Stack of coloured text labels to replace the colour bar and legend?

This would be a nice compact way of combining colorbar and legend. I can set up different colored lines using the function 'varycolor' from the file exchange, but a list of text labels of corresponding color alongside the figure seems more difficult (see example image). The best I can get is to use a colorbar, with each color grade corresponding to a plot line:

ColorSet = varycolor(10);
figure;
set(gca, 'ColorOrder', ColorSet);
hold all;

for k=1:10
    plot(J(k).time,J(k).variable,'.-');
end

legend off;
set(gcf, 'Colormap', ColorSet);
colorbar;

For example: http://cases.astraspace.net/plots/plot_request_20130516141838519303.png

It seems pretty difficult to have multiple colored text lines within a single text box or legend, and tedious to position multiple text boxes along the length of the y axis. Any help would be great!