Star.
London, England, 1830-12-28 00:00:00

SUPERSTITION&

TAB GLASTONBURY 11101 N...—Various and wonderful ate the b.
gads respecting this celebrated tree. Upon which, probably, the pub.
lic wilPere long have some authentic information in the shape of a report
from a Parliamentary Committee, the proprietor of the Abbey and lord
of the soil in which the miraculous thorn is rooted having now become
a Member of the Commons House, and Representative for Preston. No
doubt, in that character, he will be a thorn in the side of mere than one
of thrhe with whom his extraordinary fortunes have now made him an
associate, and equal in power and privilege. But let us quit St. Ste.
phen's for a while, and return to the Abbey of Glastonbury. The cele-
brated hawthorn, which for ages flourished in the precincts of the Ab.
bey, had the reputation of budding and blooming on Christmas-eve,
which extraordinary and singular quality it derived, as tradition tells
us, from its planter, no less a personage than Joseph of Arimathea, who
as the story goes, having in one of his peregrinations rested on this spot,
accidentally stuck his staff in the ground. and it being the 25th of Ike.
on the birth-day of oor Saviour, when the Saint thus paused at Glas-
tonbury. The staff was no sooner bedded in the earth than it took
root, sent forth branches, budded and bloomed, and having flourished
in this state until midnight, faded, and in that state remained until
the anniversary returned, when it again budded, bloomed and faded,
and continued thus to do until it was destroyed by unholy hands dar-
ing the civil wars of the Commonwealth. Some slips of the precious
tree were however preserved by a pious hand, and planted in moth,:
spot, where it flourishes still, but its reputation has faded in cons-
quence of the following circumstance, which is recorded in the ' Lon.
don Evening Post' of 170. "On Christmas-eve, new style, a ra.t
concourse of people attended the noted thorn, but to their great dhow.
pointment there was no appearance of its blowing, which made them
watch it narrowly on the Bth of January, the Christmas-day old style,
when it blowed, as usual, and the devout were satisfied." The
Gentleman's Magazine' for the same year, IVA, alluding to this
circumstance, says, "On the sante evening, at Quainton,
in Buckinghamshire, above 2,000 people went with lanthorns and can.
files, to watch a blackthorn in that neighbourhood, and which was re.
membered to be a slip from the celebrated Glastonbury Thorn, and that
i, always budded on the 24th, was full-blown on the next day, and
went off at night. The people finding there was no appearance of a
hod, It was agreed by all that December 85th, new style, could not be
the right Christmas-day, and therefore they refused going to church, or
treating their friends, as usual on that day. At length the affair he.
came so rerious, that the Ministers of the neighbouring villages, 1^
order to appetite them, thought it prudent to give notice, that the Old
Christmas-day should be kept holy, as before." In these march-of-
intellect days we can scarcely credit that superstition should have pre-
vailed to such an extent, in the middle of the eighteenth century. The
fact is, that this species of thorn is common in the East, where it
blooms twice in the year, and it will frequently, in mild winter, do
the same in this country ; but the story of its blooming yearly or
Christmas-day, is a mere monkish legend.