S Y L V A 207 



of the tree in Paradise, by that which was born on the 

 tree in Golgotha. But that we may give an account 

 of their sacred, and other uses of these venerable 

 retirements, we will next proceed to describe what 

 those places were. 



2. Though Silva was the more general name, denot- 

 ing a large tract of wood, or trees, the inciduae and 

 caeduae; yet there were several other titles attributed 

 to greater or lesser assemblies of them : Domus Sifoae 

 was a summer-house ; and such was Solomon's "olicoc 

 Spvfjiov. i Reg. VII. 2. As when they planted them 

 for pleasure and shade only, they had their nemora; 

 and as we our parks, for the preservation of game, 

 and particularly venison, &c. their saltus, and si/va 

 trivia, secluded for the most part from the rest, Gfc. 

 But among authors we meet with nothing more 

 frequent, and indeed more celebrated, than those 

 arboreous amenities and plantations of woods, which 

 they call'd luci; and which, though sometimes we 

 confess, were restrain'd to certain peculiar places, for 

 devotion (which were never to be fell'd) ; yet were 

 they also promiscuously both used, and taken for all 

 that the wide forest comprehends, or can signifie. To 

 dismiss a number of critics, the name lucus is deriv'd 

 by Quintilian and others who delight to play with 

 words (by antiphrasis] a minime lucendo because of its 

 density, 



nulli penetrabilis astro. * 



whence Apuleius us'd luco sublucido ; and the poets, 

 sublustri umbra: Others (on the contrary) have taken 

 it for light in the masculine; umbra non quia minime ', 



1 Vide Just. Lipsium in Germaniam Taciti prolixe satis. 



