Gospel Oaks (Vol. v., p. 209.).
—Near the hamlet of Cressage, co. Salop, is a very old oak tree, under which tradition says the first missionaries of the Gospel to this land preached. The name of the hamlet, Cressage, is, I have been told, a contraction of Christ's Oak.
There is also, near Dudley, a place called Round Oak; and on the road between Walsall and Lichfield, near the latter, may still be seen the old Shire Oak.
At Stanford's Bridge, co. Worcester, is a place called the Apostles' Oak; and in the parish of Hartlebury, in the same county, is a tree bearing the name of the Mitre Oak. Both these places, and also a Rock, have contended for the honour of being the scene of the conference of St. Augustine and the British bishops, A.D. 603. (Nash, vol. ii. p. 399.)
J. N. B.
West Bromwich.
"He that runs may read" (Vol. v., p. 260.).
—In Cowper's Tirocinium, v. 80., are these lines:
"But truth, on which depends our main concern,
That 'tis our shame and misery not to learn,