THE AGE OF YEWS 257 



and fixed views on the subject of these durations 

 of life. 



If the Oak tree, as some say, in a few specially 

 long-lived instances saw Roman legions, what sights 

 might not the Methuselah among Yews have feasted 

 his eyes upon ? Perhaps the forefathers of those 

 ancient Britons, w^hom Julius Caesar beheld, and 

 described as smeared in the dye of woad, clad in the 

 tawny skins of wild beasts, with streaming locks 

 and flying moustachios, disconcerting by feats 

 of horsemanship the old hands of his cohorts. 



Of its wood, both old writers and modern writers 

 have nothing but good to say. It resists decay, it 

 was much in use for furniture, it responds to polish 

 and to topiary work. At the present day little is 

 heard of it commercially. Trees that only come 

 into the markets in their twos and threes are with 

 difficulty disposed of to the timber merchant. The 

 trade like quick results, and ever hanker after markets 

 that speedily respond. An old New Forest saying 

 tells us that a post of Yew will out-last a post of 

 iron. An old chronicler tells us that its veins exceed 

 in beauty those of most trees, and that tables made 

 of it are superior to mahogany. But old writers, 

 any more than modern \\Titers, must not be regarded 

 as final in everything they write. Such comparisons 

 must be taken cum grano sails ; that is to say, as 

 salt in condiment, only sparingly. 



Botanically, it is with few exceptions dioecious ; 

 it has no resin ducts ; it is of great antiquity geo- 

 logically, and though not dating so far back as the 

 Araucarias, Cryptomerias, and Gingkos, for instance, 

 to the Jurassic formations and the dates when reptiles 

 swayed an early world, it can lay claim by long 

 descent to a direct connection with British soil, 

 dating from the times of the earlier appearances of 

 mammals. 



