no 
** The very beadsmen learn to bend their bows 
Of double fatal yew against thy state.” 
Such being the mode of warfare, and such the esti¬ 
mation in which the yew was held for bows, with which, 
-“ More than the lance, 
The strong-armed English spirits conquered France," 
it is no wonder that the cultivation of it was considered 
a matter of some moment; but as the growth of our 
own country was not sufficient for the demand, a law 
■was passed by which merchants were obliged to import 
a stipulated quantity of staves for every ton of goods 
freighted from countries where the yew was known to 
snrow. 
O 
But the fame of this tree for archery does not rest 
alone upon the service it rendered to our warlike sires, 
we trace it yielding similar aid to nations of high an¬ 
tiquity. Homer thus speaks of it in the hands of the 
Cretans: — 
“ Cydonians, dreadful with the bended yew.** 
And Virgil in the .Eneid: — 
“ This foul reproach Ascanius could not hear 
With patience, nor a vow’d revenge forbear; 
At the full stretch of both his hands he drew, 
And almost join’d the horns of the tough yew. v 
