LORANTHACE^. 195 



regard to it, which have not been otherwise satisfactorily accounted for. " In one of 

 Colepeper's MSS. at the British Museum, in a curious notice of Sir Peter Freschville's 

 house at Stavelj, Derbyshire, is this passage : — ' Heare my Lord Freschville did live, 

 and heare grows the famous Mistletoe-tree, the only Oake in England that bears 

 Mistletoe.'" And to this tree the following letter, written between 1GG3 and 1G82, 

 from the Countess of Danby to Mrs. Colepeper, probably refers : — 



" Dear Cozen, — Pray if you have any of the Mistleto of yo' fathers oke, oblige 

 me so far as to send sum of it to yo"^ most affectionat servant, Bridget Danby." — 

 {Notes and Queries, \i. 119, 1st sei*.) Let us hope that the countess's desires were 

 fulfilled in all respects. 



The Romans dedicated the Mistletoe to Saturn, whose festival was held in 

 December ; and the early Christians, to screen themselves from persecution, decked 

 their houses with its branches during their own celebration of the Nativity. It may 

 be, however, that the fact of the Mistletoe being the especial emblem of the New 

 Yeai''s Day festivities, has prevented its use for Christmas decoration ; or it may be 

 also, I must add, that this favourite parasite has taken too prominent a place in the 

 rejoicings of the kitchen to secure for itself a place in the church. 



The fact that it is bright and green when all natui-e is wrapped in her winter 

 mantle may account for its constant association with Christmas festivities and deco- 

 rations in modern times. Then it has the attraction of association with bygone ages. 

 Christmas itself is not now what it used to be in the days of the old Tudors, who, 

 with their maskings and revellings, seem to us somewhat coarse in their boisterous 

 merriment. With our increasing refinement we have lost perhaps some of the spirit 

 of the season, and we believe almost the only relic of the ancient license of the 

 occasion lingers still in some remote country-houses, and in the servants' halls of the 

 present time. John still thinks himself at liberty to kiss Mary under the Mistletoe, 

 and the overhanging shadow of the mysterious plant hides Mary's blushes. The 

 superstition connected with the Mistletoe is in its character something like that which 

 surrounds the four-leaved shamrock. St. Patrick's touch sanctified the one, and the 

 association of the other with our country's earliest priests — the Druids — has hallowed 

 its history. For a time, indeed, it seems to have been used in decking the church, 

 and the fact is referred to by the poet Gay (Trivia, book ii. p. 437) ; but that custom 

 seems to have been a singular one, for in ecclesiastical sculpture and carving the 

 Mistletoe scarcely ever appears. 



A writer in the Quarterly Review says : — " It seems something like caprice, which 

 has excluded the Mistletoe as well from the decorations of our churches at present as 

 from their ancient sculptui'e and carvings. We know of one instance only of its 

 occurrence. Sprays of Mistletoe, with leaf and berry, fill the spandrils of one of the 

 very remarkable tombs in Bristol Cathedral, which were probably designed by some 

 artist-monk in the household 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 reproduced 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 Review, vol. cxiv. p. 220. 



