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proverb, " Speak to the oak;" which signified, 

 speak in good security. They had also an- 

 other proverb on the oak : when they spoke 

 of persons they did not know the birth of, it 

 was said they were born of an oak, because 

 the ancients often exposed children in the hol- 

 low of trees. 



Lucan compares Pompey to an old oak, 

 hung with superb trophies. 



The oak is a tree of slow growth, requir- 

 ing a century before it will arrive to its 

 full perfection. Pliny, in his Natural History, 

 states, that hard by the city of Ilium, there 

 were oaks near the tomb of Ilius, which were 

 planted from acorns when Troy was first 

 called Ilium. He also says, " the great forest 

 Hercynia is full of large oaks, that have 

 never been topped or lopped." " It is sup- 

 posed/' adds this naturalist, " that they have 

 been there since the creation of the world, 

 and (in regard to their immortality) surmount- 

 ing all miracles whatever. The roots of these 

 trees run and spread so far within the ground 

 that they meet each other, in which encounter 

 they make such resistance, that they swell 

 and rise upwards to a great height, in the 

 form of arches/' In some instances, he says, 

 they were so high and so large that a 



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