rborn; but the neglect of it is to be deplor'd;
seeing that (besides the rarity of it in Italy and France, where but
little of it grows) the barrenest grounds, and coldest of our mountains
(for

........._Aquilonem & frigora taxi_)

might be profitably replenish'd with them: I say, profitably, for,
besides the use of the wood for bows

........._Ityraeos taxi torquentur in arcus._

(For which the close and more deeply dy'd is best) the forementioned
artists in box, cabinet-makers, inlayers, and for the parquete-floors,
most gladly employ it; and in Germany they use to wainscot their stoves
with boards of this material: Also for the cogs of mills, posts to be
set in moist grounds, and everlasting axel-trees, there is none to be
compared with it; likewise for the bodies of lutes, theorbo's, bowles,
wheels, and pins for pullies; yea, and for tankards to drink out of;
whatever Pliny reports concerning its shade, and the stories of the air
about Thasius, the fate of Cativulcus mention'd by Caesar, and the ill
report which the fruit has vulgarly obtain'd in France, Spain, and
Arcadia: But

How are poor trees traduc'd?{297:1}

5. The toxic quality was certainly in the liquor, which those good
fellows tippl'd out of those bottles, not in the nature of the wood;
which yet he affirms is cur'd of that venenous quality, by driving a
brazen-wedge into the body of it: This I have never tried, but that of
the shade and fruit I have frequently, without any deadly or noxious
effects: So that I am of opinion, that tree which Sestius calls
_smilax_, and our historian thinks to be our yew, was some other wood;
and yet I acknowledge that it is esteem'd noxious to cattle when 'tis in
the seeds, or newly sprouting; though I marvel there appear no more such
effects of it, both horses and other cattle being free to brouse on it,
where it naturally grows: But what is very odd (if true) is that which
the late Mr. Aubrey recounts (in his _Miscellanies_) of a gentlewoman
that had long been ill, without any benefit from the physician; who
dream'd, that a friend of hers deceased, told her mother, that if she
gave her daughter a drink of yew pounded, she should recover: She
accordingly gave it her, and she presently died: The mother being almost
distracted for the loss of her daughter, her chambermaid, to comfort
her, said, surely what she gave her was not the occasion of her death,
and that she would adventure on it her self; she d