tion. Indeed, although the crab-tree was long ago known by the name of Shakspere's Crab-tree, the tradition that he was amongst a party who had accepted a challenge from the Bidford topers to try which could drink hardest, and there bivouacked after the debauch, is difficult to be traced further than the hearsay evidence of Mr. Samuel Ireland. In the same way, the merry folks of Stratford will tell you to this day that the Falcon inn in that town was the scene of Shakspere's nightly potations, after he had retired from London to his native home; and they will show you the shovel-board at which he delighted to play. Harmless traditions, ye are yet baseless! The Falcon was not an inn at all in Shakspere's time, but a goodly private dwelling. About the year 1580 the ancient practice of archery had revived in England. The use of the famous English long-bow had been superseded in war by the arquebuss; but their old diversion of butt-shooting would not readily be abandoned by the bold yeomanry, delighting as they still did in stories of their countrymen's prowess, familiar to them in chronicle and ballad. The Toxophilus' of Roger Ascham was a book well fitted to be amongst the favourites of our Shakspere; and he would think with that fine old schoolmaster that the book and the bow might well go together.* He might have heard that a wealthy yeoman of Middlesex, John Lyon, who had founded the grammarschool at Harrow, had instituted a prize for archery amongst the scholars. Had not the fame, too, gone forth through the country of the worthy Show and Shooting by the Duke of Shoreditch, and his Associates the Worshipful Citizens of London,' and of The Friendly and Frank Fellowship of Prince Arthur's Knights in and about the City of London?' There were men of Stratford who within a year or two had seen the solemn processions of these companies of archers, and their feats in Hogsden Fields; where the wealthy citizens and their ladies sat in their tents most gorgeously dressed, and the winners of the prizes were brought out of the field by torchlight, with drum and trumpet, and volleys of shot, mounted upon great geldings sumptuously trapped with cloths of silver and gold. Had he not himself talked with an ancient squire, who, in the elder days, at Mile End Green" had played "Sir Dagonet at Arthur's Show?"§ And did he not know old Double," who was now dead?—" He drew a good bow; and dead!—he shot a fine shoot: *** Dead!—he would have clapped i' the clout at twelve score; and carried you a forehand shaft a fourteen and fourteen and a half, that it would have done a man's heart good to see." || Welcome to him, then, would be the invitation of the young men of Bidford for a day of archery; for they received as a truth the maxim of Ascham,— That still, according to the old wont of England, youth should use it for the " "Would to God that all men did bring up their sons, like my worshipful master Sir Henry Wingefield, in the book and the bow."-AsCHAM. This is the title of a tract published in 1583; but the author says that these mock solemnities had been "greatly revived, and within these five years set forward, at the great cost and charges of sundry chief citizens." The title of a tract by Richard Mulcaster: 1581. § Henry IV., Part II., Act III., Scene II. Il Ibid. most nonest pastime in peace." The butts are erected in the open fields after we cross the Ichnield way on the Stratford road. It is an elevated spot, which looks down upon the long pastures which skirt the Avon. These are not the ancient butts of the town, made and kept up according to the statute of Henry VIII.; nor do the young men compel their fathers, according to the same statute, to provide each of them with "a bow and two shafts," until they are of the age of seventeen; but each is willing to obey the statute, having "a bow and four arrows continually for himself." Their butts are mounds of turf, on which is fixed a small piece of circular paper with a pin in the centre. The young poet probably thought of Robin Hood's more picturesque mark :— At the crab-tree are the young archers to meet at the hour of eight : The costume of Chaucer's squire's yeoman would be emulated by some of the assembly: "He was cladde in cote and hode of grene; Upon his arme he bare a gaie bracer." The lots are cast; three archers on either side. The marker takes his place, to "cry aim." Away flies the first arrow-" gone "-it is over the butt; a second -"short; " a third-" wide;" a fourth "hits the white,"- -"Let him be clapped on the shoulder and called Adam;"† a fifth "handles his bow like a crowkeeper." Lastly comes a youth from Stratford, and he is within an inch of "cleaving the pin." There is a maiden gazing on the sport; she whispers a word in his ear, and " then the very pin of his heart" is I cleft with the blind bow-boy's butt-shaft."§ He recovers his self-possession, whilst he receives his arrow from the marker, humming the while "The blinded boy, that shoots so trim, From heaven down did hie; He drew a dart and shot at him, In place where he did lie." || Midsummer-Night's Dream, Act I, Scene II. + Much Ado about Nothing, Act: Lear. After repeated contests the match is decided. But there is now to be a trial of greater skill, requiring the strong arm and the accurate eye-the old English practice which won the day at Agincourt. The archers go up into the hills: he who has drawn the first lot suddenly stops; there is a bush upon the rising ground before him, from which hangs some rag, or weasel-skin, or dead crow; away flies the arrow, and the fellows of the archer each shoot from the same spot. This was the roving of the more ancient archery, where the mark was sometimes on high, and sometimes on the ground, and always at variable distances. Over hill and dale go the young men onward in the excitement of their exercise, so lauded by Richard Mulcaster, first Master of Merchant Tailors' School:"And whereas hunting on foot is much praised, what moving of the body hath the foot-hunter in hills and dales which the roving archer hath not in variety of grounds? Is his natural heat more stirred than the archer's is? Is his appetite better than the archer's?"* This natural premonition sends the party homeward to their noon-tide dinner at the Grange. But as they pass along the low meadows they send up many a "flight," with shout and laughter. An arrow is sometimes lost. But there is one who in after-years recollected his boyish practice under such mishaps : "In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft I shot his fellow of the self-same flight The self-same way, with more advised watch To find the other forth; and, by adventuring both, I oft found both: I urge this childhood proof, Because what follows is pure innocence. * Positions: 1581. I owe you much; and, like a wilful youth, Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt, Or bring your latter hazard back again, There are other sports to be played, and other triumphs to be achieved, before the day closes. In the meadow, at some little distance from the butts, is fixed a machine of singular construction. It is the Quintain. Horsemen are beginning to assemble around it, and are waiting the arrival of the guests from the Grange, who are merry in "an arbour" of mine host's" orchard." But the youths are for more stirring matters; and their horses are ready. To the inexperienced eye the machine which has been erected in the field "That which here stands up, Is but a quintain, a mere lifeless block." + It is the wooden figure of a Saracen, sword in hand, grinning hideously upon the assailants who confront him. The horsemen form a lane on either side, whilst one, the boldest of challengers, couches his spear and rides violently at the enemy, who appears to stand firm upon his wooden post. The spear strikes the Saracen just on the left shoulder; but the wooden man receives not his wound with patience, for by the action of the blow he swings round upon his pivot, and hits the horseman a formidable thump with his extended sword before the horse has cleared the range of the misbeliever's weapon. Then one chorus of laughter greets the unfortunate rider as he comes dolefully back to the rear. Another and another fail. At last the quintain is struck right in the centre, and the victory is won. The Saracen conquered, a flat board is set up upon the pivot, with a sand-bag at one end, such as Stow has described :— "I have seen a quintain set upon Cornhill, by Leadenhall, where the attendants of the lords of merry disports have run and made great pastime; for he that hit not the board end of the quintain was laughed to scorn; and he that hit it full, if he rode not the faster, had a sound blow upon his neck with a bag full of sand hanged on the other end." The merry guests of the Grange enjoy the sport as heartily as Master Laneham, who saw the quintain at Kenilworth :-" The speciality of the sport was to see how some of his slackness had a good bob with the bag; and some for his haste to topple downright, and come tumbling to the post; some striving so much at the first setting out, that it seemed a question between the man and the beast, whether the course should be made a horseback or a foot and, put forth with the spurs, then would run his race by us among the thickest of the throng, that down came they together hand over head. * By my troth, Master Martin, 't was a goodly pastime.' a goodly pastime." And now they go to supper, "What time the labour'd ox * * In his loose traces from the furrow came." § * The Merchant of Venice, Act 1., Scene 1. + As You Like It, Act I., Scene III. § Milton: Comus.' The moon shines brightly upon the terraced garden of the Grange. The mill-wheel is at rest. The ripple of the stream over the dam pleasantly breaks the silence which is around. There is merriment within the house, whose open casements welcome the gentle night-breeze. The chorus of a jovial song has just ceased. Suddenly a lute is struck upon the terrace of the garden, and three voices beneath the window command a mute attention. They are singing one of those lovely compositions which were just then becoming popular in England—the Madrigal, which the Flemings invented, the Italians cultivated, and which a few years after reached its perfection in our own country. The beautiful interlacings of the harmony, its "fine bindings and strange closes,”* its points, each emulating the other, but each in its due place and proportion, required scientific skill as well as voice and ear. But the young men who sang the madrigal were equal to their task. There was one who listened till his heart throbbed and his eyes were wet with tears; for he was lifted above the earth by thoughts which he afterwards expressed in lines of wondrous loveli ness: "How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank! Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st, Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins: Such harmony is in immortal souls; But whilst this muddy vesture of decay Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it." + "old The madrigal ceased; but the spirit of harmony which had been thus evoked was not allowed to be overlaid by ruder merriment. Watkin's Ale,' and 'The Carman's Whistle,' 'Peg-a-Ramsay,' Three merry men we be,' and 'Heartease,' were reserved for another occasion, when a fresh "stoup of wine" might be loudly called for, and the jolly company might roar out their "coziers' catches without any mitigation or remorse of voice." But there was many an and antique song," full of elegance and tenderness, to be heard that night. We were a musical people in the age of Elizabeth; but our music was no new fashion of the "brisk and giddy-paced times." There was abundant music with which the people were familiar, whether sad or lively, quaint or simple. There was many an air not to be despised by the nicest taste, of which it might be said, "It is old and plain : The spinsters and the knitters in the sun, And the free maids that weave their thread with bones, Do use to chant it; it is silly sooth, And dallies with the innocence of love, Like the old age." § 1 Morley's Treatise: 1597. † Merchant of Venice, Act v., Scene I. |