268 TAXACE2E. 



" William Tell's tree," because his famous bow was made of it. 

 Keats furnishes his Endymion with such a bow : 



"Again I'll poll 

 The fair-grown Yew tree for a chosen bow." 



We frequently find this tree in churchyards, for it has 

 always been accounted a memento of death. Shakspeare 

 alludes to this : 



" My shroud of white stick all with Yew." 



The foliage of the Yew is accounted very unwholesome ; 

 animals eating it are affected as with poison. It is sometimes 

 administered as a village medicine ; the dried leaves produce 

 but little effect, but a spoonful of the fresh twigs have been 

 known to cause death. 



The Juniper (Juniperus commiinis), is also a familiar tree on 

 our hills ; or, I should rather call it bush, for it is either pros- 

 trate, or but a very few feet high. Its catkins, or flower- 

 clusters, resemble those of the Yew, and its berries are black. 

 These berries are used in the distillation of gin, and a beer is 

 made in France, called Genevrette, from them, mixed with 

 barley. The leaves of the shrub are so stiff and pointed as 

 to be almost prickly. 



The Cedar wood of which pencils are made is the produce 

 of an allied species of Juniper, commonly called the " Hed 

 Cedar." Frankincense is obtained from the Juniperus lycia ; 

 the Hebrews in olden times, and the E-omanists in the present 

 day use it in their incense. The Arabian frankincense is 

 accounted the best. 



Dr. Murray speaks much of the permanence of vegetation, 

 and of trees in particular, as remaining for centuries as cha- 

 racteristics of the same district. He says : " The Palm, among 

 the princes of the kingdom of vegetation, the Fig tree, and 

 the Olive tree, still characterise the ' Land of Promise,' though 

 Palmyra and Jericho are no more ; the Cedar of Lebanon still 

 vindicates its claim, by imprescriptible right, to the domains of 

 its ancestry, though Tyre and her merchant princes are as 



