348 



A DISCOURSE 



]}()0K IV. altitude of the stem, floridness of the leaves, and other accidents ; so as 

 '-'^'^^r^^ to use the words of Prudentius, 



Quos penes omne sacrum est, quicquid formido tremendum 

 Suaserit horrificos quos prodigialia cogunt 



Credere monstra deos Lib. i. Cow/. Spn. 



Here all religion paid ; whose dark recess 

 A sacred awe does on their minds impress. 

 To their wild gods 



and this deification of their trees, amongst other things, besides their 

 age and perennial viridity, says Diodorus, might spring from the mani- 

 fold use which they afforded, and which haply had been taught them 

 by the gods, or rather by some godlike persons, whom for their worth, 

 and the pubhc benefit, they esteemed so ; and it might be a motive to 

 this reverence, that divers of them were voiced to have been metamor- 

 phosed from men into trees, and again out of trees into men, as the Ar- 

 cadians gloried in their birth, when 



Gensque virum, truncis, et rupto Robore nati. 

 Out of the teeming bark of Oaks men burst: 



which perhaps they fancied, by seeing men creep sometimes out of their 

 cavities, in which they often lodged and secured themselves \ 



Quippe aliter tunc orbe novo coeloque recenti 



Vivebant homines, qui rupto Robore nati. juven. lib. ii. 



For in the earth's nonage under heav'n's new frame. 

 They stricter liv'd, who from Oak's rupture came. 



^ It is highly probable that the inhabitants of all uncivilized, woody countries take up 

 their habitations in the trunks of trees. Captain Cook, in his description of New 

 Holland, says, " many of their largest trees were converted into comfortable habitations. 

 These had their trunks hollowed out by fire, to the height of six or seven feet ; and that 

 they take up their abode in them sometimes, was evident from the hearths, made of clay, 

 to contain the fire in the middle, leaving room for four or five persons to sit round it. 

 At the same time, these places of shelter are durable; for they take care to leave one side of 

 the tree sound, which is sufficient to keep it growing as luxuriantly as those which remain 

 untouched." 



