MS Huntington Library: Yonge Letters
Dear Madam,
It was Edward I who made the law for planting yew trees in Church yards, at least so I was told by a gentleman who never makes mistakes, and is deeply read in history.1 I have looked in vain in Evelyn’s silva and Loudon’s arboretum, but I think his information to be trusted. He says it had been done long before, but it was only in Edwd I’s reign that it became the subject of a statute. We have a Ch yard yew near us of very great age, and cut exactly into the shape of a mushroom. I have ventured to erase your ‘alas!’ to St Leonard, for a happy death hardly seems to me a subject for that interjection. I also took out the direct reference to Dr Newman’s Sermons. I like the beautiful quotation of that very fine sermon but I had rather not acknowledge it.2 They have made some strange misprints in the botanical names, but I have not the right ones at hand, and so have left them for you. Your November verses are much too pretty to spare any of them, I will take care they come in at any rate in this next number. I am sorry we are so near the end of the Garland. I have enjoyed it so much on my own account, but I must look forward to Margaret and her mother. I conclude that you are at Helmington again and direct there
Yours sincerely
C M Yonge