The forward Violet thus did I chide: "Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells, If not from my love's breath? The purple pride Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells In my love's veins thou hast too grossly died." _Ibid._ xcix. There are about a hundred different species of Violets, of which there are five species in England, and a few sub-species. One of these is the Viola tricolor, from which is descended the Pansy, or Love-in-Idleness (_see_ PANSY). But in all the passages in which Shakespeare names the Violet, he alludes to the purple sweet-scented Violet, of which he was evidently very fond, and which is said to be very abundant in the neighbourhood of Stratford-on-Avon. For all the eighteen passages tell of some point of beauty or sweetness that attracted him. And so it is with all the poets from Chaucer downwards--the Violet is noticed by all, and by all with affectation. I need only mention two of the greatest. Milton gave the Violet a chief place in the beauties of the "Blissful Bower" of our first parents in Paradise-- "Each beauteous flower, Iris all hues, Roses, and Jessamin Rear'd high their flourish't heads between, and wrought Mosaic; underfoot the Violet, Crocus and Hyacinth with rich inlay Broidered the ground, more coloured than with stone Of costliest emblem;" _Paradise Lost_, book iv. and Sir Walter Scott crowns it as the queen of wild flowers-- "The Violet in her greenwood bower, Where Birchen boughs with Hazels mingle, May boast itself the fairest flower In glen, in copse, or forest dingle."