These girls are Flemings. They come to England from the Netherlands in the spring, and take their departure with the summer. They have only one low, shrill, twittering note, " Buy a broom?" sometimes varying into the singular plural, "Buy a brooms?" It is a domestic cry; two or three go together, and utter it in company with each other; not in concert, nor to a neighbourhood, and scarcely louder than will attract the notice of an inmate seen at a parlour window, or an open street-door, or a lady or two passing in the street. Their hair is tightened up in front, and at the sides, and behind, and the ends brought together, and so secured, or skewered, at the top of the head, as if it were constricted by a tourniquet: the little close cap, not larger than an infant's, seems to be put on and tied down by strings fastened beneath the chin, merely as a concealment of the machinery. Without a single inflexion of the body, and for any thing that appears to the contrary, it may be incased in tin. From the waist, the form abruptly and boldly bows out like a large beehive, or an arch of carpentry, built downward from above the hips, for the purpose of opening and distending the enormous petticoat into numerous plaits and folds, and thereby allowing the legs to walk without incumbrance. Their figures are exactly miniatured in an unpainted penny doll of turnery ware, made all round, before and behind, and sold in the toyshops for the amusement of infancy.

These Flemish girls are of low stature, with features as formal and old fashioned as their dress. Their gait and manner answer to both. They carry their brooms, not under the left arm, but upon it, as they would children, upright between the arm and the side, with the heads in front of the shoulder. One, and one only, of the brooms is invariably held in the right hand, and this is elevated with the sharp cry "Buy a broom?" or "Buy a brooms?" to any one likely to become a purchaser, till it is either bought or wholly declined. The sale of their brooms is the sole purpose for which they cross the seas to us; and they suffer nothing to divert them from their avocation. A broom girl's countenance, so wearisomely indicates unwearied attention to the "main chance," and is so inflexibly solemn, that you doubt whether she ever did or can smile; yet when she does, you are astonished that

she does not always: her face does not relax by degrees, but breaks suddenly into an arch laugh. This appearance may be extorted by a joke, while driving a bargain, but not afterwards: she assumes it, perhaps, as a sort of “turn” to hasten the "business transaction;" for when that is concluded, the intercourse ends immediately. Neither lingering nor loitering, they keep constantly walking on, and looking out for customers. They seldom speak to each other; nor when their brooms are disposed of, do they stop and rejoice upon it as an end to their labours; but go homewards reflectively, with the hand every now and then dip ping into the pocket of the huge petticoat, and remaining there for a while, as if counting the receipts of the day while they walk, and reckoning what the before accumulated riches will total to, with the new addition. They seem influenced by this admonition, "get all you can, and keep all you get."

Rather late in an autumn afternoon, in Battersea-hields, I saw one of these girls by herself; she was seated, with her brooms on her lap, in a bit of scenery, which, from Weirotter's etchings and other prints, I have always fancied resembled a view in the Low Countries: it is an old windmill, near the " Red-house," with some low buildings among willows, on the bank of the Thames, thrown up to keep the river from overflowing a marshy flat. To my imagination, she was fixed to that spot in a reverie on her "vaderland." She gazed on the strait line of stunted trees, as if it were the line of beauty; and from the motion of her lips, and the enthusiasm of her look, I deemed she was reciting a passage from a poet of her native country. Elevation of feeling, in one of these poor girls, was hardly to be looked for; and yet I know not why I should have excluded it, as not appertaining to their character, except from their seeming intentness on thrift alone. They are cleanly, frugal, and no wasters of time; and that they are capable of sentiment, I state on the authority of my imagining concerning this poor girl; whereon, too, I pledge myself not to have been mistaken, for the language of the heart is universal- and hers discoursed to mine; though from the situation wherein

I stood, she saw me not. I was not, nor could I be, in love with her-I was in love with human nature.

The "brooms are one entire piece of wood; the sweeping part being slivered from the handle, and the shavings neatly turned over and bound round into the form of a besom. They are bought to dust curtains and hangings with; but good housewives have another use for them; one of them dipt in fair water, sprinkles the dried clothes in the laundry, for the process of ironing, infinitely better than the hand; it distributes the water more equally and more quickly.

"Buy a Broom?!!"

There is a print with this inscription. It is a caricature representation of Mr. Brougham, with his barrister's wig, in the dress of a broom girl, and for its likeness of that gentleman, and the play on his name, it is amazingly popular; especially since he contended for a man's right to his own personal appearance, in the case of Abernethy v. The Lancet, before the chancellor. Mr. Brougham's goodhumoured allusion to his own countenance, was taken by the auditors in his court, to relate particularly to portrait in this print, called " Buy a Broom?" It is certainly as good as "The Great Bell of Lincoln's-inn," and two or three other prints of gentlemen eminent at the chancery-bar, sketched and etched, apparently, by the same happy hand at a thorough likeness.

Spreads, from the sun's high blazonry ;
But glittering in that gentle night
There gleams a line of silvery light,
As tremulous on the shores of white
It hovers sweet and playfully.
At peace the distant shallop rides;
Not as when dashing o'er her sides
The roaring bay's unruly tides

Were beating round hier gloriously;
But every sail is furl'd and still,
Silent the seaman's whistle shrill,
While dreamy slumbers seem to thrill
With parted hours of ecstacy.

Stars of the many spangled heaven!
Faintly this night your beams are given,
Tho' proudly where your hosts are driven

Ye rear your dazzling galaxy;
Since far and wide a softer hue
Is spread across the plains of blue,
Where in bright chorus ever true

For ever swells your harmony.
O! for some sadly dying note
Upon this silent hour to float,
Where from the bustling world remote,

The lyre might wake its melody;
One feeble strain is all can swell
From mine almost deserted shell,
In mournful accents yet to tell

That slumbers not its minstrelsy.

There is an hour of deep repose
That yet upon my heart shall close,
When all that nature dreads and knows
Shall burst upon me wond'rously;
O may, I then awake for ever
My harp to rapture's high endeavour,
And as from earth's vain scene I sever,
Be lost ir. Immortality!

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

La Julienne de Nuit. Hesperis tristis. Dedicated to St. Juliana.

June 20.

St. Silverius, Pope, ▲. D. 538. St. Gobian, Priest and Martyr, about 656. St. Ida

burga, or Edburge. St. Bain, Bp. of Terouanne (now St Omer,) and Abbot,

about A. D. 711.

Translation of Edward

This day is so distinguished in the church of England calendar. Edward was the king of the West Saxons, murdered by order of Elfrida. He had not only an anniversary on the 18th of March, in commemoration of his sufferings, or rather of the silly and absurd miracles alleged to have been wrought at his tomb; but he was even honoured by our weak forefathers with another festival on the 20th of June, in each year, in remembrance of the removal, or translation, as it is termed, of his relics at Wareham, where they were inhumed, to the minster at Salisbury, three years after his decease.

It is observed by Mr. Brady, on the translation of St. Edward, as follows:"At the period this solemn act of absurd pomp took place, all Europe was plunged in a state of profound ignorance and mental darkness; no marvel, therefore, that great importance should have been attached to such superstitious usage; but for what reason our reformers chose to keep up a recollection of that folly, cannot readily be ascertained.

"Of the origin of translations of this kind, much has been written; and if we are to credit the assertions of those monkish writers, whose works are yet found in catholic countries, though they have themselves long passed to the silent tomb, we must believe not only that they had their source from a principle of devotion, but that peculiar advantages accrued to those who encouraged their increase. In the year 359, the emperor Constantius, out of a presumed and, perhaps, not inconsistent respect, caused the remains of St. Andrew and St. Luke to be removed from their ancient place of interment to the temple of the twelve apostles, at Constantinople; and from that example, the practice of searching for the bodies of saints and martyrs increased so rapidly, that in the year 386, we find almost the whole of the devotees engaged in that pursuit. Relics, of course, speedily became of considerable value; and as they were all alleged to possess peculiar virtues, no expense or labour were spared to provide such treasures for every public religious foundation. Hence translations innumerable took place of the decayed members of persons

reputed saints; and where the entire bodies could not be collected, the pious contented themselves with possessing such parts alone as Providence chose to bless them with.' Without these sacred relics, no establishments could expect to thrive; and so provident had the persons been who laboured in their collection, that not a single religious house but coula produce one or more of those invaluable remains; though, unless we are to believe that most relics, like the holy cross itself, possessed the power of self-augmentation, we must either admit, that some of our circumspect forefathers were imposed upon, or that St. John the Baptist had more heads than that of which he was so cruelly deprived, as well as several of their favourite saints having each kindly afforded them two or three skeletons of their precious bodies; circumstances that frequently occurred, because,' says Father John Ferand, of Anecy, God was pleased so to multiply and re-produce them, for the devotion of the faithful!'

"Of the number of these relics that have been preserved, it is useless to attempt a description, nor, indeed, could they be detailed in many volumes; yet it may gratify curiosity to afford some brief account of such as, in addition to the heads of St. John the Baptist, were held in the greatest repute, were it for no other reason than to show how the ignorance and credulity of the commonalty have, in former ages, been imposed upon, viz. :—

"A finger of St. Andrew;

"A finger of St. John the Baptist;
"The thumb of St. Thomas;
"A tooth of our Lord;

"A rib of our Lord, or, as it is profanely styled, of the Verbum caro factum, the word made flesh;

"The hem of our Lord's garment, which cured the diseased woman;

"The seamless coat of our Lord;

"A tear which our Lord shed over Lazarus; it was preserved by an angel, who gave it in a phial to Mary Magdalene;

"Two handkerchiefs, on which are impressions of our Saviour's face; the one sent by our Lord himself as a present to Agbarus, prince of Edessa; the other given at the time of his crucifixion to a holy woman, named Veronica ;

"The rod of Moses, with which he performed his miracles;

"A lock of hair of Mary Magdalene's;