“This tree was frequently called the ‘bare oak,’ by the people of the neighbourhood, from a resemblance it was supposed to bear to the oak which gave name to the county of Berkshire. Tradition says, that when the tenants went to the park gates as it was their custom to do to meet the earl of Leicester, when they visited that castle, they used to adorn their hats with boughs from this tree. Within the hollow of its trunk was a seat which contained five or six persons with ease and convenience.”
The Oak of Mamre.
We are told that this oak was standing in the fourth century. Isidore affirms that when he was a child in the reign of the emperor Constantius, he was shown a turpentine tree very old, which declared its age by its bulk, as the tree under which Abraham dwelt; that the heathens had a surprising veneration for it, and distinguished it by an honourable appellation.[271] Some affirm that it existed within the last four centuries.
At the dispersion of the Jews under Adrian, about the year 134, “an incredible number of all ages and sexes were sold at the same price as horses, in a very famous fair called the fair of the turpentine tree: whereupon the Jews had an abhorrence for that fair.” St. Jerome mentions the place at which the Jews were sold under the name of “Abraham’s tent;” where, he says, “is kept an annual fair very much frequented.” This place “on Mamre’s fertile plains,” is alleged to have been the spot where Abraham entertained the angels.[272]
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 63·50.
[269] See this lady’s “Posthumous Works,” vol. iv. Stonehenge stanza 53, from whence these lines are capriciously altered.