CHURCHYARD YEWS 253 
if they claimed originality in these practices, took 
too much upon themselves, but have we not ever 
been educated up to the idea, have we not always 
been told— 
That in matters of Commerce the fault of the Dutch 
Is in giving too little, and asking too much ? 
In this instance it looks a little as if the Dutch had 
appropriated an inventor’s credit for methods that 
were recognized and noted in the Virgilian days, and 
labelled them as home-made or Hollands. Appear- 
ances are, at any rate, against them. 
The Yew is a memento mori symbol of many a 
landscape distance, and the uncrowned king among 
trees of the village churchyards wherein ‘“‘ the rude 
forefathers of the hamlet sleep.’”’ It stands out as 
silent and ever-present a witness as the gravestone 
itself, testifying mutely to undying facts, and pointing 
to one great and universal epitaph for all departed 
humanity : 
For thus our fathers testified 
That he might read who ran, 
The emptiness of human pride, 
The nothingness of man. 
By many a villager, too, it is regarded as an old 
friend and landmark, to be recalled when away in 
distant lands, and to be greeted as such on a return 
home. It has been associated by many a wanderer 
with childish scenes, and perhaps with memories 
sadder. It has been at times accounted murky, 
melancholy, and mournful ; it has been described as 
sable, sombre, and gloomy in many a book of prose 
and poetry, yet even in them it is allowed that it 
has contributed, by its venerable appearance and 
appropriate colouring, a certain undefined pleasing 
melancholy to scenes not easily forgotten, 
