THE MISTLETOE. loO 



typify the dependence upon, and the unsearchable bond existing between 

 God the Father, and the Word. 



Kissing under the Mistletoe has' now lost its import; its primary meaning 

 is obvious. I believe 'the branch/ Ezekiel viii, 17, refers to the Mistletoe, 

 the Viscum, in Virgil, Mn. 6, v. 205; but the Hebrew signifies a branch 

 not torn off, nor broken off, but cut from the tree." 



The above is the substance of the Eev. T. E. Brown's etymology of 

 the word Mistletoe, with which we agree, but beg to observe that kissing 

 under the Mistletoe has not yet lost its importance, for 



"I remember, I remember, 



"We the Mistletoe hung high, 

 On a cold night in December, 



When the Christmas eve drew nigh. 



I remember from the ceiling 



How its gleaming berries shone 

 On the pretty girls there squealing 



As I kissed them every one! 



1 remember, I remember, 



How the Mistletoe hung high, 

 On that cold night in December, 



And the tale that hangs thereby." 



Of the three Mistletoes known to Europe, Viscum album, Loranthus 

 Europceus, and Arceuthobium oxycedri. The V. album abundant in England, 

 France, and Germany, is much less so in Italy. The L. Europceus, appears 

 to have been Pliny's "Dryas Hyphear," and is found in abundance on 

 the Quercus Gerris, or Turkey Oak in Illyria and Italy, with which 

 country Pliny was of course best acquainted, but is not so in France or 

 England, or anywhere north or west of the Alps, and cannot have been 

 the Druids' Mistletoe of this writer. In fact Pliny's account of the Druids' 

 Mistletoe appears to me to have been misunderstood by many botanists, 

 at least I can see nothing in it which is not in accordance with the 

 natural history of V. album. They held sacred the tree which produced 

 it, provided it was an oak, but it was exceedingly scarce; therefore, any 

 common species of epiphyte, or any tree on which the Mistletoe is common, 

 will violate the conditions of the case instead of forwarding them. The 

 V. album was in such common use for making bird-lime that it ought 

 not to have been the subject of mistakes. I imagine that the passage in 

 "Virgil, on the gathering of the one golden branch from the tree of 

 Proserpine, favours the idea of a supply being kept up by artificial culture, 

 though, probably, not avowedly so. 



The third kind, Arceuthobium (or Viscum) oxycedri, is occasionally found 

 on conifers in the south of Europe, as well as in north-west America, 

 Mexico, etc., and may have been Pliny's Stelis? It is, however, very 



