218 THE BEAUTIES OF BRITISH TREES. [Jan. 



yews, De Candolle concluded that it was within the mark to reckon 

 their increase in diameter at a line a year throughout their life, and 

 it was from such measurements tliat he concluded that individual 

 trees which sometimes occur with a girth of 27 or 28 feet, or even 

 more, may have attained or even have passed the age of 2000 years. 



As an evergreen overshadowing tlie crops, the yew would do more 

 harm than larger and perhaps more valuable deciduous trees, and tlie 

 herdsman must soon have discovered that it was frequently fatal to 

 his cattle, so that it is not to be wondered at that the species should 

 have become less abundant in our hedgerows than it once was. 

 Bearing the staminate and pistillate flowers on different trees, one 

 individual would be, moreover, unable to reproduce itself, if solitary, 

 by means of seed. 



There were, liowever, many cogent reasons why some specimens 

 of the tree should be preserved. No doubt the fancies of the 

 uneducated had surrounded it with a halo of poetic romance, ages 

 before Cliristianity had invested the gloomy evergreen of gnarled red 

 trunk and vastly superhuman longevity with a glamour of super- 

 stitious awe and veneration ; but we have no positive evidence 

 connecting it with Druidical worship. It is not improbable, however, 

 tliat its green boughs, " renewing their eternal youth," may liave 

 been connected with the spring festival of Eostre, which the Chris- 

 tian Churcli was able to sanctify and adopt, as it did the winter use 

 of the Iiolly, that lent itself yet more readily to Christian symbolism; 

 whilst it was unable to do the same for the mistletoe, which social 

 progress has gradually stripped of all its impropriety and of nearly 

 all its signilicance. As tlie Pagan nations of antiquity in South 

 Europe took the cypress as a symbol of immortality, so the yew may 

 well have been adopted in the north ; and certain it is that whilst 

 the holly lingers round ancient British earthworks, and lias long 

 effected its entrance into our churches, it does not occur in our 

 cliurchyards. Even the additional argument that yew-twigs were 

 used to sprinkle tlie holy water in the " Asperges " before mass, will 

 hardly be a sufficient answer to this objection. The following verses 

 for Candlemas Eve, quoted by Mr. Lees in his Botanical Loohcv-out, 

 are, however, worth reproduction in this connection: — 



" Down with the Rosemary and B.-iyes ; 

 Down with tlie Mistletoe ; 

 Instead of Holly, now upraise 

 The gi-eener Box for show. 



The Holly hitherto did sway, 



Let Box now doniineere 

 Until the dancing Easter Day, 



Or Easter Eve appeare. 



