OF FOREST-TREES. 



325 



Jews, and other solemnities, was called by the Romans, umhrcB ; as BOOK IV. 

 those in Neptunalihus are described by the poet : . v.^^v^w/ 



Plebs venit, ae virides passim disjecta per herbas 

 ' Potat, et accumbit cum pare quisque sua : 



Sub jove pars durat : pauci tentoria ponunt : 



Sunt, quibus e ramis frondea facta casa est. Ovid. Fast. lib. iii. 



All sorts together flock ; and, on the ground 

 Display'd, each fellow with his mate drinks round. 

 Some sit in open air, some build their tents ; 

 And some themselves in branchy arbours fence. 



Plutarch, speaking of the anniversary feast of Bacchus, plainly re- 

 sembles it to that of the tabernacles, carrying about ©lipay? $otv!xwv, 

 branches of Palm, Citron, and other trees, as Josephus describes the 

 Jewish festival \ The custom (for ought I know) is still kept up in many 

 places of our country, and abroad, on May-day, when the young men 

 and maidens, like the pagan bu^oo(ao^\a, go out into the woods and cop- 

 pices, cut down and spoil young springers, to dress up their May-booth, 

 and dance about the pole, as in pictures we see the wanton Israelites 

 about the molten calf. For thus, as we noted, those rites commanded 

 by God came to be profaned, and the retiredness of groves and shades 

 for their opacousness, abused to abominable purposes, and works of dark- 

 ness. But what good or indifferent thing has not been subject to perver- 

 sion ? it is said in the end of Isaiah, Exprohratur Hebrceis quod in vid. Seide- 

 Opisthonais idolorum liorti essentin quorum medio fehrux^antur ; but how et Jem. 

 this is applicable to groves, does not appear so fully ; though we find JJ?' v," Greg! 

 them interdicted, Deut. xvi. 21. Judg. vi. 25. 2 Chron. xxxi. 1, and ^.y«>''"f „ 



' " Qiis gent, oyn- 



forbidden to be planted near God's altar. And an impure grove on '^s-i'- 

 Mount Libanus, dedicated to Venus, was by an imperial edict of Con- 

 stantine, extirpated : but from the abuse of the thing to the non-use, the 

 consequence is not always valid ; and we may note as to this very par- 

 ticular, that where in divers places of holy writ the denunciation against 



^ There were feasts celebrated at Athens, at which they erected tents and pavilions, 

 and adorned them. These were called scirL Hence the month, which answers to our 

 May, was called scirophorion. This feast much resembled the feast of tabernacles among the 

 Jews. 



Y^me II. T t 



