100 



"It seems somctbing like caprice" says a writer in the 

 Quarterly Review, "whicli has excluded the Mistletoe as well from 

 the decorations of our Churches at present, as from their ancient 

 sculpture and carvings. We know of one instance only of its oc- 

 currence — Sprays of Mistletoe, with leaf and berry, fill the spand- 

 rels of one of the very remarkable tombs in Bristol Cathedral, 

 which were probably designed by some artist monk in the house- 

 hold of the Berkeleys, whose ample and broad lands are among 

 the chief glories of the west Country, in which the Mistletoe is 

 now for the most part found." We do not remember to have seen 

 it elsewhere, even lurking among quaint devices of 'Miserere ' ; 

 whilst the oak — every portion of which, in the days of Celtic 

 heathenism, was almost as sacred as the Mistletoe which grew 

 on it — was one of the principal trees 'studied' by mediaeval 

 sculptors, when, during the so called 'Decorated' period, they re- 

 produced leaf and flower with such exquisite beauty and fidelity — 

 witness the oak leaves laid into the panels of the Cantalupe 

 shrine at Hereford, or the twisted sprays of oak, clustered with 

 acorns, which form one of the most graceful corbels in the choir 

 of Exeter Cathedral." (Quarterly Eeview, Vol. 114, p. 220.) 



"Certain it is "says a writer in Notes and Queries, ("Vol. vi, 

 p. 523, N.s.) "that Mistletoe formerly had place amongst Christ- 

 mas decorations of Churches, but was afterwards excluded. In 

 the earlier ages of the Church many festivities not tending to 

 edification had crept in — mutual kissing amongst the number — 

 but as this soon led to indecorum, kissing and Mistletoe were 

 both properly bundled out of the Church." (Hone. Hook. 

 Moroni. Bescherelle. Du Cange. &c.. &c.) 



Mr. Edwin Lees, says quaintly in one of his books, * "the 

 Druids thought the Mistletoe would cure everything, we only 

 think it worth . . a kiss." When it received this specific valu- 



• "Pictures of Nature " around Malvern Hills and the Vale of Severn — 

 a book that every lover of nature, vrho has seen or known the hills, must 

 rejoice in possessing, — It deserves to be much more freely illustrated when 

 it could not fail to be still more generally attractive. 



