Chapter Violenta to Virgil's Courtship of V by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Violenta to Virgil's Courtship

Violenta, any young lady nonentity; one who contributes nothing to the amusement or conversation of a party. Violenta is one of the dramatis personæ of Shakespeare’s All’s Well that Ends Well, but she only enters once, and then she neither speaks nor is spoken to (1598). (See Rogero, p. 927, third art.)

Violenta, the fairy mother who brought up the young princess who was metamorphosed into a white cat for refusing to marry Migonnet (a hideously misshapen fairy).—Comtesse D’Aulnoy: Fairy Tales (“The White Cat,” 1682).

Violet, the ward of lady Arundel. She is in love with Norman the “sea-captain,” Who turns out to be the son of lady Arundel by her first husband, and heir to the title and estates.—Lord Lytton: The Sea-Captain (1839).

Violet (Father), a sobriquet of Napoleon I.; also called “Corporal Violet” (1769, 1804–1815, died 1821).

Violets were the flowers of the empire, and when, in 1879, the ex-empress Eugénie was visited at Chislehurst by those who sympathized with her in the death of her son, “the prince imperial,” they were worn as symbols of attachment to the imperial family of France. The name was given to Napoleon on his banishment to Elba (1815), and implied that “he would return to France with the violets.”

Violet-Crowned City (The), Athens is so called by Aristophanês iostefanoV (see Equites, 1323 and 1329; and Acharnians, 637). Macaulay refers to Athens as “the violet-crowned city.” Ion (a violet) was a representative king of Athens, whose four sons gave names to the four Athenian classes; and Greece, in Asia Minor, was called Ionia. Athens was the city of “Ion crowned its king,” and hence was “the Ion crowned,” or king Ion’s city. Translating the word Ion into English, Athens was the "Violet-crowned,” or king Violet’s city. Of course, the pun is the chief point, and was quite legitimate in comedy.

Similarly, Paris is called the “city of lilies,” by a pun between Louis and Iys (the flower-de-luce), and France is l’empire des lys or l’empire des Louis.

By a similar pun, London might be called “the noisy town,” from hlúd, “noisy.”

Violetta, a Portuguese, married to Belfield the elder brother, but deserted by him. The faithless husband gets betrothed to Sophia (daughter of sir Benjamin Dove), who loves the younger brother. Both Violetta and the younger brother are shipwrecked and cast on the coast of Cornwall, in the vicinity of squire Belfield’s estate; and Sophia is informed that her “betrothed” is a married man. She is therefore free from her betrothal, and marries the younger brother, the man of her choice; while the elder brother takes back his wife, to whom he becomes reconciled.—Cumberland: The Brothers (1769).

Violin (Motto on a).

In silvis viva silui; canora jam mortua cano.
Mute when alive, I heard the feathered throng;
Vocal now dead, I emulate their song.
   —E.C.B.

Violin (The Angel with the). Rubens’s “Harmony” is an angel of the male sex playing a bass-viol.

The angel with the violin,
Painted by Raphael (?), he seemed.
   —Longfellow: The Wayside Inn (1863).

Violin-Makers (The best): Gasparo di Salo (1560–1610); Nicholas Amati (1596–1684); Antonio Stradivari (1670–1728); Joseph A. Guarneri (1683–1745).

(Of these, Stradivari was the best, and Nicholas Amati the next best.)

N.B.—The following are eminent, but not equal to the names given above: Joseph Steiner (1620–1667); Matthias Klotz (1650–1606). (See Otto, On the Violin.)