Epithets 25 



shooter, distinguished, pensive^ mortifere, forceful 

 (Pope, Iliad], diictile. In Poolers English Parnassus 

 we have the additional epithets : warlike, dismal, 

 fatal, mortal, venomous, unhappy, verdant, deadly, 

 deathful. Most of these are taken from old English 

 poetry. Many are derived from the weapons the 

 tree produces. Those of a funereal character are 

 not so much due to the tree itself as to the pur- 

 poses to which it has been applied, and the localities 

 in which it is so often found. But, as Grindon 

 justly points out, 2 it is man who has placed it in 

 cemeteries and churchyards. Nature gives the 

 yew a very different abiding-place, and perhaps 

 after all it may prove to be a tree that should 

 contribute ideas rather of hope than of mourning. 



1 ' The manly oak, the pensive yew.' Rokeby, canto v. 13. 

 - Trees of Old England. 



