THE YEW. 329 



authorized version, would seem to have been used, 

 like many other botanical terms occurring in Holy 

 Writ, in a wide and general sense, including not only 

 the genuine cedar, Cedrus Libani, but other species 

 of conifers suitable for building purposes, and like- 

 wise 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 structure of 

 the fibre, as seen under the microscope. Virgil 

 used the name pinus, in one place at least, to 

 signify timber-trees in general ; and the well-known 

 frugality of 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 intended 

 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." 



