iv. 3), must immediately recur to a Biblical reader; but the course of

this article will remind him also of that humble bush which the Lord consecrated by his presence, when he revealed himself to Moses in flaming fire on the mountain of Horeb (Exod. iii. 2, 4). With whatever veneration our first parents regarded the trees of Paradise, it appears that some which grew in natural and common earth were actually worshipped by the perverse Israelites of early ages, according to a learned Jew, one of those Rabbinical writers whose authority is most respected.[9]

"But the immediate object of this article and the narrow limits of an appendix do not allow me to expatiate farther amidst the groves of Scriptural history or of Jewish superstition. Nor can I enjoy more than a hasty glance at those trees reputed sacred in classical antiquity; of which such number offer themselves to the imagination as would constitute whole forests. So frequently were groves and woods dedicated to religious purposes that at last those very terms (in Greek _alsos_, _lucus_ in Latin), implied consecration.

"Turning for a moment or two to the "Archæologia Græca" of the learned Dr. John Potter, we find numerous interesting items of information suitable for insertion here.

"The temples in the country were generally surrounded with groves sacred to the tutelar deity of the place, where, before the invention of temples, the gods were worshipped.

"The most usual manner of consecration of images and altars was by putting a crown upon them, anointing them with oil, and then offering prayers and oblations to them. Sometimes they added an execration against all that should presume to profane them, and inscribed upon them the name of the deity and the cause of their dedication. In this manner the Spartan virgins, in Theocritus's eighteenth Idyllium, promise to consecrate a tree to Helena; for it was customary to dedicate trees or plants after the same manner, and with altars and statues:

'We first a crown of creeping lotus twine, And on the shadowy plane suspend, as thine; We first beneath the shadowy plane distil From silver vase the balsam's liquid rill; Graved on the bark the passenger shall see Adore me, traveller! I am Helen's Tree.'

Ovid likewise, in the eighth book of his Metamorphoses, speaks of adorning them with ribands:

'An ancient oak in the dark centre stood, The covert's glory, and itself a wood: Ribands embrac'd its trunk, and from the boughs Hung tablets, monuments of prosperous vows.'

It may here be farther observed, that altars were often erected under the shade of trees. Thus we find the altar of Jupiter Herceus placed within the court of Priamus, king of Troy:

'Within the courts, beneath the naked sky, An altar rose; an aged laurel by; That o'er the hearth and household gods displayed A solemn gloom, a deep majestic shade.'

But where groves of trees could be had, they were preferred before any other place. It was so common to erect altars and temples in groves, and to dedicate them to religious uses, that all sacred places, even those where no trees were to be seen, were called groves, as we learn from Strabo.[10] And it seems to have been a general custom which prevailed, not only in Europe, but over all the eastern countries, to attribute a sort of religion to groves. Hence, among other precepts, whereby the Jews were kept from the imitation of the Pagan religion, this was one: 'Thou shalt not plant thee a grove of any trees near unto the altar of the Lord thy God' (Deut. xvi. 21).

"This practice is thought to have been introduced into Greece from Phoenicia by Cadmus. And some are of opinion that hence Ascra, a village in Boeotia, where Hesiod was born, received its name. Several causes are assigned why groves came into so general request.

"At first, the pleasantness of such places was apt to allure the people, and to beget in them a love for the religious worship which was paid there; especially in hot countries, where nothing is more delightful and refreshing than cool shades; for which cause the sacred groves consisted of tall and beautiful trees, rather than such as yield fruit. Hence Cyril does expressly distinguish the tree fit for groves from that which bears fruit, it being the custom to plant groves, not with vines or fig trees, or others which produced fruit, but only with trees which afford no fruit for human use, merely for the sake of pleasure. Thus one of the temples of Diana is described by Herodotus as standing within a grove of the largest trees. And the way to Mercury's temple was set up on both sides with trees reaching up to heaven, as we are told by the same historian. The same is farther confirmed by the descriptions of groves which remain in the ancient poets.

"Secondly, the solitude of groves was thought very fit to create a religious awe and reverence in the minds of the people. Thus we are told by Pliny, that in groves, _ipsa silentia adoramus_, the very silence of the place becomes the object of our adoration. Seneca also observes, that when we come into such places, _illa proceritas sylvæ_, _et secretum loci_, _et admiratio umbræ_, _fidem numinis facit_, the height of the trees, the solitude and secrecy of the place, and the horror which the shade strikes into us, does possess us with an opinion that some deity inhabits there.

"It may not be impertinent to add one testimony more from Ovid, who speaks thus:

'A darksome grove of oak was spread out near, Whose gloom impressive told, A God dwells here.'

"Thirdly, some are of opinion that groves derived their religion from the primitive ages of men, who lived in such places before the building of houses. Thus Tacitus reports of the ancient Germans, that they had no other defence for their infants against wild beasts or the weather than what was afforded _ramorum nexu_, by boughs of trees compacted together. All other nations lived at first in the same manner; which was derived from Paradise, the seat of the first parents of mankind. And it is not unworthy of observation, that most of the ceremonies used in religion were first taken from the customs of human life....

"In latter ages, when cities began to be filled with people, and men to delight in magnificent edifices and costly ornaments, more than the country and primitive way of living, groves by degrees came into disuse. Yet such of the groves as remained from former times were still held in great veneration, and reverenced the more for the sake of their antiquity. As in the earlier times it was accounted an act of sacrilege to cut down any of the consecrated trees, which appears from the punishment inflicted by Ceres upon Erichthonius for this crime, whereof there is a prolix relation in Callimachus; so in latter ages, the same was thought a most grievous wickedness; whereof it will be sufficient to mention this one example, where Lucan speaks of Cæsar's servants, in allusion to the fable of Lycurgus, who endeavouring to destroy the vines of Bacchus, cut off his own legs:

'But valiant hands Then falter'd. Such the reverend majesty That wrapt the gloomy spot, they feared the axe That struck those hallow'd trees would from the stroke Recoil upon themselves.'--ELTON."

Ouseley proceeds--"The trunk or stump of a single tree afforded most obvious materials for a bust or statue; and even unfashioned by human art, became on some occasions an object of idolatrous worship, whilst any rude flat stone, or heap of earth at its base, served as an altar, and the surrounding grove as a temple. That groves in ancient times were considered as temples we learn from Pliny. Treating of the respect paid to trees, he says that they were formerly Temples of the Gods, and that even in his time the rustics, observing ancient usage, dedicated to the Deity any tree of pre-eminent beauty or excellence. There is authority for believing that images were placed in groves sooner than within the walls of religious edifices; also that in the formation of statues, wood was employed before stone or marble, as appears from Pausanias, and is declared by many antiquaries, as for instance Caylus, Winkelmann, and Ernesti.

"That various trees were consecrated, each to a particular divinity, we know from numerous passages so familiar to every classical reader, that I need scarcely quote on this subject Virgil and Pliny. The statue of each god was often (perhaps generally though not necessarily), made from the tree esteemed sacred to him. But I shall not here trace the idol worshipped while yet merely a rude trunk or stock, and in that state called Sanis, through the Xoanon, when the wood was pared or shaven until it became a Deikelon or Bretas, having assumed a likeness, however faint, of the human form. This progress has been described by several writers on the Religion and Arts of Greece, such as Vossius, Gronovius, Grænius and Spence, as well as those already mentioned.

"But it must not be here forgotton that as votive offerings, or as tokens of veneration, wreaths and fillets, and chaplets or garlands were often suspended from the sacred branches; a more elegant and far more innocent form of homage to a Divinity than (as among some nations) the staining of trees with blood which had just flowed from the expiring victim, not unfrequently human.

"Concerning those offerings and wreaths and chaplets, a multiplicity of Greek and Latin extracts might here be adduced, and illustrated by means of the devices on medals, and sculptured marbles, the paintings on vases, and other precious monuments of antiquity. But the limits usually assigned to an appendix admit few quotations."

Sir William proceeds to notice those lines wherein, mentioning the intended consecration of a shady plane-tree to Helen (who was daughter of Jupiter, and worshipped as a goddess in the Troad, in Rhodes and Lacedemon), Theocritus[11] describes the Spartan virgins declaring that they would begin the ceremony by placing on it a twisted or woven wreath of the humble growing lotus.

And Ovid's[12] mention of the wreaths hanging from a sacred tree, and the addition of recent offerings; and his story of Eresicthon,[13] who impiously violated the ancient woods of Ceres, cutting down the sacred oak, which was in itself equal to a grove, and hung round with garlands, fillets and other votive offerings.

And those lines in which Statius[14] records a vow, promising that an hundred virgins of Calydon, who ministered at the altars, should fasten to the consecrated tree chaplets and fillets, white and purple interwoven.

And the same poet's account of the celebrated Arcadian oak, sacred to Diana, but itself adorned as a divinity, and so loaded with rustic offerings that there was "scarcely room for the branches."

The palm was deemed sacred in Egypt according to Porphyry; and Herodotus mentions those palms that surrounded the temple of Perseus (Lib. II., cap. 91); the grove of immense trees, and the trees reaching to heaven, about the temple of Bubastis or Diana (Lib. II., c. 138); and those at the great temple of Apollo (Lib. II., c. 156).

Sir William Ousley says--"We may believe, also, that a sacred mulberry tree gave its name, _Hiera Sycaminos_, to a town or station near the river Nile.

"Hiera Sycaminos, fifty-four miles above Syene, according to Pliny, Nat. Hist., Lib. VI. c. 29; also in Ptolemy's Georgr., Lib. IV., c. 5; and in the Peutingerian or Theodosian tables."