their caps, which glistered full of pearls and precious stones; to be short, trimmed and adorned with all those things which among the Utopians were either the punishment of bondmen, or the reproach of infamed persons, or else trifles for young children to play withal.46 Therefore it would have done a man good at his heart to have seen how proudly they displayed their peacocks' feathers, how much they made of their painted sheaths, 47 and how loftily they set forth and advanced themselves when they compared their gallant apparel with the poor raiment of the Utopians. For all the people were swarmed forth into the streets. have delight and pleasure in the doubtful glistering of a little trifling stone, which48 may behold any of the stars, or else the sun itself; or that any man is so mad as to count himself the nobler for the smaller or finer thread of wool, which self-same wool (be it now in never so fine a spun thread) a sheep did once wear; and yet was she all that time no other thing than a sheep. These and such like opinions have they conceived, partly by education, being brought up in that commonwealth whose laws and customs be far different from these kinds of folly, and partly by good literature and learning. For And on the other side it was no less pleasure though there be not many in every city which to consider how much they were deceived, and be exempt and discharged from all other labors how far they missed of their purpose, being and appointed only to learning, that is to say, contrariwise taken than they thought they such in whom even from their very childhood should have been. For to the eyes of they have perceived a singular towardness, a all the Utopians, except very few which had fine wit, and a mind apt to good learning; yet been in other countries for some reasonable all in their childhood be instruct in learning. cause, all that gorgeousness of apparel seemed And the better part of the people, both men shameful and reproachful. In so much that and women, throughout all their whole life do they most reverently saluted the vilest and bestow in learning those spare hours which we most abject of them for lords; passing over said they have vacant from bodily labors.* the ambassadors themselves without any honor, judging them by their wearing of gold chains to be bondmen. Yea, you should have seen children also, that had cast away their pearls and precious stones, when they saw the like sticking on the ambassadors' caps, dig and push their mothers under the sides, saying thus to them: "Look, mother, how great a lubber doth yet wear pearls and precious stones, as though he were a little child still." But the mother, yea and that also in good earnest: "Peace, son," saith she, "I think he be some of the ambassadors' fools." Some found fault at their golden chains, as to no use nor purpose, being so small and weak that a bondman might easily break them, and again so wide and large that, when it pleased him, he might cast them off and run away at liberty whither he would. But when the ambassadors had been there a day or two and saw so great abundance of gold so lightly esteemed, yea in no less reproach than it was with them in honor; and besides that, more gold in the chains and gyves of one fugitive bondman than all the costly ornaments of them three was worth; they began to abate their courage, and for very shame laid away all that gorgeous array whereof they were so proud; and specially when they had talked familiarly with the Utopians, and had learned all their fashions and opinions. For they marvel that any men be so foolish as to se with 47 coverings ROGER ASCHAM (1515-1568) TOXOPHILUST FROM THE FOREWORD To all Gentlemen and Yeomen of England: Bias, the wise man, came to Croesus, the rich king, on a time when he was making new ships, purposing to have subdued by water the out isles lying betwixt Greece and Asia Minor. "What news now in Greece?" saith the king 48 who It may be worth noting that our word "school" If the book is in the form of a dialogue between Toxophilus, an archer, and Philologus, a scholar. Two centuries before, at the battle of Crecy, the British yeomen had shown the superiority of the long bow in battle to the equipment of the armed knight, and archery had been assiduously cultivated, though when Ascham wrote this (1545) it was, for purposes of war, gradually giving way to fire-arms. Ascham was conservative in clinging to this old-time weapon, in another respect he was courageously radical. That is in his employment of the English vernacular for a learned prose treatise. That he was conscious of making a literary departure is manifest in this Preface, and also in the dedication to King Henry which preceded it, where he defended himself for having "written this English matter in the English tongue for English men," although to have written it "either in Latin or Greek had been more easier." See Eng. Lit., p. 81. you, to Bias. "None other news but these,'' saith Bias, that the isles of Greece have prepared a wonderful company of horsemen to overrun Lydia withal.” "There is nothing under heaven," saith the king, "that I would so soon wish, as that they durst be so bold to meet us on the land with horse." "And think saith Bias, "that there is anything which they would sooner wish than that you should be so fond2 to meet them on the water with ships?" And so Croesus, hearing not the true news, but perceiving the wise man's mind and counsel, both gave then over making of his ships, and left also behind him a wonderful example for all commonwealths to follow: that is, evermore to regard and set most by that thing whereunto nature hath made them most apt and use hath made them most fit. By this matter I mean the shooting in the long bow, for English men. Which thing with all my heart I do wish, and if I were of authority I would counsel, all the gentlemen and yeomen of England not to change it with any other thing, how good soever it seem to be, but that still, according to the old wont of England, youth should use it for the most honest pastime in peace, that men might handle it as a most sure weapon in war. Other strong weapons which both experience doth prove to be good, and the wisdom of the King's Majesty and his Council provides to be had, are not ordained to take away shooting; but that both, not compared together whether3 should be better than the other, but so joined together that the one should be always an aid and help for the other, might so strengthen the realm on all sides that no kind of enemy, in any kind of weapon, might pass and go beyond us. For this purpose, I, partly provoked by the counsel of some gentlemen, partly moved by the love which I have always borne toward shooting, have written this little treatise, wherein if I have not satisfied any man, I trust he will the rather be content with my doing, because I am, I suppose, the first which hath said anything in this matter; and few beginnings be perfect, saith wise men. And also because, if I have said amiss, I am content that any man amend it, or if I have said too little, any man that will to add what him pleaseth to it. My mind is, in profiting and pleasing every man, to hurt or displease no man, intending none other purpose but that youth might be stirred to labor, honest pastime, and virtue, and, as much as lay in me, plucked from idleness, unthrifty games, and vice. Which thing I have labored only in this book, showing how fit shooting is for all kinds of men, how honest a pastime for the mind, how wholesome an exercise for the body, not vile for great men to use, not costly for poor men to sustain, not lurking in holes and corners for ill men at their pleasure to misuse it, but abiding in the open sight and face of the world for good men, if it fault, by their wisdom to correct it. And here I would desire all gentlemen and yeomen to use this pastime in such a mean that the outrageousness of gaming should not hurt the honesty of shooting, which of his own nature is always joined with honesty, yet for men's faults oftentimes blamed unworthily, as all good things have been and evermore shall be. If any man would blame me, either for tak ing such a matter in hand, or else for writing it in the English tongue, this answer I may make him, that what the best of the realm think it honests for them to use, I, one of the meanest sort, ought not to suppose it vile for me to write. And though to have written it in another tongue had been both more profitable for my study and also more honest for my name, yet I can think my labor well be stowed if, with a little hindrance of my profit and name, may come any furtherance to the pleasure or commodity of the gentlemen and yeomen of England, for whose sake I took this matter in hand. And as for the Latin or Greek tongue, everything is so excellently done in them that none can do better; in the English tongue, contrary, everything in a manner SO meanly, both for the matter and handling, that no man can do worse. For therein the least learned for the most part have been always most ready to write, and they which had least hope in Latin have been most bold in English; when surely every man that is most ready to talk is not most able to write. He that will write well in any tongue must follow this counsel of Aristotle:-to speak as the common peo ple do, to think as wise men do; and so should every man understand him, and the judgment of wise men allow him. Many English writers have not done so, but using strange words, as Latin, French, and Italian, do make all things dark and hard. Once I communed with a man which reasoned the English tongue to be enriched and increased thereby, saying: Who will not praise that feast where a man shall drink at a dinner both wine, ale, and beer? Truly, quoth I. they be all good, every one taken by himself alone. but if you put malmsey and sack, red wine and 4 good repute 5 honorable 6 humblest 7 approve white, ale and beer, and all in one pot, you shall make a drink neither easy to be known nor yet wholesome for the body. Cicero, in following Isocrates, Plato, and Demosthenes, increased the Latin tongue after another sort. This ways because divers men that write do not know, they can neither follow it, because of their ignorancy, nor yet will praise it, for very arrogancy-two faults, seldom the one out of the other's company. English writers, by diversity of time, have taken diverse matters in hand. In our fathers' time nothing was read but books of feigned chivalry, wherein a man by reading should be led to none other end but only to manslaughter and bawdry. If any man suppose they were good enough to pass the time withal, he is deceived. For surely vain words do work no small thing thereunto of their own nature. These books, as I have heard say, were made the most part in abbeys and monasteries, a very likely and fit fruit of such an idle and blind kind of living.* In our time now, when every man is given to know much rather than to live well, very many do write, but after such a fashion as very many do shoot. Some shooters take in hand stronger bows than they be able to maintain. This thing maketh them sometime to outshoot the mark, sometime to shoot far wide, and per ehance hurt some that look on. Other that never learned to shoot, nor yet knoweth good shaft nor bow, will be as busy as the best, but such one commonly plucketh down a side, and erafty archers which be against him will be both glad of him, and also ever ready to lay10 and bet with him; it were better for such one to sit down than shoot. Other there be which have very good bow and shafts and good knowledge in shooting, but they have been brought up in such evil-favored shooting that they can neither shoot fair nor yet near. If any man will apply these things together, he shall not see the one far differ from the other. And I also, among all other, in writing this little treatise, have followed some young shooters, which both will begin to shoot for a little money, and also will use to shoot once or twice about the mark for nought afore they begin agood. And therefore did I take this little matter in hand to assay11 myself, and hereafter, by the grace of God, if the judgment of wise men that look on think that I can do any > Construe after "know." 10 wager lowers the score of 11 try Ascham is manifestly condemning such romances as Malory's Le Morte Darthur. England was at this time Protestant, and the dissolution of the monasteries a recent event. good, I may perhaps cast my shaft among other for better game. THE WAYS OF THE WIND. FROM BOOK II. The wind is sometimes plain up and down, which is commonly most certain, and requireth least knowledge, wherein a mean shooter with mean gear, if he can shoot home, may make best shift. A side wind tryeth an archer and Sometime it bloweth good gear very much. aloft, sometime hard by the ground; sometime it bloweth by blasts, and sometime it continueth all in one; sometime full side wind, sometime quarter with him and more, and likewise against him, as a man with casting up light grass, or else if he take good heed, shall sensibly learn by experience. To see the wind with a man his2 eyes, it is impossible, the nature of it is so fine and subtle; yet this experience of the wind had I once myself, and that was in the great snow that fell four years ago. I rode in the highway betwixt Topcliffe-upon-Swale and Boroughbridge, the way being somewhat trodden before by wayfaring men. plain and lay almost yard deep with snow; the night afore had been a little frost, so that the snow was hard and crusted above. That morn The fields on both sides were ing the sun shone bright and clear, the wind was whistling aloft, and sharp, according to the The snow in the highway time of the year. lay loose and trodden with horse' feet: so as the wind blew, it took the loose snow with it, and made it so slide upon the snow in the field, which was hard and crusted by reason of the frost over night, that thereby I might see very well the whole nature of the wind as it blew that day. And I had a great delight and pleasure to mark it, which maketh me now far better to remember it. Sometime the wind would be not past two yards broad, and so it would carry the snow as far as I could see. Another time the snow would blow over half the field at once. Sometime the snow would tumble softly, by and by And this I perit would fly wonderful fast. │ceived also, that the wind goeth by streams and not whole together. For I should stream within a scores of me, then the space of two score no snow would stir, but after so much quantity of ground another stream of snow at the same very time should be carried likewise, but not equally; for the one would 1 ordinary equipment see one 2 man's (a pedantic form, due to the erroneous idea that the possessive s was a contraction of his). 3 twenty yards stand still when the other flew apace, and so continue, sometime swiftlier, sometime slowlier, sometime broader, sometime narrower, as far as I could see. Nor it flew not straight, but sometime it crooked this way, sometime that way, and sometime it ran round about in a compass. And some time the snow would be lifted clean from the ground up in the air; and by and by it would be all clapped to the ground as though there had been no wind at all; straightway it would rise and fly again. And that which was the most marvelous of all at one time two drifts of snow flew, the one out of the west into the east, the other out of the north into the east. And I saw two winds by reason of the snow, the one cross over the other, as it had been two highways. And again I should hear the wind blow in the air when nothing was stirred at the ground. And when all was still where I rode, not very far from me the snow should be lifted wonder fully. This experience made me more marvel at the nature of the wind, than it made me cunning in the knowledge of the wind; but yet thereby I learned perfectly that it is no marvel at all, although men in a wind lease their length in shooting, seeing so many ways the wind is so variable in blowing. THE SCHOOLMASTER* FROM A PREFACE TO THE READER When the great plague was at London, the year 1563, the Queen's Majesty, Queen Eliza beth, lay at her castle of Windsor; where, upon the tenth day of December, it fortuned that in Sir William Cecil's chamber (her Highness' Principal Secretary), there dined together these personages: Mr. Secretary himself, Sir William Peter, Sir J. Mason, D. Wotton, Sir Richard Sackville, Treasurer of the Exchequer, Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Haddon, Master of Requests, Mr. John Astley, Master of the Jewel House, Mr. Bernard Hampton, Mr. Nicasius, and I. Of which number the most part were of her Majesty's most honorable Privy Council, and the rest serving her in very good place. I was 4 lose 5 distance between the archer and the target While Ascham belongs to the generation preceding the Elizabethans, this last work of his was written and published (posthumously, 1570) well within the Virgin Queen's reign. and the little glimpse behind the curtain which its preface affords may serve both to introduce and to exemplify what Tennyson has so happily called "the spacious times of great Elizabeth." glad then, and do rejoice yet to remember, that my chance was so happy to be there that day, in the company of so many wise and good men together as hardly then could have been picked out again out of all England beside. Mr. Secretary hath this accustomed manner: though his head be never so full of most weighty affairs of the realm, yet at dinner time he doth seem to lay them always aside, and findeth ever fit occasion to talk pleasantly of other matters, but most gladly of some matter of learning; wherein he will courteously hear the mind of the meanest1 at his table. Not long after our sitting down, "I have strange news brought me," saith Mr. Secretary, "this morning, that divers scholars of Eton be run away from the school for fear of beating.' "" Whereupon Mr. Secretary took occasion to wish that some more discretion were in many schoolmasters, in using correction, than commonly there is; who many times punish rather the weakness of nature than the fault of the scholar; whereby many scholars, that might else prove well, be driven to hate learning before they know what learning meaneth, and so are made willing to forsake their book and be glad to be put to any other kind of living. Mr. Peter, as one somewhat severe of nature, said plainly that the rod only2 was the sword that must keep the school in obedience and the scholar in good order. Mr. Wotton, a man mild of nature, with soft voice and few words, inclined to Mr. Secretary's judgment, and said: In mine opinion, the schoolhouse should be indeed, as it is called by name,3 the house of play and pleasure, and not of fear and bondage. And as I do remember, so saith Socrates in one place of Plato. And therefore, if a rod carry the fear of a sword, it is no marvel if those that be fearful of nature choose rather to forsake the play, than to stand always within the fear of a sword in a fonds man's handling. Mr. Mason, after his manner, was very merry with both parties, pleasantly playing both with the shrewd touchess of many curst? boys, and with the small discretion of many lewds schoolmasters. Mr. Haddon was fully of Mr. Peter's opinion, and said that the best schoolmaster of our time was the greatest beater; and named the person. "Though, "" quoth I, "it was his good fortune to send from his school unto the university one of the best scholars indeed of all our time, yet wise men do think that that came so to pass rather by the great towardness of the scholar than by the great beating of the master; and whether this be true or no, you yourself are best witness.'' I said somewhat farther in the matter how and why young children were sooner allured by love, than driven by beating, to attain good learning; wherein I was the bolder to say my mind because Mr. Secretary courteously provoked me thereunto, or else in such a company, and namely in his presence, my wont is to be more willing to use mine ears than to occupy my tongue. Sir Walter Mildmay, Mr. Astley, and the rest, said very little; only Sir Richard Sackville said nothing at all. After dinner I went up to read with the Queen's Majesty. We read then together in the Greek tongue, as I well remember, that noble oration of Demosthenes against Aeschines for his false dealing in his embassage to King Philip of Macedonia. Sir Richard Sackville came up soon after, and finding me in her Majesty's privy chamber, he took me by the hand, and carrying me to a window said: "Mr. Ascham, I would not for a good deal of money have been this day absent from dinner, where though I said nothing, yet I gave as good ear, and do consider as well the talk that passed, as any one did there. Mr. Secretary said very wisely, and most truly, that many young wits be driven to hate learning before they know what learning is. I can be good witness to this myself. For a fond schoolmaster, before I was fully fourteen years old, drave me so, with fear of beating, from all love of learning, as9 now—when I know what difference it is to have learning, and to have little or none at all—I feel it my greatest grief, and find it my greatest hurt that ever came to me, that it was my so ill chance to light upon so lewd a schoolmaster. But seeing it is but in vain to lament things past, and also wisdom to look to things to come, surely, God willing, if God lend me life, I will make this my mishap some occasion of good hap to little Robert Sackville, my son's son. For whose bringing up I would gladly, if it so please you, use specially your good advice. I hear say you have a son much of his age. We will deal thus together. Point you out a schoolmaster who by your order shall teach my son and yours, and for all the rest I will provide; yea, though they three do cost me a couple of hundred pounds by year. And beside, you shall find me as fast a friend to you and yours as perchance any you have." Which promise the worthy 9 that gentleman surely kept with me until his dying day. We We had then further talk together of bringing up of children; of the nature of quick and hard wits; 10 of the right choice of a good wit; of fear and love in teaching children. passed from children and came to young men, namely Gentlemen. We talked of their too much liberty to live as they lust11; of their letting loose too soon to overmuch experience of ill, contrary to the good order of many good old commonwealths of the Persians and Greeks; of wit12 gathered and good fortune gotten by some only by experience, without learning. And lastly, he required of me very earnestly to show what I thought of the common going of English men into Italy. "But, saith he, "because this place and this time will not suffer so long talk as these good matters require, therefore I pray you, at my request, and at your leisure, put in some order of writing the chief points of this our talk concerning the right order of teaching and honesty of living, for the good bringing up of children and young men. And surely, beside contenting me, you shall both please and profit very many others." I made some excuse by lack of ability and weakness of body. "Well," saith he, "I am not now to learn what you can do. Our dear friend, Mr. Goodrick, whose judgment I could well believe, did once for all satisfy me fully therein. Again, I heard you say not long ago that you may thank Sir John Cheke* for all the learning you have. And I know very well myself that you did teach the Queen. And therefore seeing God did so bless you, to make you the scholar of the best master, and also the schoolmaster of the best scholar, that ever were in our time, surely you should please God, benefit your country, and honest 13 your own name, if you would take the pains to impart to others what you learned of such a master, and how ye taught such a scholar. And in uttering the stuff ye received of the one, in declaring the order ye took with the other, ye shall never lack neither matter nor manner, what to write nor how to write, in this kind of argument." I, beginning some farther excuse, suddenly was called to come to the Queen. The night following I slept little, my head was so full of this our former talk, and I so mindful somewhat to satisfy the honest request of so dear a friend. I thought to prepare some little treatise for a New Year's gift 10 intellects 11 like 12 knowledge 13 honor A famous teacher at St. John's, Cambridge, who gave a great impulse to classical learning. |