ed his Viola by any early-flowering
plant that most took their fancy. Even as late as 1693, Samuel Gilbert,
in "The Florists' Vade Mecum," under the head of Violets, only describes
"the lesser early bulbous Violet, a common flower yet not to be wasted,
because when none other appears that does, though in the snow, whence
called Snowflower or Snowdrop;" and I think that even later instances
may be found.

When I say that there is no genuine English name for the Violet, I
ought, perhaps, to mention that one name has been attributed to it, but
I do not think that it is more than a clever guess. "The commentators on
Shakespeare have been much puzzled by the epithet 'happy lowlie down,'
applied to the man of humble station in "Henry IV.," and have proposed
to 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 Pleasaunce._"

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 th