OCTOBER. 271 



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 par- 

 ticularly applied to our own woods, woods com- 

 paratively reclaimed, but in less populous and 

 cultivated countries they possess a far more 

 wild and gloomy character. The abodes of ban- 

 ditti, 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 superstition and 

 peopled them with satyrs, fauns, dryads, hama- 

 dryads, and innumerable spirits of dubious na- 

 tures. The same cause consecrated them to 

 religious rites ; it was from the mighty and an- 

 cient 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 Druid cut down the bough of mi- 

 sletoe, and performed the horrible ceremonies 

 of his religion. The philosophers of Greece re- 

 sorted to groves, as schools the most august and 

 befitting the delivery of their sublime precepts. 

 In the depths of woods did anchorites seek to 

 forget the world, and to prepare their hearts for 



