This may prove that Browne called the Violet a Lowly-down, but it 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.