338 A DISCOURSE 



BOOK IV. racemis et corijmbis, and frequently represented in groves, as the learned 

 ^^^"^^'^^ Scaliger shews. Here the most beloved and coy mistress of Apollo 

 ■ See Wow- rooted ; and, in the walks and shades of trees *, the noblest raptures have 

 cap. xxvi. been conceived, and poets have composed verses which have animated 

 !!!!i)cea."ca"?T ii^en to heroic and glorious actions : here orators (as we shewed) have 

 made their panegyrics, historians grave relations, and the profound philo- 

 sophers have loved here to pass their lives in repose and contemplation. 



Nor were the groves thus frequented by the great sch^ars and the 

 great wits only, but by the greatest statesmen and politicians also. 

 Thence that of Cicero speaking of Plato, with Clinias and JNIegillus, who 

 were used to discourse de Rerumpuhlicurum institutis, et optimis leg'ihus, 

 in the groves of Cypress, and other umbrageous recesses. It was under 

 a vast Oak, growing in the park of St. Vincent, near Paris, that St. Louis 

 was used to hear complaints, determine causes, and do justice to such as 

 resorted thither : and we read of a solemn treaty of peace held under a 

 flourishing Elm between Gisors and Treves, which was afterwards felled 

 by the French king Philip, in a rage against king Henry II. for not 

 agreeing to it. Nay, they have sometimes been known to crown their 

 kings under a goodly tree, or in some venerable grove, where they had 

 their stations and conventions ; for so they chose Abimelech : see 

 Tostatus upon Judg. ix. 6. I read (in Chronicon Jo. Bromton) that 

 Augustin the monk (sent hither from the pope) held a kind of council 

 under a certain Oak in the west of England, and that concerning the 

 great question, namely the right celebration of Easter, and the state of 

 the Anglican church, ho,, where also it is reported he did a great miracle.. 

 In the mean time, I meet with but one instance w^here this goodly tree 

 has been (in our country) abused to cover impious designs, as was that of 

 the arch-rebel Kett, who, in the reign of Edward VI. (becoming leader 

 to that fanatic insurrection in Norfolk) made an Oak (under the specious 

 • Quercus name of * Reformation) the court, council-house, and place of convention, 

 irm.uionib. ^^^^^^^ ^^^t^ forth liis traitorous edicts : the history and event of which, 

 to the destruction of the rebel and his followers, together with the sermon 

 (call it speech, or what you please) which our then young Matthew 

 Parker (afterward the venerable and learned archbishop of Canterbury) 

 boldly pronounced on it, to reduce them to obedience, is most elegantly 

 described in Latin, and in a style little inferior to the ancients, by our 

 countryman Alexander Nevyll, in his KETTUS : She defuroribusNor- 

 folciensium Ketto Duce. But to return : the Athenians were wont to 



