POPLAU. 127 



The poplar is a native of Europe, and has 

 been found growing naturally near rivers and 

 brooks from Italy to Sweden, as well as in 

 Siberia and Barbary : 



" The stately poplars o'er our fields that grow, 

 Admit their brethren from the distant Po." 



Delille. 



The banks of the Po have ever been cele- 

 brated for these spiral trees, on which account 

 some writers have thought that the sisters of 

 Phaeton were changed into poplars ; but this 

 does not appear from Ovid, as we have 

 noticed in the history of the larch, yet it is 

 slightly alluded to by Virgil in the 10th book 

 of the iEneis : 



" For Cycnus loved unhappy Phaeton, 

 And sang his loss in poplar groves, alone, 

 Beneath the sister shades." 



Sterne, in his Sentimental Journal, has pic- 

 tured Maria sitting under a poplar, in such 

 forcible melancholy colours, that when we 

 see this tree in rural situations by the side of 

 a brook, we almost expect to meet the " hap- 

 less damsel," or hear " the evening service 

 to the Virgin," or a tale of woe, told by the 

 " sweetest notes " of her plaintive pipe : 



" 'Twas near a thicket's calm retreat, 

 Under a poplar tree, 

 Maria chose her wretched seat, 

 To mourn her sorrows free." 



