OF FOREST-TREES. 



329 



Ashteroth, who took her name a lucis, as the Jupiter IvSev^po? amongst BOOK 

 the Rhodians, the Nemorensis Diana, or Arduenna, a celebrated deity "'"^^ 

 of this our island, for her patronage of wood and game ; 



Diva potens nemorum, terror silvestribus apris : 



as Gildas, an ancient bard of ours, has it ; so soon had men degenerated 

 into this irrational and stupid devotion, that arch Jhnatic satan, who 

 began his pranks in a tree, debauching the contemplative use of groves 

 and other solitudes. Nor were the heathens alone in this crime ; the 

 Basilidians, and other heretics even amongst the Christians, did con- 

 secrate to the woods and the trees their serpent-footed and barbarous 

 ABPAHA2, as it is yet to be seen in some of their mysterious talismans 

 and periaptas which they carry about ^. 



But the Roman madness (like that which the prophet derides in the 

 Jews) was well prestringed by Sedulius and others, for imploring these 

 stocks to be propitious to them, as we learn in Cato de R. R. Nor was 

 it long after (when they were generally consecrated to Faunus) that they 

 boldly set up his oracles and responses in these nemorous places : hence, 

 the heathen chapels had the name of Fana, and from their wild and ex- 

 travagant religion, the professors of it were called Fanatics ; a name well 

 becoming some of the late enthusiasts amongst us, who, when their 

 quaking fits possess them, resemble the giddy motion of ffxes, wliose 

 heads are agitated with ever^ wind of doctrine. 



Here we may not omit what learned men have obserA^ed concerning 

 the custom of prophets, and persons inspired of old, to sleep upon the 

 boughs and branches of trees : I do not mean on the tops of them, (as 

 the salvages somewhere do in the Indies, for fear of wild beasts in the 

 night-time,) but on mattresses and beds made of their leaves, ad consulen- 



^ The Basilidians embraced a religion which was half Christian and half pagan : it sprung 

 up in the second century. Innumerable gems are preserved in the cabinets of the curious, 

 which were considered by this sect as amulets against misfortunes and diseases. These were 

 called Abraxas, from their having this word usually engraved upon them. The inscriptions 

 and figures are a compound of pagan and Christian hieroglyphics. S. Irenseus, S. Epipha- 

 nius, and S. Jerom, have left us no more than bare specimens of this sort of heretical impiety ; 

 whereas the monuments left us by the heretics themselves, teach us many things that other., 

 wise would have been buried in oblivion. 



