gay, or else because they will have a shaft like a good archer, cutteth their whole shafts, and pieceth them again; a thing, by my judgement, more costly than needful. And thus have you heard what wood, what fashion, what nocking, what piecing, a stele must have. Now followeth the feathering.

Phi. I would never have thought you could have said half so much of a stele; and, I think, as concerning the little feather, and the plain head, there is but little to say.

Tor. Little! yes, truly: for there is no one thing in all shooting so much to be looked on as the feather. For, first, a question may be asked: Whether any other thing beside a feather, be fit for a shaft or no? If a feather only be fit, whether a goose feather only or no? If a goose feather be best, then whether there be any difference as concerning the feather of an old goose and a young goose; a gander or a goose; a fenny goose or an uplandish goose? Again, which is the best feather in any goose, the right wing or the left wing; the pinion feather, or any other feather; a white, black, or grey feather? Thirdly, in setting on your feather, whether it is pared or drawn with a thick rib or a thin rib, (the rib is the hard quill which divideth the feather,) a long feather better or a short, set on near the nock or far from the nock, set on straight or somewhat bowing; and whether one or two feathers run on the bow? Fourthly, in cooling or sheering, whether high or low, whether somewhat swine-backed (I must use shooters' words) or saddle-backed, whether round or square shorn? And whether a shaft at any time ought to be plucked, and how to be plucked?

Phi. Surely, Toxophilus, I think many fletchers, although daily they have these things in use, if they were asked suddenly, what they would say of a feather, they could not say so much. But I pray you let me hear you more at large express those things in a feather, the which you packed up in so narrow a room. And first, whether any other thing may be used for a feather or not?

Tox. That was the first point indeed; and because there followeth many after, I will hie apace over them, as one that had many a mile to ride. Shafts to have had always feathers, Pliny in Latin, and Julius Pollux in Greek, do plainly show yet only the Lycians I read in Herodotus to have used shafts without feathers. Only a feather is fit for a shaft

for two causes; first because it is leath, weak to give place to the bow, then because it is of that nature that it will start up after the bow. So plate, wood, or horn, cannot serve, because they will not give place. Again, cloth, paper, or parchment, cannot serve, because they will not rise after the bow; therefore a feather is only meet, because it only will do both. Now, to look on the feathers of all manner of birds, you shall see some so low, weak, and short, some so coarse, store, and hard, and the rib so brittle, thin and narrow, that it can neither be drawn, pared, nor yet will set on; that except it be a swan for a dead shaft, (as I know some good archers have used,) or a duck for a flight, which lasts but one shot, there is no feather but only of a goose that hath all commodities in it. And truly at a short butt, which some men doth use, the peacock feather doth seldom keep up the shaft either right or level, it is so rough and heavy; so that many men, which have taken them up for gayness, hath laid them down again for profit: thus, for our purpose, the goose is the best feather for the best shooter.

Phi. No, that is not so; for the best shooter that ever was, used other feathers.

Tox. Yea, are you so cunning in shooting? I pray you who was that?

Phi. Hercules, which had his shafts feathered with eagles' feathers, as Hesiod doth say.

Tox. Well, as for Hercules, seeing neither water nor land, heaven nor hell, could scarce content him to abide in, it was no marvel though silly poor goose-feather could not please him to shoot withal; and again, as for eagles, they fly so high and build so far off, that they be very hard to come by. Yet, well fare the gentle goose, which bringeth to a man, even to his door, so many exceeding commodities. For the goose is man's comfort in war and in peace, sleeping and waking. What praise soever is given to shooting, the goose may challenge the best part in it. How well doth she make a man fare at his table? How easily doth she make a man lie in his bed? How fit even as her feathers be only for shooting, so be her quills fit only for writing.

Phi. Indeed, Toxophilus, that is the best praise you gave

* Leath is limber, flexible, easily giving way. Milton calls it lithe.

to a goose yet; and surely I would have said you had been to blame, if you had overskipt it.

Tor. The Romans, I trow, Philologus, not so much because a goose with crying saved their capitol, and head tower, with their golden Jupiter, as Propertius doth say very prettily in this verse,

Anseris et tutum voce fuisse Jovem,

Id est,

Thieves on a night had stolen Jupiter, had a goose not a cackled,

did make a golden goose, and set her in the top of the capitol, and appointed also the censors to allow out of the common butch yearly stipends, for the finding of certain geese; the Romans did not, I say, give all this honour to a goose for that good deed only, but for other infinite more, which come daily to a man by geese; and surely if I should declaim in the praise of any manner of best living, I would choose a goose. But the goose hath made us fly too far from our matter. Now, Sir, you have heard how a feather must be had, and that a goose feather only: it followeth of a young goose and an old, and the residue belonging to a feather; which thing I will shortly course over; whereof, when you know the properties, you may fit your shafts according to your shooting, which rule you must observe in all other things too, because no one fashion or quantity can be fit for every man, no more than a shoe or a coat can be. The old goose feather is stiff and strong, good for a wind, and fittest for a dead shaft: the young goose feather is weak and fine, best for a swift shaft; and it must be cooled at the first sheering, somewhat high, for with shooting it will settle and fall very much. The same thing (although not so much) is to be considered in a goose and a gander. A fenny goose, even as her flesh is blacker, stoorer, unwholesomer, so is her feather, for the same cause, coarser, stoorer, and rougher; and therefore I have heard very good fletchers say, that the second feather in some place is better than the pinion in other some. Betwixt the wings is little difference, but that you must have divers shafts of one flight, feathered with divers wings, for divers winds; for if the wind and the feather go both one way, the shaft will be carried too much. The pinion feathers, as it hath the first place in the wing, so it hath the first place in good feathering. You may know it

before it be pared, by a bought which is in it; and again when it is cooled, by the thickness above, and the thickness at the ground; and also by the stiffness and fineness which will carry a shaft better, faster, and further, even as a fine sail-cloth doth a ship.

The colour of the feather is least to be regarded, yet somewhat to be looked on; for a good white you have sometimes an ill grey. Yet, surely it standeth with good reason, to have the cock-feather black or grey, as it were to give a man warning to nock right. The cock-feather is called that which standeth above in right nocking; which if you do not observe, the other feathers must needs run on the bow, and so marr your shot. And thus far of the goodness and choice of your feather: now followeth the setting on. Wherein you must look that your feathers be not drawn for hastiness, but pared even and straight with diligence. The fletcher draweth a feather when it hath but one swap at it with his knife, and then plaineth it a little, with rubbing it over his knife. He pareth it when he taketh leisure and heed to make every part of the rib apt to stand straight and even on upon the stele. This thing, if a man take not heed on, he may chance have cause to say so of his fletcher, as in dressing of meat is commonly said of cooks; and that is, that God sendeth us good feathers, but the devil naughty fletchers. If any fletchers heard me say thus, they would not be angry with me, except they were ill fletchers; and yet by reason, those fletchers too ought rather to amend themselves for doing ill, than be angry with me for saying truth. The rib in a stiff feather may be thinner, for so it will stand cleaner on; but in a weak feather you must leave a thicker rib, or else if the rib, which is the foundation and ground wherein nature hath set every cleft of the feather, be taken too near the feather, it must needs follow, that the feather shall fall and droop down, even as any herb doth which hath his root too near taken on with a spade. The length and shortness of the feather serveth for divers shafts, as a long feather for a long, heavy, or big shaft, the short feather for the contrary. Again, the short may stand farther, the long nearer the nock. Your feather must stand almost straight on, but yet after that sort, that it may turn round in flying.

And here I consider the wonderful nature of shooting, which standeth altogether by that fashion which is most apt for quick moving, and that is by roundness. For first the

bow must be gathered round, in drawing it must come round compass, the string must be round, the stele must be round, the best nock round, the feather shorn somewhat round, the shaft in flying must turn round; and, if it fly far, it flieth a round compass, for either above or beneath a round compass hindereth the flying. Moreover, both the fletcher in making your shaft, and you in nocking your shaft, must take heed that two feathers equally run on the bow. For if one feather run alone on the bow, it shall quickly be worn, and shall not be able to match with the other feathers; and again, at the loose, if the shaft be light, it will start; if it be heavy, it will hobble. And thus as concerning setting on of your feather. Now of cooling.

To sheer a shaft high or low, must be as the shaft is, heavy or light, great or little, long or short; the swine-backed fashion maketh the shaft deader, for it gathereth more air than the saddle-backed; and therefore the saddle-back is surer for danger of weather, and fitter for smooth flying. Again, to sheer a shaft round, as they were wont sometimes to do, or after the triangle_fashion, which is much used now-a-days, both be good. For roundness is apt for flying of his own nature, and all manner of triangle fashion (the sharp point going before) is also naturally apt for quick entering; and therefore, saith Cicero, that cranes, taught by nature, observe in flying a triangle fashion always, because it is so apt to pierce and go through the air withal. Last of all, plucking of feathers is nought, for there is no surety in it; therefore let every archer have such shafts, that he may both know them and trust them at every change of weather. Yet, if they must needs be plucked, pluck them as little as can be, for so shall they be the less unconstant. And thus I have knit up in as short a room as I could, the best feathers, feathering, and cooling of a shaft.

Phi. I think surely you have so taken up the matter with you, that you have left nothing behind you. Now you have brought a shaft to the head, which, if it were on, we had done as concerning all instruments belonging to shooting.

Tox. Necessity, the inventor of all goodness (as all authors in a manner do say), amongst all other things invented a shaft head, first to save the end from breaking; then it made it sharp, to stick better; after it made it of strong matter, to last better: last of all, experience and wisdom of men

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