334

A DISCOURSE

BOOK IV. But to return to the superstitions we were speaking of. They were' utterly abolished under the reign of Claudius, as appears by Suetonius ;

and yet, by Tacitus, they continued here in Britain till Nero ; and in Gaultill Vitellius , as is found by St. Gregory writing to Q. Brunehaut, aboutthe prohibiting the Sacrifices and Worship which they paid to Trees ;which,. Sir Janies Ware affirms, continued in Ireland till Christianity came in.

From these Silvan Philosophers and Divines (not to speak much of the-Indian Braclimans, or antient Gymnosophists) it is believed that the greatPythagoras might institute his silent Monastery; and we read that Plah>entertained his Auditors amongst his Walks of Trees,, which were after-ward defaced by the inhumanity of Sylla, when, as Appian tells us, he cutdown those venerable shades to build forts against the Pyraeus. Anotherwe find he had, planted near Anicerides with his own hands, whereingrew that celebrated Platanus, under which he introduces his masterSocrates discoursing with Phaedrus de Pulehro. Such another place wasthe Athenian Cephisia, as A. Gellius decribes it. We have already men-tioned the stately Xysta, with their shades, in book ii. c. iii. Democritus also taught in a Grove, as we find in that of Hippocrates to Damagetus,where there was a particular tree designed ad otimn literarum: and I re-member Tertullian calls these places Studia opaca. Under such shadesand walks was at first the famous Academia , so-venerable, as it wasesteemed by the old Philosophers prophane so much as to laugh in it..See Laertius , dElian, &c. I could here tell you of Palsemon, Timon,.Apollonius, Theophrastus , and many more that erected their schoolsin such Colleges of Trees, but I spare my reader; I shall only> note, that it is reported of Thucydides that he compiled his nobleHistorv in the Scaplan Groves, as Pliny writes ; and in that matchlefsniece of Cicero de Oratore, , we shall find the Interlocutors to be oftenunder the Platanus in his Tusculan Villa, where,, invited by the freshnefsand sweetnefs of the place, Admonuit (says one of them) me hac tua Pla-ta mis qua non minus ad opacandum liunc locum patulis est diffusa ranu's,quam ilia , ctijus umbram secnius est Socrates > qua mild videtur non tarn ipsaaguula , qua describitur, quam Platonis oratione crcvifse , Use. as the Orator mo«t deginUy brings ir b in the person of one of that meeting..

discufsed in a

Greek Epistle J confefs Quintilian seems much to question whether such places dohL Brother, *° not rather perturb and distract from an Orator ’s * recollection and the