CHAP. CV. CORYLA x CE7E. C'o'UYLUS. 2021 



Douster Swivel, in the Antiquary, use a hazel twig as a divining-rod ; and se- 

 veral instances are mentioned, in different volumes of the Gentleman's Magazine, 

 of divining-rods having been in use in England as late as the beginning of 

 the eighteenth century. The following passage, quoted in the Mirror (vol. xxi. 

 p. 58.), and said to have been found written in an old edition of Ovid's Meta- 

 morphoses, published in 1640, will show the manner in which the divining- 

 rod was used about that period : > — " The finding of gold which is under the 

 earth, as of all other mines of metal, is almost miraculous. They cut up a 

 ground hazel of a twelvemonth's growth, which divides above into a fork, 

 holding the one branch in the right hand, and the other in the left, not held 

 too slightly, or too strictly. When passing over a mine, or any other place 

 where gold or silver is hidden, it will discover the same by bowing down vio- 

 lently ; a common experiment in Germany, — not proceeding from any incan- 

 tation, but a natural sympathy, as iron is attracted by the loadstone." The 

 rods of Saracens and magicians, according to the Dictionnaire des Eaux et Forets, 

 were also of hazel. Numerous other virtues were anciently attributed to hazel 

 rods. The ashes of the shells of its nuts, applied to the back of a child's head, 

 were supposed to turn the child's eyes from grey to black ; and Parkinson 

 says, " Some doe hold that these nuts, and not wallnuts, with figs and rue, was 

 Mithridates' medicine, effectuall against poysons. Theoyle of the nuts is effec- 

 tuall for the same purposes." He also says that, " if a snake be stroke with 

 an hasell wand, it doth sooner stunne it, than with any other strike; because 

 it is so pliant, that it will winde closer about it; so that, being deprived of their 

 motion, they must needs dye with paine and want; and it is no hard matter, 

 in like manner, saith Tragus, to kill a mad dog that shall be strook with an 

 hazel sticke, such as men use to walke or ride withall." (Theat. of Plants, 

 p. 1416.) Evelyn says that the " venerable and sacred fabric of Glastonbury, 

 founded by Joseph of Arimathea, is storied to have been first composed of a 

 few hazel rods interwoven about a few stakes driven into the ground." The 

 nut has been cultivated for its fruit since the time of the Romans ; who, 

 according to Sir William Temple, called Scotland Caledonia, from Cal-Dun, 

 the hill of hazel. On the Continent, the hazel is grown in large quantities 

 in Spain, and in some parts of Italy ; and the fruit from the former country 

 is celebrated throughout Europe. In Great Britain, it is most extensively 

 cultivated in Kent ; and, the produce being easily sent every where, and not 

 suffering either by carriage or keeping, the tree is not much grown for its fruit 

 in private gardens. 



Poetical and legendary Allusions. Virgil alludes to the hazel in his Georgics, 

 as we have before mentioned (p. 2020.); and again in his Eclogues, giving it 

 the epithets of hard and dense. The hazel, however, was not nearly so great 

 a favourite with the Latin poets as with those of the middle ages. The trou- 

 badours, and old French romance writers, have scarcely a song that does not 

 allude to the hazel bush or hazel nut. Our own poets have also been lavish 

 on the same theme. Cowley mentions that the hazel is the favourite resort 

 of the squirrel : — 



" Upon whose nutty top 



A squirrel sits, and wants no other shade 

 Than what by his own spreading tail is made. 

 He culls the soundest, dext'rously picks out 

 The kernels sweet, and throws the shells about." 



Thomson, in his Spring, describes birds as building 



" Among the roots 



Of hazel, pendent o'er the plaintive stream ;" 



and, in his Autumn, the lover searching for " the clustering nuts" for his fair 

 one ; and, when he finds them, — 



" Amid the secret shade ; 



And where they burnish on the topmost bough, 



With active vigour crushes down the tree ; 



Or shakes them ripe from the resigning husk, 



A glossy shower, and of an ardent brown." Seasons. 



6 p 4 



