270 ON THE HAWTHORN. 



until it was covered. These simple people considered death as 

 the morning of life, where they should never separate. Happy 

 hope ! which gave the Troglodites immortality, and the Grecian 

 youths fond of marriages ; may, you likewise, ever be the prop 

 of the afflicted, and those whose friends 



" When they once perceive 



The least rub in jour fortune, (all away 

 Like water from yon, never found again 

 But when they mean to sink ye." 



Eeligion which was given to bless mankind with cheerfulness 

 and hope, has always been converted by the crafty, in ignorant 

 ages, into rods of terror and torches of superstition ; and they did 

 not fail to seize upon the hawthorn bush as an instrument with 

 which they might impose on the credulous ; thus, in some parts 

 of France, the country people affirm to you in good faith, that the 

 hawthorn groans and sighs on the evening of Good Friday, and 

 on this superstition, they have made it the emblem of lamenta- 

 tion. There are others, who gravely adorn their hats with a bunch 

 of hawthorn, in the belief, that during a storm, the thunder will 

 not dare to reach them, from respect to their head-dress It is 

 also related, that on the morning following the horrible massacre 

 of St. Bartholomew, a hawthorn was seen to blossom in the church 

 yard of St. Innocent, in Paris, which is now converted into the 

 hall or great market. It is hardly necessary to state, how differ- 

 ently the two parties interpreted this phenomenon. 



We have also our Glastonbury thorn stories, to match those of 

 our neighbours. Sanctified deceit affirmed, that this thorn was the 

 identical staff of Joseph of Arimathea, the counsellor who buried 

 Christ; who, according to the tradition of the abbey of Glaston- 

 bury, attended with twelve companions came over into Britain, 

 •and founded in honour of the blessed Virgin, the first Christian 

 church in this island. As a proof of his mission, he is said to 

 have stuck his staff in the ground, which immediately shot forth 

 and blossomed ; and the vulgar for a long time believed that this 

 tree blossomed annually on Christmas day. 



The Glastonbury thorn is a variety of the common white thorn 

 Oxycantha, which blossoms in the winter about January or Febru- 

 ary, and sometimes even as early as Christmas. 



It is often called white thorn fronVthe colour of the flower-petals, 

 May-bush from blossoms appearing in that month, and which were 



