68 THE YEW. 



of Fortingal, Perthshire, stand the remains of one which before the 

 trunk fell in, and it became reduced to its present condition of little 

 more than shell, measured round about the incredible number of 56 

 feet. One of the most picturesque of our ancient yews ornaments the 

 churchyard of Darley Dale, Derbyshire. 



No mention of the yew is made in Scripture, though there is reason 

 to believe that it anciently grew upon the mountains of Lebanon, if not 

 there still, since the tree extends far into central Asia. The Hebrew 

 word eres, translated "cedar" in the authorised version, would seem to 

 have been, like many other botanical terms occurring in holy writ, of a 

 wide and general sense, including not only the genuine cedar, Cedrus 

 Libani, but other species of the conifers suitable for building purposes, 

 and likewise the yew. Among the relics discovered at Nineveh it is 

 said that there are fragments of yew-tree wood, declared to be such by 

 the peculiar structure of the fibre, as seen under the microscope. 

 Truly does this marvellous instrument " cast light into the graves of 

 Time." Virgil uses the name pinus, in one place at least, to signify 

 timber-trees in general ; and the frugality practised by the ancients in 

 regard to the names of flowers and fruits would seem to give additional 

 weight to the opinion. Scarcely a dozen flowers are mentioned by the 

 ancient poets, including those of the Holy Land. The rose, the lily, 

 the violet, are spoken of ; but in all these, and in all the rest, the same 

 kind of collective idea seems to be held. When we read of the yew in 

 the classical poets, it is in the same spirit of dread and disrelish that 

 belongs to modern ones. Ovid, for example, selects this tree to mark 

 the place of descent into Tartarus "Dismal yew shades the deep 

 declining way that, through labyrinths of shade and horror, leads to 

 Tartarus ; languid Styx exhaling continual clouds." 



