THE AGE OF YEWS 237 
and fixed views on the subject of these durations 
of life. 
If the Oak tree, as some say, in a few specially 
long-lived instances saw Roman legions, what sights 
might not the Methuselah among Yews have feasted 
his eyes upon? Perhaps the forefathers of those 
ancient Britons, whom Julius Cesar beheld, and 
described as smeared in the dye of woad, clad in the 
tawny skins of wild beasts, with streaming locks 
and flying moustachios, disconcerting by feats 
of horsemanship the old hands of his cohorts. 
Of its wood, both old writers and modern writers 
have nothing but good to say. It resists decay, it 
was much in use for furniture, it responds to polish 
and to topiary work. At the present day little is 
heard of it commercially. Trees that only come 
into the markets in their twos and threes are with 
difficulty disposed of to the timber merchant. The 
trade like quick results, and ever hanker after markets 
that speedily respond. An old New Forest saying 
tells us that a post of Yew will out-last a post of 
iron. An old chronicler tells us that its veins exceed 
in beauty those of most trees, and that tables made 
of it are superior to mahogany. But old writers, 
any more than modern writers, must not be regarded 
as final in everything they write. Such comparisons 
must be taken cum grano salis; that is to say, as 
salt in condiment, only sparingly. 
Botanically, it is with few exceptions dicecious ; 
it has no resin ducts; it is of great antiquity geo- 
logically, and though not dating so far back as the 
Araucarias, Cryptomerias, and Gingkos, for instance, 
to the Jurassic formations and the dates when reptiles 
swayed an early world, it can lay claim by long 
descent to a direct connection with British soil, 
dating from the times of the earlier appearances of 
mammals. 
