90 



WHITETHORN. HAWTHORN. CRAT&GUS. 

 COMMON WHITETHORN, HAWTHORN, or MAY. C.oxyacantha. 



Plate 6, fig. 17. 



This forms the greater part of every hedge throughout the 

 kingdom, throwing out in " the merry month of May" its pro- 

 fuse bunches of delicate and fragrant flowers, and of ten for miles 

 together the Hawthorn blossoms enliven and enrich the hedge- 

 rows with their surpassing sweetness and beauty. It requires 

 no care in its culture, no rich soil for its sustenance, no shelter 

 from the bleak wind. It blossoms free amid all changes, or- 

 namenting equally the poor man's garden and the rich man's 

 park ; and when a fine grown Hawthorn is found upon the brow 

 of a hill, or detached from other trees in some green and grassy 

 slope, I know not that the English landscape, or indeed any 

 other landscape, produces a finer object. Even the country 

 laborer, not satisfied with seeing it growing around him, deco- 

 rates with whole boughs of it the window of his little cot, 

 adding at the same time fragrance and beauty ; and how much 

 more are the residents of towns and cities content to see again 

 the herald of the fastly-approaching summer ; and this is not 

 all look at the thousands of haws or red fleshy berries it bears 

 in the autumn, and retains through the winter, unless despoiled 

 of them by the blackbirds and the thrushes. 



The light-hearted peasantry, when they formerly held their 

 May-day gambols, did not forget the Hawthorn, but made it 

 the emblem of hope, crowning their may-poles with it, and 

 calling it by the month it blossoms in. The Greek maidens too 

 are decorated on their nuptial day with its sprigs, while larger 

 branches are placed upon the altar, as an emblem of that sum- 

 mer of happiness which they hope to enjoy. With our poets 

 it is no less a favorite. Burns speaks of 



" The milk-white Thorn that scents the evening gale." 

 Cunningham desires to u sit beneath the whitening Thorn," 

 and Shakspeare alludes to the delight of such a seat when he 

 says, 



" Gives not the Hawthorn bush a sweeter shade 



To shepherds, looking on their silly sheep, 



Than doth a rich embroidered canopy 



To kings that fear their .subjects' treachery ? 



Oh e -l " 



lo kings that lear their .subjects treacherj 

 Oh, yes, it doth a thousand-fold it doth." 1 



