Dodsley. 
(HOSPITALITY.) 
“And the oak, king of Britannia’s woods, 
And guardian of her isle.” 
T HE Oak, the king of forests all,” was considered the 
most sacred of all trees by the chief nations of an¬ 
tiquity, and its existence deemed coeval with the earth’s. No 
faith but appears to have associated its rites with this symbol 
of majesty and strength. Biblical lore abounds with allusions 
to this “tower of strength.” It was “under the oak which 
was by Shechem,” that Jacob buried the strange gods and 
ornaments of his household. Under the “oak of weeping” 
Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, was interred. The Lord’s mes¬ 
senger that appeared to Gideon “sat under an oak ;” and it was 
by the branches of one of these trees that Absalom, David’s 
beloved but rebellious son, was caught, and met with death. 
“ The oaks of Bashan,” that mystic land where dwelt the 
mighty King Og and his gigantic followers, are called to 
mind, together with numerous other allusions to the hospitable 
tree—to that tree which many ancient races believed to have 
afforded shelter to the first human beings. 
The oak held a very prominent place in the religious and 
other ceremonies of the Greeks. The Dodonean groves in 
Epirus, so celebrated for their oracles, which were supposed 
to proceed from the interior of the trees themselves, were of 
oak ; and Argo, the ship of the Argonauts, being constructed 
with the wood of this tree, was endowed with the same power 
of speech, and counselled the voyagers by oracular directions. 
The Dodonean Jupiter, the Fates, and Hecate, were crowned 
with oak-leaves. Acorns were the first food of man, and the 
Greeks had an old proverb, in which they expressed an idea 
of a man’s age and experience by saying that he had “ eaten 
of Jove’s acorns.” 
This monarch of the woods was held in still greater esteem 
by the Latin race, and their principal poets never omitted an 
