OF SELBORNE. 29-3 



and therefore must continue very poor, buy a halfpenny 

 candle every evening, which, in their blowing, open 

 rooms, does not burn much more than two hours. Thus 

 have they only two hours light for their money instead 

 of eleven. 



While on the subject of rural economy, it may not be 

 improper to mention a pretty implement of housewifery 

 that we have seen no where else; that is, little neat 

 besoms which our foresters make from the "stalks of the 

 Polytrichum commune, or great golden maiden-hair, which 

 they call silk- wood, and find plenty in the bogs. When 

 this moss is well combed and dressed, and divested of 

 its outer skin, it becomes of a beautiful bright chestnut 

 colour; and, being soft and pliant, is very proper for 

 the dusting of beds, curtains, carpets, hangings, &c. If 

 these besoms were known to the brush-makers in town, 

 it is probable they might come much in use for the 

 purpose above mentioned 2 . 



I am, &c. 



LETTER XXVII. 



TO THE SAME. 

 DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, Dec. 12, 1775. 



WE had in this village, more than twenty years ago, an 

 idiot boy, whom I well remember, who, from a child, 

 showed a strong propensity to bees; they were his 

 food, his amusement, his sole object : and as people of 

 this cast have seldom more than one point in view, so 

 this lad exerted all his few faculties on this one pur- 

 suit. In the winter he dozed away his time, within his 

 father's house, by the fireside, in a kind of torpid state, 

 seldom departing from the chimney-corner ; but in the 

 summer he was all alert, and in quest of his game in the 



2 A besom of this sort [was] to be seen in Sir Ashton Lever's Museum. 



