OCTOBER. 351 



mind; they possess a majesty and sublimity 

 which strike and charm the eye. Their silence 

 and obscurity affect the imagination with a me- 

 ditative awe. They soothe the spirit by their 

 grateful seclusion, and delight it by glimpses of 

 their wild inhabitants, by their novel cries, and 

 by odours and beautiful phenomena peculiar to 

 themselves. This may be more particularly 

 applied to our own woods, woods comparatively 

 reclaimed, but in less populous and cultivated 

 countries they possess a far more wild and 

 gloomy character. The abodes of banditti, of 

 wild beasts and deadly reptiles, they truly 

 merit the epithet of " salvage woods," which 

 Spenser has bestowed upon them. In remote 

 ages their fearful solitudes and everbrooding 

 shadows fostered superstition and peopled them 

 with satyrs, fauns, dryads, hamadryads, and 

 innumerable spirits of dubious natures. The 

 same cause consecrated them to religious rites ; 

 it was from the mighty and ancient oak of 

 Dodona that the earliest oracles of Greece were 

 pronounced. The Syrians had their groves 

 dedicated to Baal, and Ashtaroth the queen of 

 Heaven, and infected the Israelites with their 

 idolatrous customs. In the heart of woods the 



