462 COSMOS. 



guard.* The ancient adoration of trees was connected, 

 owing to the refreshing and humid shadow of the leafy 

 canopy, with the worship of the sacred springs. 



To this consideration of the primitive worship of nature 

 belongs a notice of the fame attached amongst the Hellenic 

 races to the remarkably large palm-tree in the island of Delos, 

 and to an ancient plane-tree in Arcadia. The Buddhists of 

 Ceylon venerate the colossal Indian fig-tree, the Banyan of 

 Aimrahdepura, which is supposed to have sprung from the 

 branches of the original tree under which Buddha, as the 

 inhabitant of the ancient Magadha, fell into a state of beati- 

 tude, spontaneous extinction, nirwdna.] As separate trees 

 became objects of adoration from the beauty of their forms, so 

 likewise groups of trees were venerated as groves of the gods. 

 Pausanias speaks in high terms of admiration of a grove 

 round the Temple of Apollo at Grynion ^Eolis,J whilst the 

 grove of Colonus is likewise celebrated in the famous chorus 

 of Sophocles. 



The feeling for nature manifested by the early cultivated 

 East Asiatic nations, in the choice and the careful attention 

 of sacred objects chosen from the vegetable kingdom, was 

 most strongly and variously exhibited in their cultivation of 

 parks. In the remotest parts of the Old Continent the 

 Chinese gardens appear to have approached most nearly to 

 what we are now accustomed to regard as English parks. 

 Under the victorious dynasty of Han, gardens were so fre- 

 quently extended over a circuit of many miles that agricul- 

 ture was injured by them, and the people excited to revolt. 

 " What is it that we seek in the possession of a pleasure gar- 

 den?" asks an ancient Chinese writer, Lieu-tscheu. It has 

 been universally admitted, throughout all ages, that planta- 

 tions should compensate to man for the loss of those charms 

 of which he is deprived by his removal from a free communion 

 with nature, his proper and most delightful place of abode. 



* Herod., vii. 31 (between Kallatebus and Sardes). 



+ Ritter, Erdkunde, th. iv, 2. s. 237, 251, und 681; Lassen, Indische 

 Alterthumskunde, bd. i. s. 260. 



J Pausanius, i. 21, 9. Compare also Arboretum Sacrum, in Meursii 

 0;>. ex recensione Joann. Lami, vol. x. Florent., 1753, pp. 777-844. 



Notice historique sur les Jardins des Cliinois, ia the Memoires 

 concernant les Chinois, t. viii, p. 309. 



