CHAP. CIII. SALICA‘CE. PO’PULUS. 1669 
generally in France, and occasionally in Italy, is often a very beautiful and 
natural accompaniment to buildings. ‘“ We have observed,” he says,“ a very 
whimsical effect produced by the long rows of these poplars in France, when 
seen crowning a distant elevation, where they have had to us all the appear- 
ance of an army drawn up; and we remarked that this whimsical deception 
very frequently occurred.” (Lauder’s Gilpin, vol. i. p. 116.) Mr. Sang considers 
the Lombardy poplar as a “very ugly tree;” a circumstance which we are 
rather surprised at in so enlightened an observer. The prevalence of these 
poplars in the vicinity of London, and other places in England, he says, he 
found tiresome in the extreme. Cobbett asserts the poplars to be a “ very 
worthless family of trees ;” and he adds, “ That well-known, great, strong, ugly 
thing, called the Lombardy poplar, is very apt to furnish its neighbours with a 
surplus population of caterpillars, and other abominable insects.” (Voodlands.) 
Poetical and legendary Allusions. Some authors make Lombardy poplars 
the trees into which the sisters of Phaethon were changed. The unhappy 
virgins, say they, in their despair, clasped their hands above their heads, till 
they became fixed, and with the long hair which hung down and covered them 
like a veil, changed into leaves and branches, from which their tears stream 
incessantly. Notwithstanding the poetry of this idea, the Lombardy poplar 
could not be the tree alluded to by Ovid; since it has certainly been either 
originated in, or introduced into, Italy at a comparatively modern period, and 
consequently was not known to the ancients. The spiral form of this poplar, 
and the manner in which it waves in one mass, have been noticed by several 
of our modern poets. Leigh Hunt speaks of 
“ The poplar’s shoot, 
Which, like a feather, waves from head to foot ;” 
and Barry Cornwall says, — 
“* The poplar there 
Shoots up its spire, and shakes its leaves i’ the sun 
Fantastical.”” 
The Isle of Poplars, in the Marquis de Girardin’s gardens at Ermenonville, 
is celebrated for having been the place chosen by Rousseau for his own 
grave. The island is about 50 ft. long, and 30ft. broad, and is situated 
at one end of a large lake. The only trees planted on the island are Lombardy 
poplars. A plan of the island may be seen in the Encyclopedia of Gardening, ed. 
1835, p. 86.; and a view of the island and the tomb forms the frontispiece 
to Girardin’s Essay on Landscape, &c. 
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