THE HAZEL. 



135 



was ever employed in, and which might deservedly 

 exalt this humble and common plant above all 

 the trees of the wood, is that of hurdles, espe- 

 cially the flexible white, the red, the brittle ; 

 not for that it is generally used for the folding of 

 our innocent sheep, an emblem of the Church, 

 but for making the walls of one of the first Chris- 

 tian oratories in the world ; and particularly in 

 this island, that venerable and sacred fabrick at 

 Glastonbury, founded by St. Joseph of Arima- 

 thea, which is storied to have been first composed 

 but of a few small Hasel-rods interwoven about 

 certain stakes driven into the ground ; and walls 

 of this kind, instead of laths and punchions, 

 superintended with a coarse mortar made of loam 

 and straw, do to this day inclose divers humble 

 cottages, sheds, and out-houses in the country," 



The Hazel was formerly, and indeed in some 

 of the mining districts of England is still, believed 

 to have an affinity for metals, being employed in 

 the discovery of mines. The professor of this ques- 

 tionable science, as it was deemed, selected for this 

 purpose a forked Hazel-rod (called a dowsing rod), 

 a branch of which he held with each hand in front 

 of his chest, with the other end slightly point- 

 ing outwards. He then walked forward over the 

 ground to be examined, and when he reached a 

 spot, under which there lay a lode or mass of 

 metal, the end of the rod, in spite of his utmost 

 efforts to restrain it, bent down, and pointed to- 

 wards the buried mineral. The art, or rather 

 imposture, is practised with very little alteration 

 at the present time, in some parts of Cornwall, 

 and mines are sunk in very unpromising places, 

 solely on the strength of predictions derived from 



