128 DU CLAKKE ON THE YEW-TllEE. 



in his present scene of labour, where a fresh field for his investi- 

 gation and research will be opened to him. 



I have now to apologize for the length of this Address, which 

 I much fear must have exhausted your patience, and I beg to 

 resign the honourable position of your President to my successor. 



J. D. C. 



The Yew-Tree ; or a Chapter on Churchyards. By Dr Clarke. 



" Not harsh and rugged are the paths 

 Of hoar antiquity, but strewn with flowers." 



This tree has long been accounted the peculiar accompaniment 

 of the churchyard, and " the Yew-tree's shade" figures, as an es- 

 sential image, in every poetic description of the place of tombs. 

 This local appropriation of the yew has, of course, given rise to 

 various conjectures. Some have thought that its dark and gloomy 

 hue fittingly consorted with such scenes, — a natural and expressive 

 emblem of death and the grave ; but it may be questioned whether 

 the funereal character, with which our fancy loves to invest it, is 

 not rather the reflective effect of its constant association with the 

 grave and images of death. By others it has been supposed to 

 have been planted in churchyards to supply the material for bows 

 to the parishioners. This last notion cannot be true ; for, whether 

 its native character originally pointed it out as an appropriate and 

 significant symbol, or that our imagination has thrown around it 

 a deeper gloom, from its constant presence in such scenes, still, 

 there^ it would be regarded as a sacred tree, and to mutilate, or 

 cut it down for secular purposes, would be deemed an act of pro- 

 fanation. Besides, the material for those English bows, which 

 dealt such fatal execution, and, perhaps, more than courage or 

 discipline, brought such signal victories to the arms of England, 

 was not of native growth, but imported from Italy and Spain. 

 For bows in common use, the elm and hazel, amongst our ever- 

 greens, were chiefly used. The true explanation of its appropria- 

 tion to churchyards I believe to be this : The yew was a sacred 

 tree with the Druids, and when Christianity superseded the Druid 

 mysteries, it is most probable, after the analogy of converting the 



