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OF FOREST- TREES. 295

a Repeat, thy Words on Cherry-bark Til take ,

And that red Skin my Table-Book will make.

■Let us add the sweet * Tropertius :

Ah qnoties teneras resonant mea Verba sub umbras,Scribitur V vestris Cynthia, Corticibus .

Chap. I.

y/W

* Lib. I. E U-gia xviii.

And so deep were the Incisons made, as that of ^ Helena on the Tla -1 Tbeimi. E-tan ’> (k 7 rxQtw 71$ Avyvoin) that one might run and read them. And ^f^ len3!^ US ^daken Lovers appeal to Tines, Beeches, and other Trees of theForest. But we have dwelt too long on these Trifles; omitting also^vhat we might relate of Feasting, Banqueting, and Other splendidEntertainments under Trees, nay, sometimes in the very Bodies oftherp: But we will now change the Scene, as the Egyptians did the•Mirth oi their Guests, when they lerved in a Scull to make them morelenous. For thus,

Amongst other Uses of Groves, I read that some Nations wereWont to hang, not Malefactors only, but their departed Friends , andthose whom they most esteemed, upon Trees, as so much nearer toHeaven, and dedicated to God, believing it far more honourable thanto be buried in the Earth ; and that some affected to repose rather inthese woody Places, Tropertius seems to bespeak:

b The Gods forbid my Bones in the high RoadShould lie , by every wandring Vulgar trod,

Thus buried Lovers are to Scorn expos’d ;

My Tomb in some by-Arbor be inclos’d.

The same is affirmed of other Septentrional People by Chr. Cilicusde Bello Dithmarsico, 1 . i. It was upon the Trunk of a knotty andsturdy Oak, the antient Heroes were wont to hang the Arms and Wca-pons taken from the Enemy, as Trophies ; as appears in the yet remain-ing Stump of Marius at Rome, and the Reverses of several Medals.

Famous for this was the pregnant Oleaster which grew in the Forumof Me gar a, on which the Heroes of old left their Shields and Buck -lers, and other warlike Harness, till in process of time it had cover’dthem with successive Coats of Bark and Timber, as it was afterwardsfound when Teric les fack'd the City ; which the Oracle predictedshould be impregnable, till a Tree stiould bring forth * Armour. We * sic;

have already mention’d Rebekah, and read of Kings themselves that /»&• 12 >honoured such Places with their Sepulchres; What else should be themeaning of i Chron. x. 1 1. when the valiant Men of sabejh interr’dthe Bones of Saul and Jonathan under the Oak ? Famous was theHyrnethian Cœmetery where Daiphon lay. Ariadne’% Tomb was inthe Amathufian Grove in Crete, now Candy ; for they believed thatthe Spirits and Ghosts of Men delighted to expatiate, and appear insuch solemn Places, as the learned Grotius notes from Theophylaff,speaking of the Damons, upon Matth. viii. 20. for which cause ‘Plato

* Die age, nam Cerasi tua cortice verba notabo.lit decisa feram rutilanti carmina libra.

b Dr faciant mea ne terra locct ossa srequentiQua facit assiduo tramitc vulgus iter;

Post mortem tumuli sic infamantur amantura,Me tegat arborca devia terra coma.

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