112

situated on a rocky eminence, close by the border of the lake. The ceremonial was very simple, being that of the Protestant Church, and the behaviour of the people was highly decorous. They were decently dressed; but what more particularly strikes the eye of a stranger is the circumstance of the greater proportion of the men wearing no coats, their place being supplied by a jacket or waistcoat without sleeves, leaving the arm to be covered by the shirt or under-vest. The women sit all together, as likewise the men. During prayer the latter cover their faces with their hats, but put them on while the sermon is delivered at particular parts of the service, however, they instantly uncover, as when (if I mistake not) the Lord's Prayer is repeated. The clergyman wore a black gown, and exterior to the neckcloth a ruff or frill of ample dimensions encircled the neck. One or two children were baptised. The minister receives the child from the mother, who stands on one side of the baptismal font, baptises it, and then hands it over to the father standing on the other. I sat in one of the great seats or stalls near the pulpit, next a stout gentleman, who spoke to me after leaving the Church. My knowledge of German being extremely scanty, I had some difficulty in making him understand to what country I belonged; at last the word Scotland seemed to give him some clue to find it out; for he exclaimed, ein Schotlander, and shook me by the hand. I took the drift of his observations to be,." Scotland is a fine country, it is like Switzerland." At the conclusion of the service, the men remain seated, till the women retire.

The peasantry go through their military exercise in the afternoon,—a practice which must be hurtful to their moral and religious feelings. In the evening the solemn calm of the hallowed day, which is only disturbed by the distant roar of the torrent of the Giespach, was broken by shouting and the firing of guns,-the Alpine solitudes re-echoed the sounds, even as if inanimate nature was astonished at man's daring mockery of his Maker.

Next morning before breakfast, I crossed the lake to visit the cascade of the Giesbach. It is a most beautiful waterfall. There are two falls, one about 300, and the other about 200 fect. About 10 o'clock A. M. I bade farewell to the village of Brientz.

[Feb.

With respect to the dress of the females, I may observe that I thought it more singular than handsome. Their holiday apparel consists of a small black cap upon the crown of the head; the younger women, however, may go uncovered, I rather think; the hair sometimes nicely plaited, hangs down the back; the arms are covered to about the middle of the fore-arm; a sort of waistcoat covers the chest, but the waist is of such fearful latitude, that I am sure, if some of my fair countrywomen beheld it, they would laugh right heartily. I believe this neighbourhood is rather famous for its music; what I heard of it seemed wild and simple.

I soon got into the valley of Hasli. Tradition says that the inhabitants of this valley are of Swedish origin; they are said to be a fine race of people; and what is remarkable is that the cultivation of the potatoe was known here before the other inhabitants of the country understood it. I remarked what is peculiar in the dress of the women; a red handkerchief tied round the head, and another on the breast. Proceeding up the valley, I passed the little town of Meyringhen on the left, saw the Falls of the Reichenbach at a distance; and arriving at the sequestered hamlet called Imhop, there dined. Soon after passing the waterfalls, the valley begins to contract, and becomes wilder as you advance.

Having again started, we at length reached the village of Guttannen, a most secluded spot. My guide pointed out the "modest mansion" of the clergyman, a plain wooden house with a little garden; his situation must be peculiarly solitary in the depth of winter, surrounded by high mountains and wreaths of snow, with no man of his own standing in society near him. The humble auberge is built of wood. The lower parts of the houses are frequently built of stone, and the upper of wood.

My guide-book says of Guttannen, "the weary traveller will find in this place a tolerably good inn, and very obliging people. I was comfortable, and would beg to observe that many perhaps of our English waiters might learn a lesson of true civility from the poor inmates of this lowly roof. When night came on, the moon shed a cold and clear light on the mountains, and "Silence claimed her evening reign." Clifton, Feb. 14. J.S.M.

114

In short, the figures answer to the description given by Sir Wm. d'Avenant, in his poem called "The Long Vacation in London;" where, describing the shooting matches made between the attorneys and proctors, he says that,

"Each with soleinn oath agree

To meet in Fields of Finshurie :
With loynes in canvas bow-case tyde;
Where arrowes sticke with mickle pride:
With hats pin'd up, and bow in hand,
All day most fiercely there they stand,
Like ghosts of Adam Bell* & Clymme,-
Sol sets for fear they'll shoot at him."

At the foot of the tree lies another braced bow, and a shaft with a forked pile (the form of the broad or war-arrow head). This shaft cannot, from the usual length of a long-bow, and the relative proportion which the arrows under the belt bear to the figure, be less than a cloth yard in length; thus confirming the statement of the Chronicles relative to the power of English bowmen. Hall tells us that at the battle of Blackheath in Kent, fought in the year 1496, the Cornish archers of the rebel party, who defended the high road at Deptford Bridge, by which the main body of the King's army were to pass to the assault, shot arrows "in length a full yarde." The feats of the 'long bow" have, however, grown into a proverbial term for any exaggeration; and it might be doubted from the ordinary length of a man's arm, whether an arrow exceeding 32 inches in length could be drawn to the head; a principal point in good and effective archery. I have, however, a memorandum by me, that I saw in 1825, at the ancient mansion of Cothele, upon the Cornish side of the Tamar, some arrows, which I conceived to be old English, three feet two inches in length. It is rather a remarkable coincidence with the Chronicler above cited, that

[Feb.

these long arrows should be extant in Cornwall. The heads were not barbed, they were solid pyramidal pieces of steel. The shafts appeared to be made of beech, or some light wood, were now without feathers, and the nocks were not guarded with horn. The arrows shewn in Trinity College Library, Cambridge, as being from Bosworth Field, are merely the well-known Indian reed arrows; but they answer their purpose for a showman's wonder. The largest modern arrows which I have seen are from Ghent in Flanders, and are 30 inches in length; they are very light, having piles of horn; their weight is 3 dwts. 6 grains each.

The old version of the ballad of Chevy Chace, which bears indisputable internal evidence of being composed in the fourteenth century, has this passage: "An arow that a cloth yarde was lang

To the hard stele haled he,

A dynt that was both sad and soar He sat on Sir Hewe the Mongonbyrry. The dynt yt was both sad and soar That he of Mongonbyrry sete, The swane fethars that his arrow hare With his hart blode they were wet." Having dismissed the observation on the length of the arrow of antiquity, we may incidentally observe that the swan feathers with which it was described to be furnished in the older somewhat more than a century later, ballad of Chevy Chace, in that written are exchanged for those of the goose : "Against Sir Hugh Montgomerye So right the shaft he sett,

The grey goose wing that was therein In his hart's bloode was wett." Ascham, in his delightfully written little treatise on Archery, "Toxophilus, the Schole or Partitions of Shooting," (a book which, by the way, appears to have been the model on which Walton wrote his Angler,) could not forbear, as an archer and a scholar, from breaking out into an eulogy on the utility of the goose:

“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 warre and in peace; sleep

+ Hall's Chron. reprint, p. 479.

Reliques of Ancient English Poetry.

1832.]

inge and wakinge. What prayse so ever is geven to shootinge, the goose may challenge the best part in it. How well dothe she make a man fare at his table! How easilye doth she make a man lye in his bedde! How fit, even as her feathers be only for shootinge, so be her quills only fit for writinge."

In the time of Chaucer, the favourite mode of feathering arrows seems to have been from the pinion of the peacock. Of the English yeoman, he says, "A sheafe of peacock arrows, bright & keen, "Under his belt he bare full thriftily."+

The bows in this wood-cut appear to be of much the same length with the modern long-bow, that is, about five feet eight or ten inches, when unbent; the staves are rounded, and seem to be nocked at either end with horn. The bend about as high as pre

scribed by the known archers' rule, which is, that the fist being placed on the inside of the bow, at the middle, the thumb, extended in a line perpendicular to the edge of the hand, should touch the string.

Mr. William Wood, who is mentioned as the distributor of the tickets, and receiver of the purchase-money for them, was a celebrated archer in his day, and was Marshal or Captain of the Corps of Archers, which was attached to the Artillery Company. The Society of Finsbury Archers were distinct from that body, they seem, by the document before us, to have been an assemblage of all persons, lovers of the manly exercise of archery, in and about the city of London, and to have been invited as to a sort of archers' festival, to shoot at the target placed at the distance of 220 yards, in the New Artillery Ground. The best derivation of the term Artillery seems to be from the French arc tirer or arc tirerie, and in its original import it had no relation whatever to great guns. The applica

tion of the word to ordnance is a singular instance of the accidental perversion of terms. Wood was the editor of the tract entitled,

"The Bowman's Glory, or Archery Revived; giving an account of the many signal favours vouchsafed to Archers and Archery by those renowned monarchs Henry VIII. King James and Charles I., as by their several gracious commissions here recited may appear; with a brief relation of the manner of the Archers marching on several days of

Ascham's Toxophilus.

+ Prologue to Cant. Tales.

115

solemnity. Published by William Wood, Marshal of the Regiment of Archers.-London, printed by S. R. and are to be sold by Edw. Gough at Cow Cross. 1682."

By the documents contained in this work, may be traced the origin of the Artillery Company. The patent of Henry VIII., dated at Westminster, anno regni 29, and given at length in the tract, is addressed "to our trusty and well beloved subgettys, Sir Crystofer Morres knyght, mayster of our ordenauncys, Anthony Knevett, and Peter Mewtas, gentlemen of our prevy chambre, overseers of the fraternitye constitutes them overseers of the Scyor guylde of Saynt George," and it ence of Artyllery, that ys, to wyt, for Longbowes, Crosbowes, and Handgonnes; perpetual succession; allows them to constitutes them a body corporate with use a common seal; gives them licence to shoot with their longbows, crossbows, and hand-gonnes, at all manner of marks and butts, and at the game of popinjay, and at all sorts of wild fowl and game, except within the royal parks, warrens, and chaces, at herons and pheasants within two without especial warrant, and except The servants or private members are miles of royal manors and residences. restrained from these privileges. Liberty is granted to the guild to use any cognizance of embroidery or silver

on their coats.

Moreover, whenever any of the masters or commonalty of the Society shooting at a known and accustomed. mark, "shall have pronounced and openly spoken" the usual archer's word "fast," and after such word spoken any person passing shall chance by misadventure to be slain, they shall not be impeached or troubled in any way for such mischance. These letters patent passed the great seal without fine or fee. Such was the favour

shown to the practice of archery.

When the Artillery Company added to its ranks musqueteers and cannoneers, in compliance with the changes in the modes of offensive warfare, the Society of St. George on which they ers' division. In course of time, this were engrafted, still formed the Arch

Mrs. Bray, in her Letters from the Netherlands, has given an interesting description of the solemnities of this game, as still practised by the Archers of Ghent.Memoirs of the late C. A. Stothard, F.S.A. p. 374.