SUGGESTIONS OF A BROOMSTICK. 85 



print shops, and so waited for an opportunity to see it at the British 

 Museum, and then were satisfied as to the identity hinted at by Hone. 

 Was ever dress so comical ? the hair skewered into an immense tight 

 knob, and covered with a cap too small for an infant, and tied under 

 the chin ; the body as unbending as an oak tree, and apparently en- 

 cased in metal clothing set out in formal flutes, like a large bee-hive 

 or cone of carpentry ; and the grey legs, — oh, for Bloomer trowsers 

 to hide such ! our veritable broomstick is more flexible. But they 

 Were poor and suffered much ; and though most comical illustrations 

 of the Flemish costume, there was always something sad about them 

 as they curtsied at the windows just before dinner time, and snified 

 the odour of the kitchen with a relish which told too plainly of their 

 condition. 



Here our broomstick would have told its story, but that its fallen 

 state is so suggestive of the fate of man that we should lose the very 

 pith and marrow of its teachings were we to lay down our pen without 

 deducing this moral epilogue. The history of a broomstick is a fit 

 emblem of the history of man ; for its green vigour when flourishing 

 in the woods, and its neglected and enfeebled state after a life of good 

 services, are exact counterparts of the sunny freshness of early life 

 and the imbecilities of age. The most useful labourers in the van of 

 progress, those who sweep away the abuses of society, are not they 

 who reap the largest rewards : poets, philosophers, and philanthropists 

 fall friendless and penniless into old age, and, like worn out broom- 

 sticks, are cast aside and forgotten ; while the fawning and hypocri- 

 tical too often feather their nests snugly, and retire from a world 

 which they have defiled, into a retirement which laughs nobler souls 

 to scorn. "When I beheld this," says Dean Swift, " I sighed, and 

 said within myself, ' Surely mortal man is a broomstick.' Nature 

 sent him into the world strong and lusty, in a thriving condition, 

 wearing his own hair upon his head, — the proper branches of this 

 reasoning vegetable, — till the axe of intemperance has lopt off his 

 green boughs, and left him a withered trunk. . . . But now, 

 should this our hrooimtick pretend to enter the scene, proud of those 

 birchen spoils it never bore, and all covered with dust, though the 

 sweepings of the finest lady's chamber, we should be apt to ridicule 

 and despise its vanity, partial judges that we are of our own excel- 

 lencies and other men's faults. . . . But a broomstick, perhaps 

 you'll say, is an emblem of a tree standing on its head : and, pray. 



