68 THE FRUITS OF THE COUNTRY-SIDE 



by the yew, and that in turn, as we see, by the birch, 

 succeeding verses, that we need not quote, carrying on the 

 floral order. 



In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the yew was 

 held in high esteem in the stately gardens of that period, 

 not merely as a fence and a protection from the wind, but 

 for the ease with which it could be clipped into all sorts 

 of fantastic shapes, as peacocks, dragons, pyramids. Pliny 

 refers to this as a custom in his day also. Lord Bacon, 

 with his wonted good sense, protested against this practice, 

 and says in one of his essays : "I, for my part, do not 

 like images cut out in juniper and other garden stuff : 

 they be for children." But his strictures had no influence, 

 and in the reign of William and Mary the taste for this 

 sort of thing was all-pervading. Yet later on the ridicule 

 of Addison and Pope was brought to bear on the practice, 

 and it presently passed out of fashion. As in most other 

 things, there is between the extremes a golden mean, a 

 happy medium, and it cannot be denied that a certain 

 formal clipping and stately rigidity of line harmonised well 

 with these fine old Tudor mansions, with their geometric 

 flower-beds, statuary, fountains, terraces, and noble flights 

 of steps. 



In the language of the botanist the yew is the Taxiis 

 baccata. The second of these names has obvious reference 

 to berry-bearing, but the first is by no means so clear. 

 The common name, yew, is a corruption — or shall we rather 

 say a suggestion — from the Celtic /w, green. The variation 

 in the spelling of the word is very great ; we have seen 

 it given as yweu, eow, iw, ewe, eugh, whe, eu, ew, ewgh, 

 yugh, yeugh, yewe, yowe, and even iuu, and this by no 



