OF FOREST-TREES.
267
she did so, and died also m ! Whether all this be but a dream, I cannot ch. xxr.tell, but it was haply from those lugubrous effects that garlands of Taxus were usually worn at funerals, as Statius implies in Epicedium Verna;:
However, to prevent .all funest accidents, I commend the tree only forthe usefulnefs of the timber, and hortulan ornament. That we findit so universally planted in our churchyards, was, doubtlefs, from itsbeing thought a symbol of immortality, the tree being so lasting, andalways green. Our bee-masters banish it from about their apiaries.
One thing more, whilst I am speaking of this tree : It reminds me of thatvery odd story I find related by Mr. Camden, of a certain amorous clergy-man, that falling in love with a pretty maid who refused his addrefses,cut off her head; which being hung upon a Yew-tree till it was rotten,the tree was reputed so sacred, not only whilst the virgin’s head hung
in this kingdom. There are six remarkable trees of this sort liow growing on the hillabove Fountain’s Abbey, near Ripon, which, in 1770 , measured in circumference asbelow;
Feet. Inch.
4 .. 21 O
3 . . 25 O
6 . 26 6
Under these very trees a number of Monks resided, until they built the Monastery ofFountains in 1133, having withdrawn themselves from the Benedictine Monastery of-St. Mary in York.
The best reason that can be given why the Yew was planted in churchyards, is, thatbranches of it were often carried in procefsion, on Palm Sunday , instead of the Pahn. Thefollowing extract from Caxton’s Direction for keeping feasts all the year, is decisive on thiscustom. In the lecture for Palm Sunday , he says, “ Wherefore Holy Chirch this dayniakyth solemn procefsyon, in mind of the procefsyon that Cryst made this day. But forencheson that we have none Olyve that bereih grene leef, algate therefore we take Ewednslede of Palm and Olyve, and beren about in procefsyon, and so is thys day called PalmSunday/ ’ As a confirmation of this fact, the Yew-trees in the churchyards ofEastKent areat this day called Palms.
m My most excellent and learned friend Dr. Percival of Manchester , in his “ Medicaland Philosophical Efsays,” has recorded a melancholy proof of the poisonous quality of Yew leaves. “ On Friday, March 25, 1774, three children of James Buckley, a labouring manat Longsight, near Manchester , were killed by taking a small quantity of the fresh leaves-of the Yew-tree, or Taxus Officinalis of Caspar Bauhine. The oldest child was five, theGecond four, and tire youngest three years of age: They were all supposed to be infectedwith the worms, and this poison was given them by the recommendation of some ignorant
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