COSMOS, VOL. II - World eBook Library

462 COSMOS.
guard.* The ancient adoration of trees was connected,
owing to the refreshing and humid shadow of the leafy
canopy, with the worship of the sacred springs.
To this consideration of the primitive worship of nature
belongs a notice of the fame attached amongst the Hellenic
races to the remarkably large palm-tree in the island of Delos,
and to an ancient plane-tree in Arcadia. The Buddhists of
Ceylon venerate the colossal Indian fig-tree, the Banyan of
from the
Aimrahdepura, which is supposed to have branches of the original
sprung
tree under which Buddha, as the
inhabitant of the ancient Magadha, fell into a state of beati-
tude, spontaneous extinction, nirwdna.] As separate trees
became objects of adoration from the beauty of their forms, so
likewise groups of trees were venerated as groves of the gods.
Pausanias speaks in high terms of admiration of a grove
round the Temple of Apollo at Grynion ^Eolis,J whilst the
of Colonus is likewise celebrated in the famous chorus
grove
of Sophocles.
The feeling for nature manifested by the early cultivated
East Asiatic nations, in the choice and the careful attention
of sacred objects chosen from the vegetable kingdom, was
most strongly and variously exhibited in their cultivation of
parks. In the remotest parts of the Old Continent the
Chinese gardens appear to have approached most nearly to
what we are now accustomed to regard as English parks.
Under the victorious dynasty of Han, gardens were so fre-
quently extended over a circuit of many miles that agriculture
was injured by them, and the people excited to revolt.
" What is it that we seek in the possession of a pleasure garden?"
asks an ancient Chinese writer, Lieu-tscheu. It has
been universally admitted, throughout all ages, that plantations
should compensate to man for the loss of those charms
of which he is deprived by his removal from a free communion
with nature, his proper and most delightful place of abode.
*
Herod., vii. 31 (between Kallatebus and Sardes).
+ Ritter, Erdkunde, th. iv, 2. s. 237, 251, und 681; Lassen, Indische
Alterthumskunde, bd. i. s. 260.
J Pausanius, i. 21, 9. Compare also Arboretum Sacrum, in Meursii
0;>. ex recensione Joann. Lami, vol. x. Florent., 1753, pp. 777-844.
Notice historique sur les Jardins des Cliinois, ia the Memoires
concernant les Chinois, t. viii, p. 309.