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THE UNIVERSAL HERBAL; 



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The great value here set upon the consecrated Yew, says 

 Withering, induces me, among other reasons, to think that it 

 was commonly planted in church-yards, rather from motives 

 of superstition, than on account of its utility in making bows, 

 as many have supposed ; for a single tree would have afforded 

 a very scanty supply for this purpose. Our forefathers 

 were particularly careful in preserving 'this funeral tree, the 

 branches of which it was usual to carry in solemn procession 

 to the grave, and afterwards to deposit them under the 

 bodies of their departed friends. The learned Ray says, that 

 our ancestors planted the Yew in church-yards, because it, 

 being an evergreen, afforded a symbol of that immortality 

 which they hoped and expected for the persons there depo- 

 sited. For the same reason, this and other evergreen trees 

 are still carried in funerals, and thrown into the grave with 

 the corpse in some parts of England; and are in Wales 

 planted with flowers upon the grave itself. Mr. Gilpin, 

 contrary to general opinion, is a great admirer of the form 

 and foliage of this tree. The Yew, he insists, is of all other 

 trees the most tonsile ; hence all the indignities it suffers ; we 

 every where see it cut and metamorphosed into such a variety 

 of deformities, that we are hardly brought to conceive it has 

 a natural shape, or the power which other trees have of 

 hanging carelessly or negligently : yet it has this power in a 

 very eminent degree; and in a state of nature, except in 

 exposed situations, is perhaps one of the most beautiful ever- 

 greens we have. It has been much debated whether the 

 Yew-tree be poisonous or not. Mr. White, in his History of 

 Selborne, has given the following authentic information on 

 the subject. In the church-yard of this village, he says, is a 

 Yew-tree, the aspect of which bespeaks it to be of great age : 

 the body is squat, short, and thick, and measures twenty- 

 three feet in the girth, supporting a head of extent suitable 

 to its bulk. This is a male tree, which, in the spring, sheds 

 clouds of dust; and fills the atmosphere around with its 

 farina. As far as we have been able to observe, the male 

 trees become much larger than the females ; and most of the 

 Yew-trees in the church-yards of this neighbourhood are 

 males : but this must have been matter of mere accident, 

 since men, when they first planted Yews, little dreamed of 

 the sexes of trees. In a yard in the midst of the street, till a 

 few years since, grew a middle-sized female tree, which com- 

 monly bore great crops of berries. By the high winds usually 

 prevailing about the autumnal equinox, these berries, when 

 ripe, were blown down into the road, where the hogs ate 

 them. It was remarkable, that though barrow-hogs and 

 young sows found no inconvenience from this food, yet milch 

 sows often died after such a repast; a circumstance that can 

 be accounted for, only by supposing that the latter, being 

 much exhausted and hungry, devoured a larger quantity. The 

 twigs and leaves of Yew, eaten in a very small quantity, are 

 certain death to horses and cows, and that in a few minutes. 

 A horse, tied to a Yew-tree, or a faggot-stack of dead Yew, 

 shall be found dead before the owner can be aware that 

 any danger is at hand. Mr. White has been several times a 

 sorrowful witness to losses of this* kind among his friends; 

 and, in the Isle of Ely, had once the mortification to see nine 

 young steers or bullocks of his own, all lying dead in a heap, 

 from browzing a little on a hedge of Yew, in an old garden 

 into which they had broken in snowy weather. Even the 

 clippings of a Yew hedge have destroyed a whole dairy of 

 cows, when thrown inadvertently into a yard. And yet 

 sheep and turkeys, and, as park-keepers say, deer, will crop 

 these trees with impunity. Some intelligent persons assert, 

 that the green branches are innoxious; but among the number 

 of cattle which have fallen victims to this deadly food, not 



one has been found, but had, when it was opened, a lump 

 of green Yew in its paunch. It is true, that Yew-trees stand 

 for twenty years or more in a field, and no bad consequences 

 ensue ; but at some time or other, either from wantonness 

 when full, or from hunger when empty, cattle will be med- 

 dling, to their certain destruction. The leaves of this tree 

 are certainly fatal to the hitman species. Evelyn relates a 

 case of two women who died from drinking an infusion of 

 them. Dr. Percival, of Manchester, mentions another, of 

 three children, who were killed by a spoonful of green leaves, 

 which was given them for the worms, though they had taken 

 the same quantity of dried leaves the day before, without 

 any effect; and they died without agony, or any of the usual 

 symptoms of vegetable poisons. A clergyman in Sussex, two 

 of whose parishioners, a lady and her servant, unhappily took 

 a decoction of Yew, instead of Rue, for the ague, gives the 

 following account. They sent to the church-yard, where a 

 large old tree grew, and gathered a quantityof the leaves, of 

 which they made a decoction, and drank it before going to 

 bed. The next morning they were both found dead : this 

 was Sunday, on the Thursday following he was called upon 

 to bury them, and performed his office on the servant, but 

 the young lady had so fine a bloom on her countenance, that 

 hopes were entertained of her being in a state of suspended 

 animation, and accordingly tried the experiments usual in 

 such cases, but without success. They determined, however, 

 not to bury her at that time, but to keep her till the ensuing 

 Saturday, and even then the corpse remained unchanged. 

 What made it most remarkable, was, that this fatal accident 

 happened in November, in that damp murky kind of weather, 

 which renders it necessary to hasten the interment of those 

 who have died natural deaths. In various parts of the united 

 kingdom there are famous trees of this kind, which out 

 limits will not permit us to particularize. It is a native of 

 Europe generally, especially of Great Britain, and of North 

 America and Japan. Its proper situation is in mountainous 

 woods, or more particularly in the clefts of high calcareous 

 rocks. This tree was formerly, as the oak is now, the basis 

 of our strength. Of it the old English Yeoman made his 

 long bow, which he vaunted nobody but an Englishman could 

 bend. In shooting, he did not, as in other nations, keep his 

 left hand steady, and draw the bow with his right; but keep- 

 ing his right at rest upon the nerve, he pressed the whole 

 weight of his body into the horns of his bow. Hence arose 

 the English phrase of bending a bow; and the French, of 

 drawing one. So great was the demand for Yew in the days 

 of archery, that our own stock could not supply the bowyers, 

 and they were obliged by statute to import staves of it for 

 making bows, sometimes at an exorbitant expense. The 

 wood of the Yew is red and veined, very hard and smooth, 

 much used by turners, inlayers, and cabinet-makers. For 

 cogs of mills, handles of tools, posts to be set in moist ground, 

 and everlasting axle-trees, it is incomparable. It is also 

 used for the bodies of flutes, bowls, wheels, pins for pulleys, 

 spoons, cups, and flood-gates for fish-ponds, which hardly 

 ever decay. Mr. Boutcher asserts, upon his own experience, 

 that the wooden parts of a bed, made of Yew, will not be 

 approached by bugs. The only use of this tree in gardens, 

 is to form hedges for the defence of exotic plants ; for which 

 purpose, when it is necessary to have hedges, it is the most 

 proper of any ; the leaves being small, and the branches so 

 close together, that if carefully shorn, they break the winds 

 better than any other sort of fence, because they are not 

 reverberated as against walls and pales. The only disadvan- 

 tage is, that they are a harbour for snails and other vermin. 

 In plantations, this tree may be so placed as to become an 



