OF FOREST-TREES.
325
Jews , and other solemnities, was called by the Romans, Umbra ; as those book iv..in Neplunalibus are described by the Poet:
Plebs venit, ac virides pafsim disjecta per herbasPotat, et accumbit cum pare quisque sua :
Sub jove pars durat : pauci tentoria ponunl:
Sunt, quibus e ramis frondea. facta casa est. ovid. Fast. lib. iii.
All sorts together flock; and, on the groundDisplay’d, each fellow with his mate drinks round.
Some sit in open air, some build their tents;
And some themselves .in branchy arbors fence.
Plutarch , speaking of the anniversary feast of Bacchus, plainly re-sembles it to that of the tabernacles, carrying about ©Jysvc branches
of Palm, Citron, and other trees, as Josephus describes the JewishFestival b . The custom (for ought I know) is still kept up in manyplaces of our country, and abroad, on May-Day, when the young menand maidens, like' the Pagan $J/>crope/>la, go out into the woods and coppi-ces, cut down and spoil young springers, to drefs up their May-booth,and dance about the Pole, as in pictures we see the wanton Israelitesabout the Molten Calf. For thus, as w.e noted, those rites commandedby God came to be pfophaned, and the retirednefs of.Groves and Shadesfor their opacousnefs, abused to abominable purposes, and works of dark-nefs. But what good or indifferent.thing has net been subject to perver-sion:? It is said in the end of Isaiah, Exprobralur Hebncis quod in y;d. Selde-Opisthonais ulolorum horii efsent in,quorum medio februabantur but how num cie J urethis is applicable to Groves, does not appear so fully; though we find Heb.them interdicted, Deut. xvi. 21. Judg. vi. 25. 2 Chron. xxxi. 1. and ca P- vi - Gre s-forbidden to be planted near God ’s altar. And an impure Grove on dh^gentSyl-mount Libanus, dedicated to Venus, was by an imperial edict of Con- ta s- n.stantine extirpated: But from the abuse of the thing to the non-use, theconsequence is not always valid ; and we may note as to .this very parti-cular, that where in divers places of holy writ the denunciation against