well as of religion. Here, the priests of Baal performed their profane rites: and here, the backsliding Israelites used often to screen their idolatries. The strong ideas of superstition, which these gloomy retreats impressed upon the ignorance of early ages, are finely touched by Virgil. The passage I allude to is in the eighth book; where the story of Evander is introduced. The whole country was then, as unpeopled countries commonly are, a mere forest; and as the groves and woods presented themselves on every side, the venerable chief describing each scene to his illustrious guest, annexes to it some tale of horror, or some circumstance of religious awe.

'Hinc lucum ingentem, quem Romulus acer asylum
Rettulit, et gelidâ monstrat sub rupe Lupercal,
Parrhasio dictum Panos de more Lycæi.
Nec non et sacri monstrat nemus Argileti;
Testaturque locum, et lethum docet hospitis Argi.
Hinc ad Tarpeiam sedem, et capitolia ducit,
Aurea nunc, olim sylvestribus horrida dumis.
Jam tum religio pavidos terrebat agrestes
Dira loci: jam tum sylvam, saxumque timebant.
Hoc nemus, hunc, inquit, frondoso vertice collem,
(Quis deus, incertum est) habitat deus. Arcades ipsum
Credunt se vidisse Jovem, cum sæpe nigrantem
Ægida concuteret dextrâ, nimbosque cieret.'

Gilpin gives the following translation of these lines at the end of the volume ;

'He shewed

A grove, which Romulus, in after times,
Made an asylum. Near it, rose a rock,
Bedewed with weeping springs, sacred to Pan;
And once more sacred to the injured shade
Of murdered Argiletus. Then he called aloud
The gods to witness, that his soul abhorred
The impious deed. To the Tarpeian rock
He led the hero next, where now in pomp
The capitol upheaves its splendid towers;
Then but a thicket, interwoven close,

With Nature's wildest products. Yet e'en then
A superstitious awe, and holy fear

O'erspread the scene. Doubtless some god, (what god
We know not) holds his sacred residence
Upon the wooded crest of yon dark grove.

Oft when the storm, with brooding darkness, o'er
That wood arises, the Arcadians see,

Or think they see, the mighty Jove himself
Rolling his thunder; and with bare right arm.
Flashing his lightnings on a guilty land.'-ED.

I cannot conclude this section better than with another quotation very beautifully adapted to the subject.

'Meditation here

May think down hours to moments. Here the heart

May give a useful lesson to the head;

And, learning wiser, grow without its books.

Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one,

Have ofttimes no connexion. Knowledge dwells
In heads replete with thoughts of other men:
Wisdom, in minds attentive to their own.
Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass,

The mere materials, with which wisdom builds,
Till smoothed, and squared, and fitted to its place,
Does but encumber, whom it seems t'enrich.
Knowledge is proud, that it has learned so much :
Wisdom is humble, that it knows no more.
Books are not seldom talismans and spells,
By which the magic arts of shrewder wits
Holds an unthinking multitude enthralled.
Some to the fascination of a name

Surrender judgment hoodwinked. Some the style
Infatuates; and, through labyrinths and wilds
Of error, leads them by a tune entranced.
While sloth seduces more, too weak to bear

The insupportable fatigue of thought;

And swallowing therefore, without pause or choice,
The total grist unsifted, husks and all.

But trees, and rivulets, and haunts of deer,

And sheep-walks, populous with bleating lambs,

And groves, in which the primrose ere her time.

Peeps through the moss, that clothes. the Hawthorn root, Deceive no student. Wisdom there, and truth,

Not shy as in the world, and to be won

By slow solicitation, seize at once

The roving thought, and fix it on themselves.'

SECTION VI.

THE FOREST.

AVING thus considered various kinds of woody scenery, and

traced the peculiar beauties of each, we proceed next to the forest, which, in a manner, comprehends them all. There are few extensive forests which do not contain, in some part or other, a specimen of every species of woody landscape. The wild forest view, indeed, differs essentially from the embellished one; though sometimes we find even the forest lawn in a polished state, when browsed by deer into a fine turf, and surrounded by stately woods. Beauty, however, is not the characteristic of the forest. Its peculiar dis