In the fourth Georgic he desires that there be no Yew trees near their hives:

"Neu propius tectis taxum sine."

Wordsworth speaks of the Yew as rather disagreeable

to bees than injurious :

66 Nay, traveller! rest. This lovely yew-tree stands
Far from all human dwelling: what if here
No sparkling rivulet spread the verdant herb?
What if these barren boughs the bees not love?
Yet if the wind breathe soft, the curling waves
That break against the shore, shall lull thy mind
By one soft impulse saved from vacancy *.”

"Louring in the groves of death,

Yew trees breathe funereal breath."

HARTE.

"The resin soft, and solitary yew

For ever dropping with unwholesome dew."
HARTE'S Statius.

It may be worthy the attention of the humane to consider how far the melancholy character of the Yew may proceed from its solitary life. Dean Swift throws out a hint on this subject which might be turned to advantage. The story of Baucis and Philemon is, doubtless, familiar to the reader. Some writers have affirmed that the hospitable couple were transformed to limes, but the Dean contradicts this assertion:

* Lines left on a seat in a yew tree, near the Lake of Esthwaite

on a desolate part of the shore.

EE

Remembers he the trees has seen;
He'll talk of them from noon till night,
And goes with folks to show the sight.
On Sundays, after evening prayer,
He gathers all the parish there;
Points out the place of either yew,
Here Baucis, there Philemon grew :
Till once a parson of our town,
To mend his barn, cut Baucis down;
At which 'tis hard to be believed
How much the other tree was grieved,
Grew scrubbed, died a-top, was stunted;
So the next parson stubbed and burnt it."

It was rather an extravagance, surely, in the parson to cut down Baucis merely to mend his barn, since the Yew affords a veined wood, very hard and smooth, and valued by turners, inlayers, and cabinet-makers:

❝ In a

Mr. Gilpin is a great admirer of the Yew tree, and bitterly resents the manner in which it was so frequently shorn and shivered into all sorts of odd forms. state of nature," says he, "except in exposed situations, it is perhaps one of the most beautiful evergreens we have*."

It is one of the trees mentioned by Virgil as indicating a cold and barren soil.

Although the Yew is of very slow growth, it is a long liver, and some have accordingly grown to an immense bulk. Several have been recorded as measuring twenty

six feet round the largest part of the trunk. We will pass on to a few of less common magnitude.

Mr. Pennant mentions one in Fotheringal churchyard, in the Highlands, the ruins of which measured fifty-six feet and a half in circumference. Mr. Evelyn speaks of one in the churchyard of Crowhurst, in Surrey, ten yards in circumference; and of another, a superannuated Yew tree in Braburne churchyard in Kent, measuring fifty-eight feet, and eleven inches round; giving a diameter of about six yards and a half.

This author tells an odd story, quoted from Camden, relating to the Yew tree, and the origin of the name of Halifax, that may not be uninteresting.

"One thing more, while I am speaking of this tree : It reminds me of that very odd story I find related by Mr. Camden, of a certain amorous clergyman, that falling in love with a pretty maid, who refused his addresses, cut off her head, which being hung upon a Yew tree till it was quite decayed, the tree was reputed as sacred, not only while the virgin's head hung on it, but as long as the tree itself lasted: to which the people went in pilgrimage, plucking and bearing away branches of it, as an holy relique, whilst there remained any of the trunk”; persuading themselves that those small veins and filaments, resembling hairs, between the bark and body of the tree, were the hairs of the virgin. But what is yet stranger, the resort to this place, then called Houton, a despicable village, occasioned the building of the now famous town of Halifax in Yorkshire, which imports holy hair."

Wordsworth gives an admirable description of some Yews of large size, in which he mentions the extreme slowness of their growth:

408

SYLVAN SKETCHES.

"There is a yew tree, pride of Lorton Vale,
Which to this day stands single in the midst
Of its own darkness, as it stood of yore,
Not loth to furnish weapons in the handsTM
Of Umfraville or Percy, ere they marched

To Scotland's heaths, or those that crossed the sea
And drew their sounding bows at Azincour ;
Perhaps at earlier Cressy, or Poictiers.

Of vast circumference, and gloom profound,
This solitary tree! a living thing
Produced too slowly ever to decay;

Of form and aspect too magnificent

To be destroyed. But worthier still of note

Are those fraternal four of Borrowdale,

Joined in one solemn and capacious grove;

Huge trunks! and each particular trunk a growth Ted Of intertwisted fibres serpentine,

Upcoiling, and inveterately convolved:

Nor uninformed with phantasy, and looks
That threaten the profane; a pillared shade,
Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue,
By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged
Perennially ;-beneath whose sable roof
Of boughs, as if for festal purpose, decked
With unrejoicing berries, ghostly shapes

May meet at noon-tide: Fear, and trembling hope, H&
Silence and foresight-death the skeleton,

And time the shadow, there to celebrate,

As in a natural temple, scattered o'er

With altars undisturbed of mossy stone,

United worship; or in mute repose

To lie, and listen to the mountain-flood

Murmuring from Gleramara's inmost caves."

We cannot do better than conclude with this fine bouivortio shk

sage from one of the finest poets of our time.

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