OF FOREST-TREES. 831 



which puts me in mind of what that great traveller Pietro della Valla re- BOOK IV. 

 lates, where, speaking of an extraordinary Cypress, yet extant, near the 

 tomb of Cyrus, to Which, at this day, many pilgrimages are made, he men- 

 tions a gummy transudation which it yields, that the Turks affirm to turn 

 every Friday into drops of blood : the tree is hollow within, adorned 

 with many lamps, and fitted for an oratory ; and indeed some would de- 

 rive the name lucus, a grove, as more particularly to signify such enor- 

 mous and cavernous trees, quod ibi lumina accenderentur religionis 

 causa : but our author adds, the Ethnics do still repute all great trees 

 to be divine, and the habitation of souls departed. Perhaps such a hol- 

 low tree was that asylum of our poet's hero, when he fled from his 

 burning Troy : 



■ juxtaque antiqua Cupressus 



Religione patrum multos servata per annos. mn. n. 



an ancient Cypress near. 



Kept by religious parents many a year. 



For that they were places of protection, and privileged like churches and 

 altars, appears out of Livy, and other good authority. Thus where 

 they introduce Romulus encouraging his new colony, 



. ut saxo lucum circttmdedit alto. 



Cuilibet hue, inquit, confuge, tutus eris. 



So soon as e'er the grove he had immnr'd, 

 f laste hither, says he, hei'e you are secur'd. 



Such a sanctuary was the aricina, and suburban Diana, called the nemo- 

 rale templiim, and divers more which we shall reckon up anon. I^ucian coii'ectio" Trbl- 

 in his Dea Syria, speaks of these temples and dedications in their groves etlam tda-rf 

 among the Egyptians : Lucus in urbe fuit, &;c. and what follows ^ Hie """^ 



"-^ ■•■ ' ■ neationes liico- 



templum — and since they could not translate the grove with the idol, see"\i" 'a^""" 

 they * carved out something like it, which the superstitious neonle °" 



. ^ XI xvii. collated 



bought, carried home, and made use of, representing those venerable ^ 



n xviii. 4. Crit. 



places, m which they had the images of some feigned deity ; (suppose it "^^y 



rr<n-r»TT»' v ii it broiisht the 



Tellus, liaal, or Priapus ;) and such was the Jupiter iv^jv^po? of the Rho 



Luci dic'un- 



grove out of 

 the temple, and 



dians, Bacchus of the Boetians, mim^^y the Sidonian Ashteroth : and the 



biii nt it : which 



women mentioned 2 Reg. xxiii. 7, who are said to weave hangings and wartLt-ku're 

 curtains for the grove, were no other tlian makers of tentoriesto spread gTo™%°dntt 

 from tree to tree, for the more opportune and secret perpetration of those sdver"^*"'" 



