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YEW-TREE. — TAXUS. 



Natural order, Coniferce. A genus of the Dicecia 

 Monadelphia class. 



" The sacred yew, so fear'd in war." 



" And the tougher yew 



Receives the bending figure of a bow." Virgil. 



*' Th* elastic yew, whose distant wound 

 With England's rivals heap'd the ground." 



On beholding this sable evergreen, the 

 mind is naturally carried back to the times of 

 bows and arrows, when the yew was as cele- 

 brated for causing death and devastation in 

 the field of battle, as the modern engine is at 

 present, which levels rank and file by the 

 dreadful balls that are vomited from its sul- 

 phureous mouth. 



The Persians, who in the Scripture are 

 called Elamites, were the most expert archers 

 in the world; and Homer thus speaks of the 

 ancient inhabitants of Crete, 



" Cydonians, dreadful with the bended yew." 

 T 4 



