354

A DISCOURSE

. Misleto grew, than which nothing-was reputed more sacred, for amongstsuch. Oaks the Druids usually dwelt,

--Nemora alta remotls

Incolitis Lucis-- iucan.

•and-with whose leaves they adorned and celebrated their religious rites.« The Druids,” says Pliny, lib . xvi. cap. xliv. “ for so they call theirDivines, esteem nothing more venerable than Misleto, and the Oak uponwhich it grows.” Indeed they did nothing of importance without someleaves or branches of this tree, and they esteemed its very excrescence assent from heaven. The Misleto was not to be gathered, but cut by thePriest with a golden ax, praying for a blefsing upon the Divine Gift;after this two white bulls were offered up as a sacrifice. But forthis consult (besides Pliny) Mela, Lactantius , Eusebius de praparat.Evangel, and the Aulularia of Pseudo-Plautus , Camden, and others;whilst as to that excrescence, I relate the disasters which happened to two

men who, not long since, felled a goodly tree, called the Vicar’s Oak ,standing at Norwood, (not far from Croydon) partly belonging to theArchbishop, and was limit to four parishes which met in a point; on thisOak grew an extraordinary branch of Misleto, which in the time of the-sacrilegious usurpers they were wont to cut and sell to an apothecary ofLondon ; and though warned of the misfortunes observed to befal thosewho injured this plant, proceeded not only to cut it quite off, withoutleaving a sprig remaining, but to demolish and fell the Oak itself also-The first soon after lost his eye, and the other broke his leg, as ifthe Hamadryads had revenged the indignity.

It is reported that the Minturnensian Grove was esteemed so venerable,that a stranger might not be admitted into it; and the great Xerxes him-self, when -he pafsed through Achaia, would not touch a Grove whichwas dedicated to Jupiter, commanding his army to do it no violence; andthe honours he did to one single (but a goodly) Platanus , we have alreadymentioned. The like to this we find when the Persians were put to flightby Pausanias; though they might have saved their lives by it, as appearsin the story. The same reverence made Hercules not so much as tastethe waters of the JSgerian Groves, after he slew Cacus , though extremelythirsty.