dispatching or loosing the arrow is to be particularly attended to; it must not be done too suddenly, but with that due mixture of quickness and gentleness, which, as Ascham says, is as hard to be followed in shooting, as it is to be described in teaching. Indeed in archery, as in all other manual arts, dexterity and skill can only be acquired by long and arduous practice, and we therefore recommend our Toxophilite readers not to place too much credit on the theorie, even of our Prince of Archers, but rather to pursue the practic of the art themselves. Ascham very justly says, that it is easier to tell what an archer should not be, than what it behoves him to be, and accordingly he gives us a catalogue of the errors into which the professors of this art are apt to fall, and really we seldom recollect seeing a collection of more humorous portraits than those which he has drawn. There is an earnest vitality about them which makes us think we behold them in very truth.

*

"All the discommodityes which ill custome hath graffed in archers, can neyther be quickly pulled oute, nor yet soone reckoned of me, there be so many. Some shooteth his head forwarde, as though he would byte the marke; another stareth with his eyes, as though they should flye out; another winketh with one eye, and looketh with the other; some make a face with wrything theyr mouth and countenance so, as though they were doinge you wotte what; another blereth out his tongue; another byteth his lippes; another holdeth his necke awrye Ones I sawe a man which used a bracer on his cheeke, or else he had scratched all the skinne of the one syde of his face with his drawinge-hande. Another I saw, which, at every shote, after the lose, lifted up his righte legge so far that he was ever in jeopardye of faulinge. Some stampe forwarde, and some leape backwarde * Some will give two or three strydes forwarde, daunsinge and hoppinge after his shafte as though he were a madde man. Some with feare to be too farre gone, runne backwarde, as it were to pull his shafte backe. Another runneth forwarde, when he feareth to be shorte, heavinge after his armes, as though he would helpe the shafte to flye. Another wrythes or runneth asyde, to pull in his shafte straight. One lifteth up his heele, and so holdeth his foote still, as long as his shafte flyeth. Another casteth his arme backwarde after the louse, and another swinges his bowe about him, as it were a man with a shafte to make roume in a game place."

However unwilling we may feel to quit this entertaining treatise, which carries us from the "populous city," in which it is our misfortune to be pent, to the retired solitudes of green lanes and fields, and which transports us from these "evil days" to the period of England's pride and happiness, when our yeomen, as Fortescue says, "could easily dispend one hundred. pounds by the year and more ;" we must nevertheless be contented to take leave of our symbolical friends, Toxophilus and

Philologus, with our best hopes that they were as successful in entreating the question " de origine anima," as they have been in expounding the mysteries of archery. We shall, however, give the conclusion of their discourse.

"Tox. This communication handled of me, Philologe, as I know well not perfitely, yet, as I suppose trulye, you must take in good worthe, wherein, if divers thinges do not altogether please you, thancke yourselfe, which woulde rather have me faulte in mere follye, to take that thinge in hand, which I was not able for to perfourme, than by any honest shamefastnesse with-saye your request and minde, which I knowe well I have not satisfyed. But yet I will thincke this labour of myne the better bestowed, if to-morrowe, or some other day when you have leysure, you will spende as much time with me here in this same place, in entreating the question de origine animæ, and the joyning of it with the bodye, that I maye knowe howe farre Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoycians, have waded in it.

"Phi. How you have handled this matter, Toxophile, I may not well tell you myselfe now, but for your gentlenesse and good will towardes learninge and shootinge, I will be content to shewe you anye pleasure whensoever you will; and nowe the sunne is downe, therefore, if it please you, we will go home and drincke in my chamber, and then I will tell you plainlye what I thincke of this communication, and also what daye we will appointe, at your request, for the other matter to meete here againe."

We would fain hope that this fine old English exercise will be revived, not as the means of destruction, but as a healthy and gallant amusement by which the thews and sinews of our countrymen may emulate those of the Strongbows and Robin Hoods of ancient days; and we are sure nothing is better calculated to infuse a zeal for this sport than the perusal of Toxophilus.

ART. VI. King John and Matilda, a Tragedy; as it was acted, with great applause, by her Majestie's Servants, at the Cockpit, in Drury Lane. Written by Robert Davenport, Gent. London, printed for Andrew Pennycuicke, in the year 1655.

This tragedy is one of a large class of the old dramas which cannot be said to be worth re-printing, and yet contain much worth preserving; which are not likely to be read, but the reading of which would be profitable. For, though we may be frequently disgusted with absurdities and improbabilities during the perusal; striking points in the action, or fine passages of poetry in the composition, are occasionally to be found. We speak of the lowest rank of a race of the most gifted poets,

but even in the most inferior writer of the first age of our drama, the faults are not the faults of dullness. The vices of inexperience, audacity, and bad taste, are common enough, but these are redeemed when the true poet falls into the right vein. Dullness-flat, tame, frigid dullness, is alone hopeless and irremediable. Robert Davenport was by no means the most diminutive of a line of heroes. His play has its absurdities, and, perhaps, more than the usual share of wildness and uncouthness; but passages and scenes occur of great beauty, and which, when transplanted into our pages, will, we hope, flourish with a brighter verdure for the removal, and, at any rate, stand a better chance of catching the eye of the general reader of poetry. The subject of this play is the love of King John for Matilda, the daughter of one of his barons, Old Fitzwater, and his various attempts to procure possession of her person, which are intermixed with his contests and disputes with the barons themselves. Soon after the opening, the king is thus made to tempt Matilda, whom he has decoyed into a meeting in his garden.

"K. John. Fair Matilda,

Mistresse of youth and beauty, sweet as spring,
And comely as the holy shining priest,
Deckt in his glorious sacerdotall vestment;
Yet heare the passions of a love-sick prince,

And crown thy too too cruell heart with pitty.

Mat. Yet let fall your too too passionate pleadings,
And crown your royall heart with excellent reason.
K. John. Hear me.

Mat. The queen will heare you.

K. John. Speak but a word that-
Mat. What?

K. John. That may sound like something,
That may but busie my strong labouring heart,
With hope that thou wilt grant, and every morning
I will walk forth and watch the early lark,

And at her sweetest note I will protest,
Matilda spake a word was like that note.

Mat. O how you tempt: remember pray your vows

To my betroth'd Earl Robert Huntington;
Did you not wish, just as the poison toucht
His manly heart, if ever you again

Laid battery to the fair fort of my unvanquish'd
Virtue, your death might be like his untimely,
And [you] be poyson'd [too.] O take heed, sir,
Saints stand upon heaven's silver battlements,

When kings make vows, and lay their listening ears
To princes' protestations.

K. John. So did Matilda swear to live and die a maid,

At which fair Nature, like a snail, shrunk back,

As loath to hear from one so fair, so foul

A wound: my vow was vain, made without

Recollection of my reason; and yours,

O madnesse! Maids have sure forsworne such vowes:
For Huntington, he like a heap of summer's

Dust into his grave is swept; and bad vows

Still are better broke than kept.

Mat. Alas, great sir, your queen you cannot make me ;
What is it then instructs your tongue? Oh, sir!

In things not right,

Lust is but love's well languag'd hypocrite.

K. John. Words shall convert to deeds then; I am the king.

Mat. Doe but touch me,

[Offers violence, she draws a knife.

And as I grasp steel in my trembling hand,
So sure the king shall see Matilda fall
A sacrifice to virtue.

K. John. Cruell maid,

Crueller than the [goat] that eanes her young
On the rough bosome of a ragged flint:
Go, gett thee to the woods, for thou art wild
As flame, or winter; wheresoe'er thou walk'st
May wild winds chide thee, and the reeling trees,
Like a confused fall of many waters,

Rail on thy rudeness; may the birds that build
Among the wanton branches, 'stead of teaching

Notes to their young, sing something like thy niceness:

And lastly, may the brooks when thou shalt lie

And cast a pair of cruell busie eyes

Upon their subtill slydings; may the water,

The troubled image of my passions, war

With the stones, the matter of thy heart, that thou mayst learn`

Thy hardnesse and my sufferings to discern;

And so whilst I (if it be possible) study to forget you,

May beasts, and birds, and brooks, and trees, and wind,

Hear me, and call Matilda too unkind."

Act I. scene I.

There is considerable spirit in the following dialogue-the barons are consulting together in Baynard Castle, when the king is announced.

"Richmond. The king, attended

Onely with the Earle of Chester, Oxford, and some
Other gentlemen, is new landed on the stairs.

Om. The king!

Young Bruce. Shut the stairs' gate.

Fitz. "Twere better gate and stairs

Were floating through bridge; we are safe, my cholerick cousin, As in a sanctuary; 'tis enough

(A man would think) to see a great prince thus,

Enter King, Oxford, Chester, and other Lords.

'Cause wee'd not go to him, to come to us: Indeed, indeed, you speak unkindly.

K. John. Behold, great lords,

The cedars of the kingdome, how the king
(A shrub) shrinks out of majestie

And comes to you; here's a fine conventicle.
Are ye blowing up new fires? and must Fitzwater
(Plain-breasted as his unaffected habite)
Be generall again, again be call'd

The Marshall of Heaven's Army and the church's?
Are you planet-struck! you cannot talke.

Fitz. Your pardon, sir,

I led the barrons, but 'twas when they could not choose

But choose a leader, and then me they chose;

And why so, think ye? they all lov'd your grace,

And grieve, grieve very heartily, I tell you,

To see you by some state-mice so misled:

These state-mice that nibble so upon the land's impaired freedom, That would not so play in the lyon's eare,

But that by tickling him themselves to advantage;

This troubl❜d us, and griev'd the body Politique,

And this we sought to mend; I tell truth, John, I,

We are thy friends, John, and if ye take from friendship
The liberty of modest admonition,

Ye leave no mark whereby to distinguish it

From the fawning passion of a dog-base flattery;

If I speak plain, this truth be my defence,

A good man's comfort is his conscience:

And so much for plain Robin.

i

K. John. Fitzwater, Bruce, Richmond, and stubborn Leister,

This is the last of our admonitions:

Either lay by those arms, those lawless arms,

Which you have lifted 'gainst your lord and king,

And give such pledges as we shall accept