nd Milton 'glowing.'

Perdita, indeed, calls it dim, at that moment, in thinking of her own love,
and the hidden passion of it, unspeakable; nor is Milton without some
purpose of using it as an emblem of love, mourning,--but, in both cases,
the subdued and quiet hue of the flower as an actual tint of colour, and
the strange force and life of it as a part of light, are felt to their
uttermost.

And observe, also, that both, of the poets contrast the violet, in its
softness, with the intense marking of the pansy. Milton makes the
opposition directly---

"the pansy, freaked with jet,
The glowing violet."

Shakspeare shows yet stronger sense of the difference, in the "purple with
Love's wound" of the pansy, while the violet is sweet with Love's hidden
life, and sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes.

Whereupon, we may perhaps consider with ourselves a little, what the
difference _is_ between a violet and a pansy?

13. Is, I say, and was, and is to come,--in spite of florists, who try to
make pansies round, instead of pentagonal; and of the wise classifying
people, who say that violets and pansies are the same thing--and that
neither of them are of much interest! As, for instance, Dr. Lindley in his
'Ladies' Botany.'

"Violets--sweet Violets, and Pansies, or Heartsease, represent a small
family, with the structure of which you should be familiar; more, however,
for the sake of its singularity than for its extent or importance, for the
family is a very small one, and there are but few species belonging to it
in which much interest is taken. As the parts of the Heartsease are larger
than those of the Violet, let us select the former in preference for the
subject of our study." Whereupon we plunge instantly into the usual account
of things with horns and tails. "The stamens are five in number--two of
them, which are in front of the others, are hidden within the horn of the
front petal," etc., etc., etc. (Note in passing, by the '_horn of the
front_' petal he means the '_spur of the bottom_' one, which indeed does
stand in front of the rest,--but if therefore _it_ is to be called the
_front_ petal--which is the back one?) You may find in the next paragraph
description of a "singular conformation," and the interesting conclusion
that "no one has yet discovered for what purpose this singular conformation
was provided." But you will not, in the entire article, find the least
attempt to tell you the difference bet