OCTOBER. 483 



mirth and joy, so in Autumn grief and melancholy 

 must have their vent. Indeed, at all times, the deep 

 shade of " twilight groves," whether immersed in the 

 dreamy listlessness of noon, or considered as fairy 

 haunts under the phantasmic splendours of a full 

 moon, have ever nursed grave, romantic, and even 

 superstitious feelings in the human breast. In the 

 sacred -groves of Graul and Britain the mystic rites of 

 Druidism were celebrated ; among the polished Greeks 

 and Eomans every temple had its consecrated wood ; 

 and " holy trees" have been venerated in every age, 

 and esteemed as oracular.* Indeed, a huge old tree, 

 or a grove of trees, anterior to all our recollections, 

 seems in itself to inspire respect and reverence, while 

 the adjuncts that encompass it shade, gloom, soli- 

 tude, and silence, all conspire to convert this incipient 

 reverence into devotional awe, As WALLER has 

 pleasingly observed 



" In such green palaces the first kings reign'd, 

 Slept in their shades, and angels entertain'd ; 

 With such old counsellors they did advise, 

 And by frequenting sacred groves, grew wise." 



* The oaks of Dodona were especially honoured for their supposed 

 prophetical powers, and are several times alluded to by HOMER ; hence 

 OVID says " Quercus, oracula prima." 



Even timber from Dodonaean oaks retained the prescient gift. At last 

 almost every tree was consecrated to some idol, or even itself worshipped. 

 TACITUS says that the ancient Germans called trees by the names of their 

 gods. Tree-adoratJon continued to a very late period even in Europe, for 

 in DALVELL'S Superstitions of Scotland, he quotes a MS. description of 

 the Isle of Skye, in the Advocate's Library at Edinburgh, where it is stated 

 that " about two hundred years ago, there was, in the island, a sanctified 

 lake surrounded by a fair wood, which none presumes to cut; and who- 

 ever ventured sacrilegiously to invade it, either sickened at the moment, 

 or were visited afterwards by some signal inconvenience, even if sunder- 

 ing the smallest branch." A recent traveller in Italy mentions the whole 

 neighbourhood of Bolsena as " covered with rotting trunks of trees," the 

 fact being that the Chestnut woods there are considered sacred by the 

 people from their antiquity, and are never cut. " The trees have ripened, 

 and fallen, and rotted thus for centuries." Willis, 



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