realm; for which purpose our noble King, full of wisdom, called up this excellent man, full of learning, to teach noble Prince Edward; an office full of hope, comfort, and solace to all true hearts of England; for whom all England daily doth pray, that he, passing his tutor in learning and knowledge, following his father in wisdom and felicity, according to that example which is set before his eyes, may so set out and maintain God's word, to the abolishment of all papistry, the confusion of all heresy, that thereby he may be feared of his enemies, loved of all his subjects, bring to his own glory immortal fame and memory, to this realm wealth, honour, and felicity, to true and unfeigned religion perpetual peace, concord, and unity.

But to return to shooting again, what Leo saith of shooting amongst the Romans; his words be so much for the praise of shooting, and the book also so rare to be gotten, that I learned the places by heart, which be, as I suppose, even thus. First, in his sixth book, as concerning what harness is best: "Let all the youth of Rome be compelled to use shooting, either more or less, and always to bear their bow and their quiver about with them, until they be eleven years old. For since shooting was neglected and decayed among the Romans, many a battle and field hath been lost." Again, in the eleventh book and fiftieth chapter (I call that by books and chapters, which the Greek book divideth by chapters and paragraphs): "Let your soldiers have their weapons well appointed and trimmed; but, above all other things, regard most shooting; and therefore let men, when there is no war, use shooting at home. For the leaving off only of shooting, hath brought in ruin and decay the whole empire of Rome."

Afterward he commandeth again his captain by these words: "Arm your host as I have appointed you, but especially with bow and arrows plenty. For shooting is a thing of much might and power in war, and chiefly against the Saracens and Turks, which people hath all their hope of victory in their bow and shafts." Besides all this, in another place, he writeth thus to his captain: " Artillery is easy to be prepared, and, in time of great need, a thing most profi table, therefore we straitly command you to make proclamation to all men under cur dominion, which be either in war or peace, to all cities, boroughs, and towns, and finally, to all manner of men, that every sere person have bow and

shafts of his own, and every house besides this to have a standing bearing bow, and forty shafts for all needs, and that they exercise themselves in holts, hills, and dales, plains and woods, for all manner of chances in war."

How much shooting was used among the old Romans, and what means noble captains and emperors made to have it increase amongst them, and what hurt came by the decay of it, these words of Leo the Emperor, which, in a manner, I have rehearsed word for word, plainly doth declare.

And yet shooting, although they set never so much by it, was never so good then as it is now in England; which thing to be true is very probable, in that Leo doth say, "That he would have his soldiers take off their arrow heads, and one shoot at another, for their exercise;" which play if English archers used, I think they should find small play, and less pleasure in it at all.

The great upperhand maintained always in war by artillery, doth appear very plainly by this reason also, that when the Spaniards, Frenchmen, and Germans, Greeks, Macedonians, and Egyptians, each country using one singular weapon, for which they were greatly feared in war, as the Spaniard Lancea, the Frenchman Gesa, the German Framea, the Grecian Machera, the Macedonian Sarissa, yet could they not escape but be subjects to the empire of Rome; when the Parthians, having all their hope in artillery, gave no place to them, but overcame the Romans oftener than the Romans them, and kept battle with them many a hundred year, and slew the rich Crassus and his son, with many a stout Roman more, with their bows; they drove Marcus Antoninus over the hills of Media and Armenia, to his great shame and reproach; they slew Julian the apostate, and Antonius Caracalla; they held in perpetual prison the most noble Emperor Valerian, in despite of all the Romans and many other princes which wrote for his deliverance, as Belsolis, called King of Kings, Valerius King of Cadusia, Arthabesdes King of Armenia, and many other princes more, whom the Parthians, by reason of their artillery, regarded never one whit; and thus with the Romans, I may conclude, that the borders of their empire were not at the sun-rising and sun-setting, as Tully saith; but so far they went, as artillery would give them leave. For, I think, all the ground that they had, either northward, further than the borders of Scythia, or eastward, further than the borders of Parthia, a

man might have bought with a small deal of money; of which thing surely shooting was the cause.

From the same country of Scythia, the Goths, Huns, and Vandals came with the same weapon of artillery, as Paulus Diaconus doth say, and so bereft Rome of her empire by fire, spoil, and waste; so that in such a learned city was left scarce one man behind, that had learning or leisure to leave in writing to them which should come after, how so noble an empire, in so short a while, by a rabble of banished bondmen, without all order and policy, save only their natural and daily exercise in artillery, was brought to such thraldom and ruin.

After them the Turks, having another name but yet the same people, born in Scythia, brought up only in artillery, by the same weapon have subdued and bereft from the Christian men all Asia and Africa (to speak upon) and the most noble countries of Europe, to the great diminishing of Christ's religion, to the great reproach of cowardice of all Christendom, a manifest token of God's high wrath and displeasure over the sin of the world, but especially amongst Christian men, which be on sleep, made drunk with the fruits of the flesh, as infidelity, disobedience to God's word, and heresy, grudge, ill-will, strife, open battle, and privy envy, covetousness, oppression, unmercifulness, with innumerable sorts of unspeakable daily bawdry; which things surely, if God hold not his holy hand over us, and pluck us from them, will bring us to a more Turkishness, and more beastly blind barbarousness, as calling ill things good, and good things ill. Contemning of knowledge and learning, setting at nought, and having for a fable, God and his high providence, will bring us, I say, to a more ungracious Turkishness, if more Turkishness can be than this, than if the Turks had sworn to bring all Turkey against us. For these fruits surely must needs spring of such seed, and such effect needs follow of such a cause, if reason, truth, and God be not altered, but as they are wont to be. For surely no Turkish power can overthrow us, if Turkish life do not cast us down before. If God were with us, it booted not the Turk to be against us; but our unfaithful sinful living, which is the Turk's mother, and hath brought him up hitherto, must needs turn God from us, because sin and he hath no fellowship together. If we banished ill-living out of Christendom,

I am sure the Turk should not only not overcome us, but scarce have an hole to run into in his own country.

But Christendom now, I may tell you, Philologus, is much like a man that hath an itch on him, and lieth drunk also in his bed, and though a thief come to the door, and heaveth at it, to come in and slay him, yet he lieth in his bed, having more pleasure to lie in a slumber and scratch himself where it itcheth, even to the hard bone, than he hath readiness to rise up lustily, and drive him away that would rob him and slay him. But, I trust, Christ will so lighten and lift up Christian men's eyes, that they shall not sleep to death, nor that the Turk, Christ's open enemy, shall ever boast that he hath quite overthrown us.

But, as I began to tell you, shooting is the chief thing wherewith God suffereth the Turk to punish our naughty living withal the youth there is brought up in shooting, his privy guard for his own person is bowmen, the might of their shooting is well known of the Spaniards, which at the town called Newcastle, in Illyrica, were quite slain up of the Turks' arrows, when the Spaniards had no use of their guns by reason of the rain. And now, last of all, the Emperor's Majesty himself, at the city of Algiers in Africa, had his host sore handled with the Turks' arrows, when his guns were quite dispatched, and stood him in no service because of the rain that fell; whereas, in such a chance of rain, if he had had bowmen, surely their shot might peradventure have been a little hindered, but quite dispatched and marred it could never have been. But, as for the Turks, I am weary to talk of them, partly because I hate them, and partly because I am now affectioned even as it were a man that had been long wandering in strange countries, and would fain be at home to see how well his own friends prosper and lead their life. And surely, methinks, I am very merry at my heart to remember how I shall find at home in England, amongst Englishmen, partly by histories of them that have gone before us, again by experience of them which we know and live with us, as great noble feats of war by artillery as ever was done at any time in any other commonwealth. And here I must needs remember a certain Frenchman, called Textor, that writeth a book which he nameth Officina, wherein he weaveth up many broken ended matters, and sets out much riffraff, pelfery, trumpery, baggage, and beg

gary ware, elampered up of one that would seem to be fitter for a shop indeed than to write any book. And, amongst all other ill-packed up matters, he thrusts up in a heap together all the good shooters that ever hath been in the world, as he saith himself; and yet I trow, Philologus, that all the examples which I now, by chance, have rehearsed out of the best authors both in Greek and Latin, Textor hath but two of them, which two surely, if they were to reckon again, I would not once name them, partly because they were naughty persons, and shooting so much the worse because they loved it, as Domitian and Commodus, the Emperors partly because Textor hath them in his book, on whom I looked by chance in the book-binder's shop, thinking of no such matter. And one thing I will say to you, Philologus, that if I were disposed to do it, and you had leisure to hear it, I could soon do as Textor doth, and reckon up such a rabble of shooters, that be named here and there in poets, as would hold us talking whilst to-morrow; but my purpose was not to make mention of those which were feigned of poets for their pleasure, but of such as were proved in histories for a truth. But why I bring in Textor was this: At last, when he hath reckoned all shooters that he can, he saith thus, Pe trus Crinitus writeth, that the Scots, which dwell beyond England, be very excellent shooters, and the best bowmen in war. This sentence, whether Crinitus wrote it more lewdly of ignorance, or Textor confirmeth it more peevishly of envy, may be called in question and doubt, but this surely do I know very well, that Textor hath both read in Gaguinus the French history, and also hath heard his father or grandfather talk (except perchance he was born and bred in a cloister) after that sort of the shooting of Englishmen, that Textor needed not to have gone so peevishly beyond England for shooting, but might very soon, even into the first town of Kent, have found such plenty of shooting, as is not in all the realm of Scotland again. The Scots surely be good men of war in their own feats as can be; but as for shooting, they neither can use it for any profit, nor yet will challenge it for any praise, although Master Textor, of his gentleness, would give it them. Textor needed not to have filled up his book with such lies, if he had read the history of Scotland, which Johannes Major doth write; wherein he might have learned, that when James Stewart, first King of that name, at the parliament holden at Saint John's town, or Perth, com