300 



THE YEW. 



Dr. Aikin thinks it probable, that the Yew was 

 planted in churchyards for the sake of furnishing 

 boughs to decorate the church at Christmas, but 

 Miss Kent has shewn, by a quotation from Brand's 



Popular Antiquities," that the Yew was rarely 

 used except in default of other evergreens : Had 

 a tree," she says, ^^been planted in churchyards for 

 that use, it would more probably have been the 

 Holly, which was never omitted." Herrick speaks 

 of the Yew as expressly appropriate to the season 

 of Easter : — 



" The Hollj^ hitherto did sway, 

 Let Box now domineer, 

 Until the dancing Easter-day, 

 Or Easter's-eve appear. 



" Then youthful Box, which now hath grace 

 Your houses to renew, 

 GroT\Ti old, surrender must his place 

 Unto the crisped Yew." 



Perhaps the favourite opinion is, that Yews 

 were planted in such situations to afford a supply 

 of wood for making bows. The long-bow, it is 

 well known, was at the period of the battles of 

 Cressy, Poictiers and Agincourt, the national 

 weapon of England. Statutes were passed by 

 many of our sovereigns forbidding the exportation 

 of Yew wood, and obliging Venetian and other 

 merchant ships to import ten bow-staves with 

 every butt of wine, and by an act passed in the 

 reign of Edward IV., every Englishman residing 

 in Ireland was expressly ordered to have an English 

 bow of his own height, made of Yew, or some 

 other wood. The best bows, however, were not 

 made of native wood, foreign Yew being thought 

 so much superior, that a bow of it sold for six 



