378 



SYLVAN SKETCHES. 



" I wont to range amid the mazy thicket, 



And gather nuts to make me Christmas-game - 

 And joyed oft to chase the trembling pricket. 

 Or hunt the heartless hare till she were tame^ 

 What wrecked I of wintry age's wast, 

 Tho' deemed I my spring would ever last. 



How often have I scaled the craggy oak. 

 All to dislodge the raven of her nest ! 

 How have I wearied with many a stroke 

 The stately walnut tree, the while the rest 



Under the tree fell all for nuts at strife ! 



For like to me was liberty and life." 



Collinson, in his History of Somersetshire, speaking of 

 the Glastonbury thorn, of which it has been said that it 

 always buds on Christmas day, says that there grew also 

 " in the abbey churchyard on the north side of St. 

 Joseph's chapel, a miraculous Walnut tree, which never 

 budded forth before the feast of St. Barnabas (that is, 

 the eleventh of June), and on that very day shot forth 

 leaves, and flourished like its usual species. (This tree is 

 gone, and in the place thereof, stands a very fine Wal- 

 nut tree of the common sort.) It is strange to say how 

 much this tree was sought after by the credulous ; and 

 though not an uncommon Walnut, Queen Anne, King 

 James, and many of the nobility of the realm, even when 

 the times of monkish superstition had ceased, gave large 

 sums of money for small cuttings from the original*."' 



There is something in the walnut which excites pleasing 

 associations ; it makes its appearance, with the wine, after 

 the removal of grosser food; and many an interesting 

 iirgument, social conversation, and volley of wit and 



* Vol. ii. p. 265. 



