NEATNESS. 
205 
which, in Europe, it is constantly applied. 
In our country villages, and throughout the 
provinces, it is known to every thrifty house¬ 
wife as affording besoms for sweeping, whence 
originated the name of “ broom ” for those 
domestic cleansers. 
There are many useful species of it. “ The 
broom,”, says Mr. Martyn, “ converts the 
most barren spot into an odoriferous garden.” 
Wordsworth notices it in the following na¬ 
tural and beautiful lines: — 
On me such beauty summer pours. 
That I am covered o’er with flowers; 
And when the frost is in the sky, 
My branches are so fresh and gay, 
That you might look at me and say, 
This plant can never die. 
The butterfly, all green and gold, 
To me hath often flown, 
Here in my blossoms to behold 
Wings lovely as his own. 
Burns introduces the yellow broom in his 
Caledonia. 
Their groves of sweet myrtle let foreign lands 
reckon, 
Where bright-beaming summers exalt the per¬ 
fume ; 
Far dearer to me yon lone glen o’ green breckan, 
Wi’ the burn stealing under the lang yellow 
broom. 
It is said that when Linnaeus came to 
England, in 1736, he was so much delighted 
