MEDITATIONS ON A BROOMSTICK. 
169 
stump of a superannuated besom before us, we will let 
the caprice have its course, and see for once what sug¬ 
gestions may come from a broomstick. 
Were you ever young?—of course you were, and 
made your first triumph before family friends by trotting, 
full speed, into the midst of little Jemima's muslin 
friends astride a broomstick, and had at least a hundred 
kisses from dear old Granny, who sat in the corner, and 
vowed it was vulgar to trot broomsticks in doors, while 
she secretly loved you all the more for it. There, too, 
was the old Captain, in his skull-cap, and barnacles, and 
purple nose, who gloried in a romp, and yet, for fear 
of offending the young ladies, suffered innumerable pangs 
when he said, “ Charley, you're a naughty boy, sir!" 
Well, that day has blended with the mists of memory, 
and the broomstick is the only talisman to summon its 
pictures to the present. 
“-From the age 
That children tread the worldly stage, 
BroomstafF, or poker, they bestride, 
And round the parlour love to ride.” 
P.RIOR. 
The broomstick went the way of all toys—petted to¬ 
day, burnt to-morrow; and to avenge the degradation 
inflicted upon it then, its ghost came back to us at 
school, inflicting stripes, and, in the compound of fools¬ 
cap and pickled birch, torturing the affections as well as 
the flesh, and making youth's season of song and sun¬ 
shine one of wailings and tears. The pickled birch— 
how barbarous in itself, and still more barbarous in its 
frequent and untimed use, marking more the phases 
