“The wee modest crimson-tipped flower,”

which Burns celebrates.  It is what we raise in greenhouses, and call the mountain daisy.  Its effect, growing profusely about fields and grass plats, is very beautiful.

We read much, among the poets, of the primrose,

  “Earliest daughter of the Spring.”

This flower is one, also, which we cultivate in gardens to some extent.  The outline of it is as follows:  The hue a delicate straw color; it grows in tufts in shady places, and has a pure, serious look, which reminds one of the line of Shakspeare—­

  “Pale primroses, which die unmarried.”

It has also the faintest and most ethereal perfume,—­a perfume that seems to come and go in the air like music; and you perceive it at a little distance from a tuft of them, when you would not if you gathered and smelled them.  On the whole, the primrose is a poet’s and a painter’s flower.  An artist’s eye would notice an exquisite harmony between the yellow-green hue of its leaves and the tint of its blossoms.  I do not wonder that it has been so great a favorite among the poets.  It is just such a flower as Mozart and Raphael would have loved.

Then there is the bluebell, a bulb, which also grows in deep shades.  It is a little purple bell, with a narrow green leaf, like a ribbon.  We often read in English stories, of the gorse and furze; these are two names for the same plant, a low bush, with strong, prickly leaves, growing much like a juniper.  The contrast of its very brilliant yellow, pea-shaped blossoms, with the dark green of its leaves, is very beautiful.  It grows here in hedges and on commons, and is thought rather a plebeian affair.  I think it would make quite an addition to our garden shrubbery.  Possibly it might make as much sensation with us as our mullein does in foreign greenhouses.

After rambling a while, we came to a beautiful summer house, placed in a retired spot, so as to command a view of the Mersey River.  I think they told me that it was Lord Denman’s favorite seat.  There we sat down, and in common with the young gentlemen and ladies of the family, had quite a pleasant talk together.  Among other things we talked about the question which is now agitating the public mind a good deal,—­Whether it is expedient to open the Crystal Palace to the people on Sunday.  They said that this course was much urged by some philanthropists, on the ground that it was the only day when the working classes could find any leisure to visit it, and that it seemed hard to shut them out entirely from all the opportunities and advantages which they might thus derive; that to exclude the laborer from recreation on the Sabbath, was the same as saying that he should never have any recreation.  I asked, why the philanthropists could not urge employers to give their workmen a part of Saturday for this purpose; as it seemed to me unchristian to drive trade so that the laboring man had no time but Sunday for intellectual and social recreation.  We rather came to the conclusion that this was the right course; whether the people of England will, is quite another matter.