See the primrose sweetly set
By the much-loved violet,
All the bankes doe sweetly cover
As they would invite a lover
With his lass, to see their dressing,

And to grace them by their pressing."
W. BROWNE,

""Tis May, the Grace,-confess'd she stands
By branch of hawthorn in her hands:
Lo! near her trip the lightsome dews,
Their wings all tinged in iris hues ;
With whom the powers of Flora play,
And paint with pansies all the way."

WARTON.

Philips, in his Letter from Copenhagen, beautifully describes the appearance of the Hawthorn in the winter:

"In pearls and rubies rich the hawthorns show,

While through the ice the crimson berries glow."

There is a beautiful address to the Hawthorn in the poems of Ronsard. The following version*, which is from the pen of the Rev. Mr. Cary, is so faithful, and so happy, that the French poet will suffer no injustice if we quote the translation only:

"Fair hawthorn flowering,

With green shade bowering

Along this lovely shore;

To thy foot around

With his long arms wound

A wild vine has mantled thee o'er.

"In armies twain,

Red ants have ta'en

Their fortress beneath thy stock:

And in clefts of thy trunk

Tiny bees have sunk

A cell where honey they lock.

* See "Notices of the Early French Poets," in the London Maga

zine, vol. v. p 511.

"In merry spring-tide,
When to woo his bride
The nightingale comes again,
Thy boughs among

He warbles his song,

That lightens a lover's pain.

"'Mid thy topmost leaves
His nest he weaves
Of moss and the satin fine,
Where his callow brood
Shall chirp at their food,
Secure from each hand but mine.

"Gentle hawthorn, thrive,

And, for ever alive,

Mayst thou blossom as now in thy prime;

By the wind unbroke,

And the thunderstroke,

Unspoiled by the axe of time."

The following lines by another French poet, Olivier de Magny, addressed to Ronsard's servant, present a most delightful picture:

"And if he with his troops repair

Sometimes into the fields,

Seek thou the village nigh, and there
Choose the best wine it yields.

Then by a fountain's grassy side,
O'er which some hawthorn bends,
Be the full flask by thee supplied,
To cheer him and his friends."

LONDON MAGAZINE, vol. v. p. 159.

VIOLE.

HEART'S-EASE.

VIOLA TRICOLOR.

SYNGENESIA MONOGYNIA.

French, herbe de la Trinité; pensées [thoughts].-Italian, flammola [little flame]; viola farfalla [butterfly violet]; viola segolina [winged violet]; fior della Trinita; suocera e nuora [mother-in-law and daughter-in-law]. The Greeks have named it phlox flame].

THIS beautiful flower is a native of Siberia, Japan, and

many parts of Europe. It is a general favourite, as might be supposed from the infinity of provincial names which have been bestowed upon it from its beautiful colours :

Love in Idleness.

Live in Idleness.

Call me to you.

Cull me to you.

Jump up and kiss me.

Look up and kiss me.

Kiss me ere I rise.

Kiss me behind the Garden-gate.

Three Faces under a Hood. Pink of my John.

And Flamy, because its colours are seen in the flame of wood.

It is a species of violet, and is frequently called the Pansy-violet, or Pansy, a corruption of the French name, pensées.

The smaller varieties are scentless, but the larger ones have an agreeable odour. Drayton celebrates its perfume by the flowers with which he compares it in this respect; but then, to be sure, his is an Elysian Heart's-ease :

"The pansy and the violet, here,

As seeming to descend

Both from one root, a very pair,
For sweetness do contend.

"And pointing to a pink to tell

Which bears it, it is loth

To judge it; but replies, for smell

That it excels them both.

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"Wherewith displeased they hang their heads,

So angry soon they grow,
And from their odoriferous beds

Their sweets at it they throw."

The Heart's-ease has been lauded by many of our poets; it has been immortalised even by Shakspeare himself; but no one has been so warm and constant in its praise as Mr. Hunt, who has mentioned it in many of his works. In the Feast of the Poets, he entwines it with the Vine and the Bay, for the wreath bestowed by Apollo upon Mr. T. Moore. In the notes to that little volume, he again speaks

of this flower, and I do not know that I can do better than steal a few of its pages to adorn this.

"It is pleasant to light upon an universal favourite, whose merits answer one's expectation. We know little or nothing of the common flowers among the ancients; but as violets in general have their due mention among the poets that have come down to us, it is to be concluded that the Heart's-ease could not miss its particular admiration, --if indeed it existed among them in its perfection. The modern Latin name for it is flos Jovis, or Jove's flower,-an appellation rather too worshipful for its little sparkling delicacy, and more suitable to the greatness of an hydrangea or to the diadems of a rhododendron.

"Quæque per irriguas quærenda Sisymbria valles
Crescunt, nectendis cum myrto nata coronis ;
Flosque Jovis varius, folii tricoloris, et ipsi
Par violæ, nulloque tamen spectatus odore.

RAPINI HORTORUM, lib. i.

"With all the beauties in the vallies bred,

Wild mint, that's born with myrtle crowns to wed,
And Jove's own flower, that shares the violet's pride,
Its want of scent with triple charm supplied.

“The name given it by the Italians is flammola, the little flame ;— at least, this is an appellation with which I have met, and it is quite in the taste of that ardent people. The French are perfectly aimáble with theirs:- they call it pensée, a thought, from which comes our word Pansy :

6

"There's rosemary,' says poor Ophelia; that's for remembrance; -pray you, love, remember;—and there is pansies,—that's for thoughts.' Drayton, in his world of luxuries, the Muse's Elysium, where he fairly stifles you with sweets, has given, under this name of it, a very brilliant image of its effect in a wreath of flowers ;-the nymph says,

"Here damask roses, white and red,

Out of my lap first take I,

Which still shall run along the thread;
My chiefest flow'r this make I.
Amongst these roses in a row,

Next place I pinks in plenty,

These double-daisies then for show;
And will not this be dainty?

The pretty pansy then I'll tye,
Like stones some chain enchasing;
The next to them, their near ally,
The purple violet placing..
NYMPHAL 5th.

Milton, in his fine way, gives us a picture in a word,

"Another of its names is Love-in-idleness, under which it has been again celebrated by Shakspeare, to whom we must always return, for any thing and for every thing;-his fairies make potent use of it in the Midsummer-Nights' Dream. The whole passage is full of such exquisite fancies, mixed with such noble expressions and fine suggestions of sentiment, that I will indulge myself, and lay it before the reader at once, that he may not interrupt himself in his chair:—

OBERON. My gentle Puck, come hither:-thou rememberest,
Since once I sat upon a promontory,

And heard a mermaid, on a dolphin's back,
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath,
That the rude sea grew civil at her song,

And certain stars shot madly from their spheres

To hear the sea-maid's music?

OBERON. That very time I saw (but thou couldst not,)
Flying betwixt the cold earth and the moon,

Cupid all arm'd:

:-a certain aim he took

At a fair vestal, throned by the west,

And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow,

As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts:

But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft

Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon;
And the imperial votaress pass'd on,

In maiden meditation, fancy free.

Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell:

It fell upon a little western flower,

Before, milk-white,-now purple with love's wound,

And maidens call it Love-in-idleness.

Fetch me that flower,-the herb I show'd thee once:

The juice of it, on sleeping eyelids laid,
Will make or man or woman madly dote
Upon the next live creature that it sees.