OF FOREST-TREES. 359
The pious worshippers approach not near,
But shun their gods, and kneel with distant fear:
The priest himself, when, or the day, or night,
Rolling have reach’d their full meridian height,
Refrains the gloomy paths with wary feet,
Dreading the dcemon of the grove to meet ; ’
Who, terrible to fight, at that fix’d hour,
Still treads the round about his dreary bow’r.
This wood, near neighb’ring to the encompafs’d town,
TJntouch’d by former wars remain’d alone;
And since the country round it naked stands,
From hence the Latian Chief supplies demands.
But to ! the bolder hands that should have struck.
With some unusual horror trembling shook;
With silent dread and rev’rence they survey’dThe gloom majestic of the sacred shade :
None dares with impious steel the bark to rend,
Lest on himself the destin’d stroke descend.
Ccesar perceiv’d the spreading fear to grow,
Then, eager, caught an ax, and aim’d a blow.
Deep sunk within a violated Oak
The wounding edge, and thus the warrior spoke S
Now let no doubting hand the task decline;
Cut you the wood, and let the guilt be mine.
And so it was, as he carried (it is thought) the maledictions of the in*censed Gauls to his/uneral pile;
—--Quis enim lassos impune putaret
EfseDeos? ... ■ ■ ■
- — . —For who,
The Gods thus injur’d, unreveng’d does go?
But, lest this be charged with superstition, because the instances areheathen; it was a more noble and remarkable, as well as recent example,when, at the siege of Breda, the late famous General Spinola commandedhis army not to violate a tree of a certain wood belonging to the Princeof Orange there, though a reputed traitor, and in open defiance withhis master. In sum, we read, that when Mithridates but deliberatedabout the cutting down of some stately trees which grew near Patara,a city of Lycia , though necefsitated to it for the building of warlikeengines with them, being terrified in a vision, he desisted from his pur-pose. It were to be wished that these, or the like examples, might have
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