OCTOBER. 293 



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 phe- 

 nomena peculiar to themselves. This may be more 

 particularly applied to our own woods, woods com- 

 paratively reclaimed ; but in less populous and cul- 

 tivated 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 ever-brooding shadows fostered super- 

 stition 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 ido- 

 latrous customs. In the heart of woods the Druid 

 cut down the bough of mistletoe, and performed the 

 horrible ceremonies of his religion. The philoso- 

 phers of Greece resorted to groves, as schools the 

 most august and befitting the delivery of their su- 

 blime precepts. In the depths of woods did ancho- 

 rites seek to forget the world, and to prepare their 

 hearts for the purity of heaven. To lovers and 

 poets they have ever been favourite haunts ; and 

 the poets, by making them the scenes and subjects 

 of their most beautiful fictions and descriptions, 

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