220 S Y L V A BOOK IV 



And begs an alms : An high-priest's daughter she, 

 Vers'd in their Talmud, and Divinity ; 

 And prophesies beneath a shady tree. 



Drydcn. 



For indeed the Delphic oracle (as Diodorus /. 16. 

 tells us) was first made e lauri ramis, of the branches 

 of laurel transferr'd from Thessaly, bended, and arched 

 over in form of a bower or summerhouse, a very 

 simple fabrick you may be sure : And Cardan I re- 

 member in his book de Fato, insists very much on 

 the dreams of trees for portents and presages, and 

 that the use of some of them do dispose men to visions. 



8. From hence then began temples to be erected 

 and sought to in such places; 1 nay we find 2 sanction 

 for it among the laws of the XII tables : So as there 

 was hardly a grove without its temple, so had every 

 temple almost a grove belonging to it, where they 

 plac'd idols, altars and lights, endowed with fair re- 

 venues, which the devotion of superstitious persons 

 continually augmented : Such were those 3 arbores 

 obumbratrices^ mention'd by Tertullian (ApoL cap. IX.) 

 on which they suspended their 'AvaS^/mra and devoted 

 things : And I remember to have seen something 

 very like this in Italy, and other parts, namely, where 

 the images of the B. Virgin, and other saints, have 

 been enshrin'd in hollow and umbragious trees, fre- 

 quented with much veneration ; which puts me in 

 mind of what that great traveller Pietro della Valle 

 relates, where he speaks of an extraordinary cypress, 

 yet extant, near the tomb of Cyrus, to which at this 



1 Vide Annium Viterb. /. 17. fol. 158. 



2 Cic. de lege. L 2. 



3 See Aristophanes, Schol. ad Pluti verba : ical ravra Trpbg TO ILSTUTTOV, &c. 



on 7ri T&V Korivwv iced d\X(*>v dkvdpwv Travraxov kv TOIQ i/ooi irpoffirarraXtvovffi 



TO. avaOriiJ,aTa. To which add, Apul. Miles. VI. Videt dona speciosa, & lacinias 

 auro literatas, ramis arborum postibusque suffixas. 



