86 BRAMBLES AND BAT LEAVES. 



what is man but a topsy-turvy creature, — his animal faculties per- 

 petually a cock-horse and rational ; his head where his heels should 

 be, grovelling on the earth ? " * Alack and alas ! most witty of mad- 

 men, most lunatic of wits, man is little better than a broomstick; his 

 faculties are half the while upon a level with the earth ; with an up- 

 right attitude he persists in crawling, or boldly flings his heels in air, 

 and dies head-downward from plethora. If he be never worse than 

 a broomstick it will be well : he will then be joyous in his youth, and 

 keep company with green things and the sweet voices of Nature ; if 

 he then live to sweep the world, and brush before him all moral gar- 

 bage, " men-slugs and human serpentry," he shall perhaps have a 

 better fate than to feed the flames when his work be done. 



* A Meditation upon a Broomstick and Somewhat Beside, by the same Author. 

 Utile dulci. London, printed [or E. Cur II, at the Dial and Bible, against St. 

 Dunstan's Church, in Fleet Street, and sold by F. Harding, at the Post Office in 

 St. Martin's Lane. 1710. Price 6d. 



