’A tuft of daisies on a flowery lay
    They saw; and thitherward they bent their way;
    To this both knights and dames their homage made,
    And due obeisance to the daisy paid. 
    And then the band of flutes began to play,
    To which a lady sung a virelay: 
    And still at every close she would repeat
    The burden of the song—­“the daisy is so sweet."’

The structure of the daisy has been noticed in a former paper, and its appearance needs no description.  But there is one other flower which I meet with that must not escape us, and that is that noble plant, the butter-bur (Tussilago petasites), named from a Greek word signifying a broad covering.  Its leaves, the largest produced by any British plant, are sometimes from two to three feet across, and form a shelter for poultry and small animals from the rain.  It is a composite flower of the sub-order Tubulifloreae.  The large club-shaped bunch of flower comes before the leaves are more than partially developed, and are of a pale-purple tint, and of a most delicious fragrance, not unlike the heliotrope.  When these die off, the magnificent leaves form quite a beautiful object in the landscape.  Artists are fond of introducing them into the foreground of their sketches, and very ornamental they are; but they should be careful not to place them where nature never designed they should grow, among dry hill and rock scenery, or on the sea-coast—­for they are only to be found growing in moist and shadowed places, and usually in the vicinity of a brook, to which they form a very apposite adornment.—­But here we are at home, and there stands Fanny at my door with her load of treasure, George having trotted her home by a shorter cut than that which I had followed; and unless Jack or Sam can honour me with their company the next time I go flower-picking, I shall surely, as the Scotch say, ‘ride upon shanks naiggie.’

AN EVENING IN WESTMINSTER.

In a drizzly afternoon at the close of January, we met by appointment at a house in Westminster with a gentleman, who had kindly undertaken to introduce us to a very remarkable institution in that part of the metropolis.  A walk of a few minutes through the plashy streets brought us to a wide gateway, like the entrance to a brassfounder’s yard.  We soon found ourselves in a narrow court, encumbered with building materials and surrounded with plain brick structures, which appeared to have either been recently erected, or to be undergoing some changes designed to adapt them to new purposes.  Everything looked plain and homely, even to rudeness; but we, nevertheless, knew well that a heart of humanity and noble intention beat under the rough exterior of the place.