Note 18 — PREFACE.
Reading edition
So thought Sir W. Raleigh;
Sweet violets, love's paradise, that spread Your gracious odours ... Upon the gentle wing of some calm-breathing wind, That plays amidst the plain.
The lines in Twelfth Night we all recollect:
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.
That these flowers were the most favourite ones of Shakspeare, there can be little doubt—Perditta fondly calls them
——sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes Or Cytherea's breath.
When Petrarch first saw Laura: "elle avail une robe verte, sa coleur favorite, parsemée de violettes, la plus humble des fleurs."—Childe Harold thus paints this flower:
The sweetness of the violet's deep blue eyes (Kiss'd by the breath of heaven) seems colour'd by its skies.