ses dons,
Semble vouloir cacher, sous leurs voiles propices,
D'un prodigue parfum les discrètes délices :
C'est l'emblème d'un cœur qui répand en secret
Sur le malheur timide un modeste bienfait.

The Violet seems too humble a flower to have found a place in displays of Heraldry, yet it has been ingeniously given as a device to an amiable and witty lady, of a timid and reserved character, surrounded with the motto, Il faut me chercher, "I must be sought after."

The White Violet is also made the emblem of Innocence; and by some lines of a sonnet of the sixteenth century, the Violet appears to have been considered an emblem of faithfulness

Violet is for faithfulnesse,

Which in me shall abide ;

Hoping likewise that from your heart

You will not let it slide.

The poets have coupled the most agreeable ideas with the fragrant flower. Milton makes Echo dwell amongst Violets

Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph, that liv'st unseen

By slow Meander's margent green,

And in the Violet-embroider'd vale.

Shakspeare compares the soft strains of plaintive music to the perfume of Violets

That strain again; it had a dying fall:
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet south,
That breathes upon a bank of Violets,
Stealing, and giving odour.

Twelfth Night.

In the soliloquy which the same bard gives us through Belisarius, in Cymbeline, he is scarce less happy

O, thou goddess,

Thou divine Nature, how thyself thou blazon'st
In these two princely boys! They are as gentle
As zephyrs, blowing below the Violet,

Not wagging his sweet head.

That the Violet was a favourite with Shakspeare is most evident, by the beautiful simile he makes Perdita deliver in the Winter's Tale

Violets dim,

But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes,

Or Cytherea's breath.

Mr. Barry Cornwall places the Violet even before the Rose, and we agree with him, in a moral point of view, that modesty is more desirable than beauty, but as florists we must always acknowledge the Rose as the Queen of flowers. Of the Violet, he says

It has a scent as though Love, for its dower,
Had on it all his odorous arrows tost;

For though the Rose has more perfuming power,
The Violet (haply 'cause 'tis almost lost,
And takes us so much trouble to discover)

Stands first with most, but always with a lover.

This poet, like most of his competitors, dwells upon the Blue Violet, overlooking the innocent and sweet flower altogether.

And Violets, a blue profusion, sprung,
Haunting the air.

And Violets, whose looks are like the skies.

Or when the blue-eyed Violet weeps upon

Some sloping bank *.

Virgil tells us

The daughters of the flood have searched the mead
For Violets pale.

This flower was in such high estimation with the ancients, that one of the prizes of the Floral games consisted of a Golden Violet, and we are told in their fables, that Ia, the daughter of Atlas, fleeing into the woods from the pursuit of Apollo, was, through the power of Diana, changed into a Violet, which still retains the bashful timidity of the nymph, by partially concealing itself from the gaze of Phoebus in its foliage.

The trembling Violet, which eyes
The sun but once, and unrepining dies.

H. SMITH.

* The eye of the Violet is of an orange colour.

Mythologists also tell us, that Proserpine was gathering Violets as well as Narcissuses when she was seized by Pluto.

"Iov, the Greek name for this flower, is said to have been given it because Io fed on Violets, when she was transformed by Jupiter into a heifer : others tell us that it was so called after some nymphs of Ionia, who first presented these flowers to the Father of the Gods.

That the ancients were acquainted with anagrams, we learn by Lycophron, who lived in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus, about 280 years before Christ. This Greek grammarian found, in the name of Ptolemy, the Greek word for honey; and in that of the Queen Arsinöe, Violet of Juno. It is through ancient anecdotes

The piercing eye explores

The manners and the pomp of ancient days,
Whence culls the pensive bard his pictured stores:
Nor rough, nor barren, are the winding ways
Of hoar antiquity, but strewed with flowers.

T. WARTON.

The sweet Violet, Viola odorata, when growing naturally, is found on banks where the soil is light, and where it has partial shade. It seems to love a mixture of chalk in the earth, as we have observed that it propagates itself most rapidly in such situations, both by its runners, in the manner of strawberries, and also by seed.

In the spring of 1823, we found the banks between Preston and Clayton, near Brighton, covered with Violets, principally white. The soil was a kind of chalky loam, and on some of the banks we found a considerable quantity of Sweet Violets, of a murrey or pale mulberry colour, and others of a dingy flesh colour, not unlike the tint of common blotting paper. Near these we uniformly discovered patches of White Violets on one side, and the purple variety on the other, which evinced the change to be principally owing to the accidental mixture of the farina of the two varieties, as we observed some of the White Violets had the edges of their petals tinged with purple, and the spur of the greater part were tinged with that colour with a reddish cast. We are inclined to think that the soil in some degree assisted in contributing to this unusual colour of the Sweet Violet, as on the same day we found on a grass-plot, near a very large yew tree, in the Rectory garden at Clayton, where the soil is a mixture of cold clay and chalk, Violets growing spontaneously, of a rich red plum colour, and as odorous as the White or Purple Violets.

In dissecting the blossom of the Sweet Violet, the students of phytography will have clearly demonstrated to them the utility of the nectary to the parts of fructification. What is termed the spur