1G2 ILKX AQl'IFOLIUM. 



undergrowth to tlic oak, the ash, and tho pine. In Ireland, the holly is not very 

 common: but ahmit tin' lakt's nl" K'illanit'y it attains a lartrt' size. 



Tlu' holly has bet'ii much admired iVom the earliest periods. Its use for orna- 

 menting; churehes and dwellings, at Christmas, is well known, though the oriirin 

 of the practice is imcertain. The custom of putting evergreens in j)laccs of reli- 

 gious worshiji prevailed long ])elbre the birth of Christ; and several passages in 

 lluly Writ have rrti-rence to it : 



" Anil ihcy found wrltlon in the law which iho I/inl hail rommanili-d by Mosos, that 

 the childri'n of I.-miLd shonlil dwell in IkkiiUh in Iho funsl of ihc sevonlh inoiilli : 



"And llial ihoy should publish and proclaim in all their cilies, ami in Jcnisalem, 

 saying, Go forth unto the mount, and fetch olive branclK'S, and pino branches, and ' 



myrtie branches, and palm branches, and branches of thick trees, to make boollia, 

 aa it is written. " 



Nbhsmiah, viii. M, 15. 



The holly appears to have been first employed for this purpose by the early 

 Christians, at Rome; and was probably adopted for decorating the churches at 

 Christmas, because it was used in the great festival of the Saturnalia, which 

 occurred about that period. It was the policy of the Christians to assimilate the 

 festivals of the Pagans as nearly as possible in their outward forms, to avoid 

 exciting unnecessarily their prejudices ; and it was customary among the 

 Romans to send boughs of holly, during the Saturnalia, as emblems of "peace 

 and good-will," with the gifts they presented to their friends at that season. It 

 was for this reason, independently of any desire to conciliate the Pagans, well 

 adapted to be an emblem of the principal festival of a religion which professes, 

 more than any other, " to preach peace and good-will to man." Whatever may 

 have been the origin of the practice, it appears to have been a very ancient 

 usage; for Bourne, in his "Antiquities of the Common People," cites an edict 

 of the Council of Bracara, forbidding Christians to begin to decorate their houses 

 at Christmas, with green boughs, at the same time that the Pagans decorated 

 theirs at the Saturnalia, which commenced about a week earlier. Dr. Chandler, 

 in his " Travels in Greece," supposes that this custom was derived from the 

 Druids, who, he says, decorated their dwellings with evergreens during winter, 

 " that the sylvan spirits might repair to them, and remain unnipped with frost 

 and cold winds, until a milder season had renewed the foliage of their darling 

 abodes." The earliest record of this custom in England, perhaps, is in a carol 

 in praise of the holly, written in the time of Henry VI., and preserved in the 

 Harleian MSS., in illustration of which, it must be observed, that the ivy, being 

 dedicated to Bacchus, was used as a vintner's sign in winter, and hung outside 

 of the door. 



" Nay, Ivy, nay, it shall not be I wys; 

 Let Holy hafe the mayslry as the maner ys. 

 Holy slond in the halle, fayre to behold ; 

 Ivy stond without the (lore ; she ys full sore a cold." 



Stow, in his "Survey of London," in 1598, says that, in his time, "every man's 

 house, the parish churches, the corners of the streets, conduits, market-crosses. 

 &c., were decorated with holme, ivy, and the bayes, at Christmas." Formerly, 

 in England, when it was customary to enclose and subdivide gardens by hedges. 

 the holly was employed by all who could afford to procure the plants, and wait 

 for them to grow. Evelyn had a magnificent hedge of this kind, at his gardens 

 at Say's Court, which he thus rapturously describes: " Is there under heaven 

 a more glorious and refreshing object of the kind than an impregnable hedge, of 

 about four hundred feet in length, nine feet high, and five in diameter, which I 

 can show in my now ruined gardens, at Say's Court, at any time of the year, 

 glittering with its armed and varnished leaves, the taller standards, at orderly 

 distances, blu.shing with their natural coral?" Other holly hedges, famous in 



