The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare
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 the death of the young. I suppose
these ideas must have arisen from a sort of pity for flowers that were
only allowed to see the opening year, and were cut off before the full
beauty of summer had come. This was prettily expressed by H. Vaughan,
the Silurist:
"So violets, so doth the primrose fall
At once the spring's pride and its funeral,
Such early sweets get off in their still prime,
And stay not here to wear the foil of time;
While coarser flowers, which none would miss, if past,
To scorching summers and cold winters last."
_Daphnis_, 1678.
It was from this association that they were looked on as apt emblems of
those who enjoyed the bright springtide of life and no more. This
feeling was constantly expressed, and from very ancient times. We find
it in some pretty lines by Prudentius--
"Nos tecta fovebimus ossa
Violis et fronde frequente,
Titulumque et frigida saxa
Liquido spargemus odore."
Shakespeare expresses the same feeling in the collection of "purple
Violets and Marigolds" which Marina carries to hang "as a carpet on the
grave" (No. 14), and again in Laertes' wish that Violets may spring from
the grave of Ophelia (No. 8), on which Steevens very aptly quotes from
Persius Satires--
"e tumulo fortunataque favillâ.
Nascentur Violæ."
In the same spirit Milton, gathering for the grave of Lycidas--
"Every flower that sad embroidery wears,"
gathers among others "the glowing Violet;" and the same thought is
repeated by many other writers.
There is a remarkable botanical curiosity in the structure of the Violet
which is worth notice: it produces flowers both in spring and autumn,
but the flowers are very different. In spring they are fully formed and
sweet-scented, but they are mostly barren and produce no seed, while in
autumn they are very small, they have no petals and, I believe, no
scent, but they produce abundance of seed.[313:1]
I need say nothing to recommend the Violet in all its varieties as a
garden plant. As a useful medicinal plant it was formerly in high
repute--
"Vyolet an erbe cowth
Is knowyn in ilke manys mowthe,
As bokys seyn in here language,
It is good to don in potage,
In playstrys to wondrys it is comfortyf,
W{h} oyer erbys sanatyf:"
_Stockholm MS._
and it still holds a place in the Pharmacopoeia, while the chemist
finds the pretty flowers one of the most delicate tests for detecting
the presence of acids and alkalies; but as to the many other virtues of
the Violet I cannot do better than quote Gerard's pleasant and quaint
words: "The Blacke or Purple Violets, or March Violets of the garden,
have a great prerogative above others, not only because the minde
conceiveth a certain pleasure and recreation by smelling and handling of
those most odoriferous flowres, but also for that very many by these
Violets receive ornament and comely grace; for there be made of them
garlands for the head, nosegaies, and poesies, which are delightfull to
looke on and pleasant to smell to, speaking nothing of their appropriate
vertues; yea, gardens themselves receive by these the greatest ornament
of all chiefest beautie and most gallant grace, and the recreation of
the minde which is taken thereby cannot but be very good and honest; for
they admonish and stir up a man to that which is comely and honest, for
flowres through their beautie, variety of colour, and exquisite forme,
do bring to a liberall and greatte many minde the remembrance of
honestie, comelinesse, and all kindes 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 beautifull things, and who
frequenteth and is conversant in faire and beautifull places, to have
his minde not faire but filthie and deformed." With these brave words of
the old gardener I might well close my account of this favourite
flower, but I must add George Herbert's lines penned in the same
spirit--
"Farewell, dear flowers, sweetly your time ye spent,
Fit, while ye lived, for smell or ornament,
And after death for cures;
I follow straight without complaint or grief,
Since if my scent be good, I care not if
It be as short as yours."
_Poems on Life._
FOOTNOTES:
[310:1] Appel-leaf is given as the English name for Viola in two other
MS. Glossaries quoted by Cockayne, vol. iii. p. 312.
[313:1] This peculiarity is not confined to the Violet. It is found in
some species of Oxalis, Impatiens, Campanula, Eranthemum, Amphicarpea,
Leeisia, &c. Such plants are technically called Cleistogamous, and are
all self-fertilizing.
WALNUT.
(1) _Petruchio._
Why, 'tis a cockle or a Walnut-shell,
A knack, a toy, a trick, a baby's cap.
_Taming of the Shrew_, act iv, sc. 3 (66).
(2) _Ford._
Let them say of me, "As jealous as Ford that searched a hollow
Walnut for his wife's leman."
_Merry Wives of Windsor_, act iv, sc. 2 (170).
The Walnut is a native of Persia and China, and its foreign origin is
told in all its names. The Greeks called it Persicon, _i.e._, the
Persian tree, and Basilikon, _i.e._, the Royal tree; the Latins gave it
a still higher rank, naming it Juglans, _i.e._, Jove's Nut. "Hæc glans,
optima et maxima, ab Jove et glande juglans appellata est."--VARRO. The
English names tell the same story. It was first simply called Nut, as
the Nut _par excellence_. "_Juglantis vel nux_, knutu."--ÆLFRIC'S
_Vocabulary_. But in the fourteenth century it had obtained the name of
"Ban-nut," from its hardness. So it is named in a metrical Vocabulary of
the fourteenth century--
Pomus Pirus Corulus nux Avelanaque Ficus
Appul-tre Peere-tre Hasyl Note Bannenote-tre Fygge;
and this name it still holds in the West of England. But at the same
time it had also acquired the name of Walnut. "_Hec avelana_, A{ce}
Walnot-tree" (Vocabulary fourteenth century). "_Hec avelana_, a Walnutte
and the Nutte" (Nominate fifteenth century). This name is commonly
supposed to have reference to the hard shell, but it only means that
the nut is of foreign origin. "Wal" is another form of Walshe or Welch,
and so Lyte says that the tree is called "in English the Walnut and
Walshe Nut tree." "The word Welsh (_wilisc_, _woelisc_) meant simply a
foreigner, one who was not of Teutonic race, and was (by the Saxons)
applied especially to nations using the Latin language. In the Middle
Ages the French language, and in fact all those derived from Latin, and
called on that account _linguæ Romanæ_, were called in German _Welsch_.
France was called by the mediæval German writers _daz Welsche lant_, and
when they wished to express 'in the whole world,' they said, _in allen
Welschen und in Tiutschen richen_, 'in all Welsh and Teutonic kingdoms.'
In modern German the name _Wälsch_ is used more especially for
Italian."--WRIGHT'S _Celt, Roman, and Saxon_.[315:1] This will at once
explain that Walnut simply means the foreign or non-English Nut.
It must have been a well-established and common tree in Shakespeare's
time, for all the writers of his day speak of it as a high and large
tree, and I should think it very likely that Walnut trees were even more
extensively planted in his day than in our own. There are many noble
specimens to be seen in different parts of England, especially in the
chalk districts, for "it delights," says Evelyn, "in a dry, sound, rich
land, especially if it incline to a feeding chalk or marl; and where it
may be protected from the cold (though it affects cold rather than
extreme heat), as in great pits, valleys, and highway sides; also in
stony ground, if loamy, and on hills, especially chalky; likewise in
cornfields." The grand specimens that may be seen in the sheltered
villages lying under the chalk downs of Wiltshire and Berkshire bear
witness to the truth of Evelyn's remarks. But the finest English
specimens can bear no comparison with the size of the Walnut trees in
warmer countries, and especially where they are indigenous. There they
"sometimes attain prodigious size and great age. An Italian architect
mentions having seen at St. Nicholas, in Lorraine, a single plank of the
wood of the Walnut, 25ft. wide, upon which the Emperor Frederick III.
had given a sumptuous banquet. In the Baidar Valley, near Balaclava, in
the Crimea, stands a Walnut tree at least 1000 years old. It yields
annually from 80,000 to 100,000 Nuts, and belongs to five Tartar
families, who share its produce equally."--_Gardener's Chronicle._
The economic uses of the Walnut are now chiefly confined to the timber,
which is highly prized both for furniture and gun-stocks, and to the
production of oil, which is not much used in Europe, but is highly
valued in the East. "It dries much more slowly than any other distilled
oil, and hence its great value, as it allows the artist as much time as
he requires in order to blend his colours and finish his work. In
conjunction with amber varnish it forms a vehicle which leaves nothing
to be desired, and which doubtless was the vehicle of Van Eyck, and in
many instances of the Venetian masters, and of Correggio."--_Arts of the
Middle Ages_, preface. In mediæval times a high medicinal value was
attached to the fruit, for the celebrated antidote against poison which
was so firmly believed in, and which was attributed to Mithridates, King
of Pontus, was chiefly composed of Walnuts. "Two Nuttes (he is speaking
of Walnuts) and two Figges, and twenty Rewe leaves, stamped together
with a little salt, and eaten fasting, doth defende a man from poison
and pestilence that day."--BULLEIN, _Governmente of Health_, 1558.
The Walnut holds an honoured place in heraldry. Two large Walnut trees
overshadow the tomb of the poet Waller in Beaconsfield churchyard, and
"these are connected with a curious piece of family history. The tree
was chosen as the Waller crest after Agincourt, where the head of the
family took the Duke of Orleans prisoner, and took afterwards as his
crest the arms of Orleans hanging by a label in a Walnut tree with this
motto for the device: _Hæc fructus virtutis._"--_Gardener's Chronicle_,
Aug., 1878.