or cowed down as if they were shooting at crows; one man would struggle as if he never could shoot again; another would shoot almost without taking aim.

There were other mistakes still more absurd: one man scraped his cheek with the bowstring; another lifted up his right leg at every shot; not a few ran after their shaft; others, who overshot, ran back as if to recall the arrow; some held a foot up till the arrow fell, and others writhed and struggled as if to correct the badness of their aim.

The good archer neither stooped nor stood too erect. He placed his arrow, with the cock feather up, drew easy and equally, did not hold, and loosed quick and hard; he took care to look at his mark stedfastly, and not on his arrow, and observed the fluctuations of wind and weather. Ascham also advises the bowman not to be angry, and to be neither too desponding nor too sanguine. If near the sea coast, the wind was to be studied, and not less so by the river side. By throwing up a feather or a little grass, the archer could ascertain the direction of the current, and its strength and extent. In those cases he varied his arrows, and selected them, heavier or lighter, as the need required. 250 yards was thought a moderate distance for a strong man's shot.*

* Ascham's Toxophilus.

Country

dalism. Complaints of the Age. The Inclosures. Gentleman's House.-Farmer's House. - Decline of Hospitality.Rise in Prices. Depreciation in Value of Money.

Remedy for the Evils. Grazing and Tillage. - Luxury. - Balance of Trade. -Religious Disputes. Social Dangers. Increase of Poor.Beggars and Thieves. — Lawyers. - Farmers and the Clergy. Condition of Yeomen. Merchant's and Yeomen's Tables. - Food. - Hours of Meals. - Decay of Cities. - General View of England. - Horses and Dogs. — Elizabethan Village. Schoolmaster and Farmer. Homage of Wealth. - Farmer's Furniture. — Sketch of Country Amusements.-Farmers' Annoyances.-Tusser and his Points. Labourers' Feasts. May-Day. Country Sports. Costume.-Country Pastor. -Ale-House.-Champaign and Woodland. - Life of Farming Servant. - Farmer's Work for a Year.The Still-Room.- Cordials and Perfumes.― Remedies. - Simples. - Charms. Antidotes. Queen Elizabeth's ApotheReceipts. Theory of Elizabethan Medicine. Virtues of precious Stones. Simple and Simpletons. - Medicines of the Day.

cary.

-

THE Elizabethan age was an age of fervent patriotism and strong religious feeling. Commercial enterprise had become a passion. The greater the claims upon the national mind, the more extraordinary became its efforts. For all kinds of ambition there was an ample field—for the poet,

the drama; for the soldier, the Spanish war; for the merchant, colonial discovery. In every profession there were conquests to be made and trophies to be won: the dramatist might associate with Shakspere; the statesman with Burleigh; the voyager with Raleigh; the soldier with Sidney. The great minds in each profession must have excited their rivals to strain every sinew in noble competition. With all their growth and progress, the nation still remained simple in manners and uncorrupted by luxury, though the old men lamented the ruder age that was passing away, and believed that the prevailing extravagance in dress was an infallible sign of national decay. They complained of an increased price of food, and lamented the decline of hospitality, and the fraud and trickeries of trade. Such lamentations are not peculiar to the Elizabethan age. There are always prophets enough to predict the coming destruction of a nation of which their jaundiced eyes can see only the vices.

The peculiar characteristics of the Elizabethan social system were the absolute power of the Sovereign, and the growing restlessness of the religious Reformers. The Roman Catholics, a persecuted minority, were exiles and martyrs; the Puritans factious and fanatic. The former were the subject of theological denunciation and of state decrees, the latter of dramatic invective and satirical ridi

THE LORD OF THE VILLAGE.

229

cule. Shakspere sketched the precisian in Malvolio, and his friend Ben Jonson devotes a play to expose them to contempt. Hated by Elizabeth, despised by the wits of her Court, they seem to have been dreaded by none. The Protestant nobility and the sullen Catholic lords, gloomy and superstitious in their dreary country houses, united to deride the Puritan tradesmen, who looked on the Maypole as an idol, and the hobby horse as a fabrication of Satan.

The feudal lord, still a sovereign on his own estate, was generally regarded with affectionate respect by his yeomen, tenants, and his crowds of serving-men. He did not disdain to appear as the village rival; he gave a fat buck for the rustic bridal; he was the friend and patron of all; the old hall was the County Court; its owner was neither feared nor dreaded; the young squire led his tenants to the Low Countries; the old knight's daughter was the cynosure of the county and the gem of the Court; holidays were frequent and work light.

The golden age of which we write, like all other golden ages past and present, had its grumblers, rational and irrational.

In the country the farmers and labourers chafed at the frequent new inclosures, which they said made land dearer, and turned tillage into pasture so fast that one man only lived where threescore had once obtained sub

sistence, and one plough worked where a dozen had been seen stirring; labourers' food rose in price, and mechanics' wages were reduced to starvation pitch. Less 'prentices were in consequence kept, and many cities fell into poverty and desolation; the paupers increased, and the idle and the discontented grew daily more numerous.*

The merchants complained that only London was thriving.

The country gentlemen, on the other hand, declared that inclosures increased the number of cattle, and kept corn cheap, but yet lamented and confessed the dearth of food. Craftsmen replied to all this by declaring that it was never a merry world since gentlemen turned graziers; that tradesmen in their time seldom died rich, or left bequests to charities, and could scarcely find meat and drink for their 'prentices and servants. To make up for this rise in prices, landlords demanded higher fines and higher rents; many were driven to give up their households and to take chambers in London, with a lacquey and a page in the place of some ten stout serving-men, and twenty or more other helps. In 1581, people complained that 2001. a year did not go so far as 200 marks had done sixteen years before.

* W. Stafford's Briefe Conceipte of English Pollicye, 1581, p. 15.