OF FOREST-TREES. 



359 



The pious worshipers approach not near, 

 But shun their gods, and kneel with distant fear : 

 The priest himself^ when, or the day, or night, 

 RoUing have reach'd their full meridian height. 

 Refrains the gloomy paths with wary feet. 

 Dreading the daemon of the grove to meet ; 

 Who, terrible to sight, at that fix'd hour. 

 Still treads the round about his dreary bow'r. 



This wood, near neighb'ring to th' encompass'd town, 

 Untouch'd by former wars remain'd alone ; 

 And since the country round it naked stands. 

 From hence the Latian chief supplies demands. 

 But lo ! the bolder hands that should have struck. 

 With some unusual horror trembling shook ; 

 With silent dread and rev'rence they survey'd 

 The gloom majestic of the sacred shade : 

 None dares with impious steel the bark to rend. 

 Lest on himself the destin'd stroke descend. 

 Caesar percelv'd the spreading fear to grow. 

 Then, eager, caught an axe, and aim'd a blow. 

 Deep sunk within a violated Oak 

 The wounding edge, and thus the warrior spoke: 

 Now let no doubting hand the task decline; 

 Cut you the wood, and let the guilt be mine. 



And SO it was, as he carried (it is thought) the maledictions of the 

 incensed Gauls to his funeral pile : 



' Quis enim laesos impune putaret 



Esse deos ? ■> 



■ For who. 



The gods thus injur'd, unreveng'd does goi* 



But, lest this be charged with superstition, because the instances are 

 heathen ; it was a more noble and remarkable, as well as recent example, 

 when, at the siege of Breda, the late famous general Spinola commanded 

 his army not to violate a tree of a certain wood belonging to the prince 

 of Orange there, though a reputed traitor, and in open defiance with 

 his master. In sum, we read, that when Mithridates but deliberated 

 about the cutting down of some stately trees which grew near Patara, 

 a city of Lycia, though necessitated to it for the building of warlike 

 engines with them, being terrified in a vision, he desisted from his pur- 

 pose. It were to be wished that these, or the like examples, might have 



Z z 2 



BOOK IV. 



