SUGGESTIONS OF A BROOMSTICK. 81 



In yonder greenwood blows the broom ; 



Shepherds, we'll trust our flocks to stray, — 

 Court Nature in her sweetest bloom, 



And steal from Care one summer day.* 



It was the rushy branches of the broom which supplied the old 

 Greeks with ropes and cordage ; f which now provides the " simple 

 sheep" with the best of food, the cattle with the best of litter, the 

 cottager with the best of thatch, — 



(He made carpenters to make the houses and lodgynges of great tymbre, and 

 set the houses like stretes, and covered them with rede and brome, so that it 

 was lyke a lyttel towne. — Feoissart.) — 



and the wild bee with the most delicious honey. It is the bonny 

 broom which serves us as well whether we cut its tufts for sweeping , 

 for tanning leather, or for the manufacture of coarse cloth ; which is 

 almost as useful as hops in brewing ; which furnishes a wood capable 

 of the most exquisite polish ; which, in its ashes, gives a pure alkali, 

 and in its pods and blossoms, perfume and medicine, — Drs. Cullen 

 and Mead both esteemed the broom in cases of dropsy. 



E'en humble broom and osiers have their use, 

 And shade for sheep and food for flocks produce. 



It was the bonny broom which the Scottish clan of the Forbes 

 wore in their bonnets when they wished to arouse the heroism of their 

 chieftain, and which, in their Gaelic dialect, they called healadJi, in 

 token of its beauty. It was this very broom from which the long line 

 of Plantagenets took their name, and which to the last they wore on 

 their helmets, crests, and family seal. It was thus: — Fulke, Earl of 

 Anjou, having committed a crime, was enjoined by a holy father of 

 the church, to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land by way of penance. 

 He went, habited in lowly attire, with a sprig of broom in his hat to 

 denote his humility. The expiation finished, he adopted the name 

 of Plantagenet, from Flanta and Gerdsta, % the old name of the 

 broom, and transmitted this to his princely descendants.* As an 



* Langhorne. The Wilding and the Broom. 



+ Spartium, fxoTO. '^T^o.QTOV cordage. Genista fpar^ium has thick-set, rush- 

 like twigs, very tough and fibrous. 



X Genista. — The Celt implies small bush; or from genu, a knee, from the 

 bending of the twigs ; or geno, to produce, on account of its abundance. 

 * Sandford's Genealogical History. 

 G 



