atigue of study. His favourite amusement was archery,
in which he spent, or, in the opinion of others, lost so much time,
that those whom either his faults or virtues made his enemies, and,
perhaps, some whose kindness wished him always worthily employed, did
not scruple to censure his practice, as unsuitable to a man professing
learning, and, perhaps, of bad example in a place of education.

To free himself from this censure was one of the reasons for which he
published, in 1544, his Toxophilus, or the Schole or Partitions of
Shooting, in which he joins the praise with the precepts of archery.
He designed not only to teach the art of shooting, but to give an
example of diction more natural and more truly English than was used
by the common writers of that age, whom he censures for mingling
exotick terms with their native language, and of whom he complains,
that they were made authors, not by skill or education, but by
arrogance and temerity.

He has not failed in either of his purposes. He has sufficiently
vindicated archery as an innocent, salutary, useful, and liberal
diversion; and if his precepts are of no great use, he has only shown,
by one example among many, how little the hand can derive from the
mind, how little intelligence can conduce to dexterity. In every art,
practice is much; in arts manual, practice is almost the whole:
precept can, at most, but warn against errour; it can never bestow
excellence.

The bow has been so long disused, that most English readers have
forgotten its importance, though it was the weapon by which we gained
the battle of Agincourt; a weapon which, when handled by English
yeomen, no foreign troops were able to resist. We were not only abler
of body than the French, and, therefore, superiour in the use of arms,
which are forcible only in proportion to the strength with which they
are handled, but the national practice of shooting for pleasure or for
prizes, by which every man was inured to archery from his infancy,
gave us insuperable advantage, the bow requiring more practice to
skilful use than any other instrument of offence.

Firearms were then in their infancy; and though battering-pieces had
been some time in use, I know not whether any soldiers were armed with
hand-guns when the Toxophilus was first published. They were soon
after used by the Spanish troops, whom other nations made haste to
imitate; but how little they could yet effect, will be understood from
the acco