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in choice of abode in the pine tribe, only apparently 
including under the title of fir all the hardier species: — 
“ The Jir the hills; the ash adorns the woods, 
The pine the gardens, and the poplar floods." 
Gilpin says, that “ Italy alone gives birth to the true 
picturesque pine; where,” he adds, “ it always suggests 
ideas of broken porticos, Ionic pillars, triumphal 
arches, fragments of old temples, and a variety of classic 
ruins, which in Italian landscape it commonly adorns.” 
This is very true. When imagination dwells on those 
mighty relics which stand in “ ruinous perfection,” in so 
many parts of that classic country, it as invariably 
associates them with their guardian pine, as it does 
the rock and the mountain with their proper sylvan 
accompaniments. 
“ A grove springs up through levelled battlements, 
And twines its roots with the imperial hearths.’* 
In perfect unison with its chosen haunts and sombre 
aspect, are the mournful murmuring sounds which it 
makes, in common with all acerose-leaved trees, when 
the wind stirs its boughs: sounds, now loud, now soft, 
ever varying with the rising or falling breeze. These 
E 2 
