320

A DISCOURSE

them on fire, the flame did not so much surprise and affright the salvageforesters as the warmth, which (after a little gazing at the unusualaccident) they found so comfortable: This (says he) invited them to ap-proach it nearer, and, as it spent and consumed, by signs and barbaroustones (which in.procefs of time were formed into significant words) theyencouraged one another to supply it with fresh combustibles : By this ac-cident the wild people, who before were afraid of one another, and dweltasunder, began to find the benefit and sweetnefs of society, mutualafsistance, and conversation; which they afterwards improved, bybuilding houses with those trees, and dwelling nearer together. Fromthese mean and imperfect beginnings they arrived in time to be authorsof the most polished arts; they established laws, peopled nations, plantedcountries, and laid the foundation of all that order and magnificencewhich the succeeding ages have enjoyed. No more then let us admire theenormous moles and bridges of Caligula acrofs to Baize ; or that of Trajanover the Danube (stupendous work of stone and marble !) to the adverseshores ; whilst our timber and our trees making us bridges to the furthestIndies and Antipodes, land us into new worlds. In a word, (and tospeak a bold and noble truth) trees and woods have twice saved thewhole world ; first by the Ark, then by the Crofs ; making full amendsfor the evil fruit of the tree in Paradise, by that which was borne on thetree in Golgotha. But that we may give an account of the sacred andother uses of these venerable retirements, we will now proceed to de-scribe what those places were.

Though Silva was the more general name, denoting a large tract ofwood or trees, the incidua and cdeduce, yet there were several other titlesattributed to greater or lefser afsemblies of them; Demits Silvte wasa Summer-house;. and such was Solomon’s "Owo; S^a, 1 Reg. vii. 2.When they planted them for pleasure and shade only, they had theirNemora ; and as we our Parks, for the preservation of game and particu-larly venison, so had they their Saltus, and Silva invia , secluded for themost part from the rest. But among authors we meet with nothing morefrequent, and indeed more celebrated, than those arboreous amenitiesand plantations of woods,, which they called Luci j and which, thoughsometimes restrained to certain peculiar places for devotion (which werenever to be felled) yet were they also promiscuously both used, and taken-for all that the wide forest comprehends, or can signify. To dismifsa number of critics,, the name Lucas is derived by Quintilian and others,