SINCE the time of Xenophon no one has written so
admirable a treatise on sport as Roger Ascham's Toxophilus. And the treatise is admirable for the twofold reason that its author was not merely a master of prose, but was also a finished expert in the art of shooting, of which he discourses so eloquently. The dialogue—for Toxophilus seta out to convert Philologus to the practice of shooting—is composed in strict accordance with the Platonic traditions, since Ascham had no doubt as to the value of the classical tongues, and quotes Aristotle and Plato, Tully and Euripides, as living authorities. He does more than this : he is content to follow the lead of Homer's heroes ; and with an excellent faith he holds that Hector, Achilles, and the rest belong to history, and that wise men should emulate their virtues. At the same time, he does not disdain the teaching of Chaucer, " our English Homer," and he finds as much wisdom in the Canterbury Tales as Robert Burton discovered there seventy years later.
With an honest devotion to system, he begins at the beginning, and has no difficulty in proving the value of leisure, and the necessity of pastime. He points out that pastimes for the mind only are of no profit for students, whose bodies are more hurt by study than their minds. " This knewe Erasmus verye well, when he was here in Cambrige which when he had ben sore at his boke (as Garret our booke- bynder hath verye ofte tolde me) for lacke of better exercise, wolde take his horse, and ryde about the markette hill, and come agayne." And, having once proved the benefit of exercise, he has no difficulty in showing that shooting is the most honest and useful pastime that princes and scholars can learn. For gambling he cannot find too strong a con- demnation. " Hasardry," says he, quoting Chaucer, "is very mother of lesinges," which was a bold thing to say at a time when card-playing was the dominant vice of England; and even .Ascham thinks it well to qualify his opinion. "Indede, as for greate men, and greate mennes matters," he writes, " I lyst not greatlye to meddle." This perhaps was wise, though not even the thought of his King could persuade him to approve of hasardry and its deceits.
He then proceeds to give a history of shooting since the world began, and, like a true patriot, he is very merry at heart to remember that he finds in England " as greate noble feates of warre doone by artillarye, as ever was done at any tyme in any other common "welthe." The only writer,
• En9lish Works of Roger diem's. Edited by William Aldis Wright, M.A. Cambridge : at the University Press. [4e. 6d. net.] indeed, who disturbs the amiability of his temper is a certain Frenchman called Textor. "I beshrew him," says he. Now, Textor wrote a book in which he wove up many " broken- ended matters," and set out much " riff-raff, pelferey and trumpery." But it was the head and front of his offending to say that the Scots which dwell beyond England be very excellent shooters, and the best bowmen in war. Such an assertion was intolerable to Ascham, and he confutes Textor by the Scots themselves, who reluctantly give the whole praise to Englishmen, saying " that every Englysshe Archer beareth under hys gyrdle xxiiii. Scottes." And so letting Textor and the Scots go, he sings a paean to the English archers who at Cressy, Poictiers, and Agincourt slew the chivalry of France. And with a noble pride he declares that in the Civil Wars of England between York and Lancaster well-aimed shafts killed many a brave yeoman whom foreign battle could never have subdued. It is the true spirit of patriotism which always breathes in the Toxophilus. Ascham has no doubt of his country's supremacy. He knows full well that shooting always has been, and always will be, the chief stroke in war; and in shooting the English of his time had no rivals.
How should the English have rivals, when they are one and all apt for shooting ? " Lyke as that grounde is plentifull and frutefull," writes Ascham, " whiche without° anye tyllynge, bryngeth out come, as for example, yf a man shoulde go to the myll or market with come, and happen to spyl some in the waye, yet it wolde take roote and groove, bycause ye soyle is so good : so England may be thought very frutefull and apt to brynge outs shoters, where children even from the cradell, love it: and yong men without any teachyng so diligentlye use it." But for all their aptitude, the English, in Ascham's opinion, did not practise the art which was theirs with a proper constancy. He declared that if Shooting could speak, she would accuse England both of unkindness and slothfulness. But, in spite of neglect, the finest shooters were still Englishmen, and .Ascham was content. In the second book he devotes him- self to the technicalities of the craft. He explains how bows and shafts should be made and handled. He discusses the best wood to use, and declares that there is no better feather for a shaft than the feather of a goose. Indeed, the mere thought of the geese arouses all his enthusiasm. She is man's comfort in war and peace, in sleeping and waking. Whatever praise is given to shooting, the goose may challenge the best part of it. She makes a man fare well at his table, and lie easy on his bed ; and her feathers are as fit for writing as for shooting. And then he discusses all the intricacies of marksmanship—the prime necessities of shooting straight and keeping a length, and the difficulties of the wind—with so light a hand, and so sturdy a conviction, that his book, for all its craftsmanship, does not contain a dull passage. Now and again he writes with a lofty eloquence, and his style, rising with the occasion, assumes a beauty which gives him a place among the great artists. The famous passage, for instance, in which he tells us how he saw the wind, riding in the highway " betwixt Topcliffe upon Swale and Borowe Bridge," can hardly be matched in the literature of the sixteenth century.
If the Toxophilus shows one side of Ascham's talent, The Scholemaster shows another, for the tutor of Queen Elizabeth was a pedagogue as well as a sportsman. But he brought to the teaching of Latin the same good sense and sound English which wore inspired by the shaft and bow. He has a sturdy contempt, which was shared by the best wits of his time, for the Italianate Englishman, who got his learning, as be bought his clothes, abroad. " These be the inchantementes of Circes," says he of certain books, " brought out of Italie, to marre mens maners in England; much by example of ill life, but more by preceptes of fonde books, of late translated out of Italian into English, sold in every shop in London, com- mended by honest titles the soner to corrupt honest maners, dedicated over boldlie to vertuous and honorable personages the easielier to begile simple and innocent wittes." And not merely does he warn his readers against bad morals; be gives the wisest counsel concerning the study of Latin; and though his views on versification are proved unsound, his book is packed with ingenious criticism and wise opinions. He is full of contempt for those who say, " What care I for a man's wordes and utterance, if his matter and reasons be good?"
Quite rightly he detects in such men some singular pride or special malice, and roundly asserts that good matters must be expressed in proper and apt words. The man himself is of less interest than his works. He was Queen Elizabeth's tutor, as we have said, and he passed some years at the Court of the Emperor Charles. But he was always academic, and perhaps he was more at home in his own St, John's College than in the Courts of England or Germany. His works remain to attest his genius, and the best of them are now within the reach of all, edited by a true scholar like himself, and admirably printed at the press of his own University.
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