If I be praise-worthy, esteeme me:
if necessary, admit me: if profitable, employ me: so shall you
reuoke my death to life, and shew your selues no degenerate issue
of such honourable Progenitours. And thus much for Archery,
whose tale, if it be disordered, you must beare withall, for she
is a woman, & her mind is passionate.
And to giue you some taste of the Cornish mens former sufficiency
that way: for long shooting, their shaft was a cloth yard, their
pricks 24. score: for strength, they would pierce any ordinary
armour: and one master Robert Arundell (whom I well knew) could shoot
12. score, with his right hand, with his left, and from behinde
his head.
Lastly, for neere and well aimed shooting, Buts made them perfect in
the one, and rouing in the othe: for prickes, the first corrupter of
Archery, through too much precisenesse, were then scarcely knowne,
and little practised. And in particular, I haue heard by credible
report of those, who professed and protested themselues to haue bene
eye-witnesses, that one Robert Bone of Antony shot at a little bird,
sitting upon his cowes back, and killed it, the bird (I meane) not
the cowe; which was either very cunning in the performance, or very
foolish in the attempt.
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