purple or golden petals;--you are to know the varieties of form in both,
proper to common species; and in what kind of places they all most fondly
live, and most deeply glow.

"And the recreation of the minde which is taken heereby cannot be but verie
good and honest, for they admonish and stir up a man to that which is
comely and honest. For flowers, through their beautie, varietie of colour,
and exquisite forme, do bring to a liberall and gentle manly minde the
remembrance of honestie, comeliness, and all kinds of vertues. For it would
be an unseemely and filthie thing, as a certain wise man saith, for him
that doth looke upon and handle faire and beautiful things, and who
frequenteth and is conversant in faire and beautiful places, to have his
mind not faire, but filthie and deformed."

10. Thus Gerarde, in the close of his introductory notice of the
violet,--speaking of things, (honesty, comeliness, and the like,) scarcely
now recognized as desirable in the realm of England; but having previously
observed that violets are useful for the making of garlands for the head,
and posies to smell to;--in which last function I observe they are still
pleasing to the British public: and I found the children here, only the
other day, munching a confection of candied violet leaves. What pleasure
the flower can still give us, uncandied, and unbound, but in its own place
and life, I will try to trace through some of its constant laws.

11. And first, let us be clear that the native colour of the violet _is_
violet; and that the white and yellow kinds, though pretty in their place
and way, are not to be thought of in generally meditating the flower's
quality or power. A white violet is to black ones what a black man is to
white ones; and the yellow varieties are, I believe, properly pansies, and
belong also to wild districts for the most part; but the true violet, which