Page:Sir Thomas Browne's works, volume 3 (1835).djvu/409

 the wood that bringeth forth trees." Which was no ordinary plantation, if according to the Targum, or Chaldee paraphrase, it contained all kinds of plants, and some fetched as far as India; and the extent thereof were from the wall of Jerusalem unto the water of Siloah.

And if Jordan were but Jaar Eden, that is the river of Eden; Genesar but Gansar or the prince of gardens; and it could be made out, that the plain of Jordan were watered not comparatively, but causally, and because it was the Paradise of God, as the learned Abramas hinteth: he was not far from the prototype and original of plantations. And since even in Paradise itself, the tree of knowledge was placed in the middle of the garden, whatever was the ambient figure, there wanted not a centre and rule of decussation. Whether the groves and sacred plantations of antiquity were not thus orderly placed, either by quaternios, or quintuple ordinations, may favourably be doubted. For since they were so methodical in the constitutions of their temples, as to observe the due situation, aspect, manner, form, and order in architectonical relations, whether they were not as distinct in their groves and plantations about them, in form and species respectively unto their deities, is not without probability of conjecture. And in their groves of the sun this was a fit number by multiplication to denote the days of the year; and might hieroglyphically speak as much, as the mystical statue of Janus in the language of his fingers. And since they were so critical in the number of his horses, the strings of his harp, and rays about his head, denoting the orbs of heaven, the seasons and months of the year, witty idolatry would hardly be flat in other appropriations.