1 First ed.: London, 1545 (STC No. 837). Ryan, Lawrence V., in Roger Ascham (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, and London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1963)Google Scholar, provides a bibliographical summary for this book (p. 49) and devotes considerable space to its analogues and progeny. The standard Ascham bibliography is Samuel, A. and Tannenbaum, Dorothy R., Roger Ascham: A Concise Bibliography, Elizabethan Bibliographies, No. 37 (New York: Samuel A. Tannenbaum, 1946).Google Scholar I use William Aldis Wright's one-volume edition of the English Works of Roger Ascham (1904; rpt. Cambridge, England: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1970) for all quotations (noting page numbers only) from Toxophilus, A Report of the Affaires and State of Germany and The Scholemaster. I have silently expanded abbreviations; modern typographical conventions have been adopted in respect to the use of i/j and u/v.

2 Ascham corresponded for nearly twenty years with the classical scholar and teacher of Strassburg Johann Sturm, whom he never met. Ascham's correspondence, in Latin, is collected by Giles, J. A., ed., in The Whole Works of Roger Ascham, 3 vols, in 4 (London: John Russell Smith, 1864-65)Google Scholar, and translated into English by Maurice A. Hatch, ‘The Ascham Letters: An Annotated Translation of the Latin Correspondence Contained in the Giles Edition of Ascham's Works,’ Diss. Cornell 1948; hereafter cited as ‘Giles’ and ‘Hatch.’ This fine translation, with its useful notes, was published by Kentucky Univ. Press Microcards, Series A, No. 19 (PR 2201), sponsored by the SAMLA.

3 December 1568. Hatch, p. 879. Giles, II, 181: ‘Si vero optarem ipse fieri alter CICERO, (et optare quidem nefas non est,) ut fierem, et qua ratione fierem, quern potius ad consilium mihi adhiberem, quam ipsum CICERONEM?’ A useful discussion of Ascham's Ciceronianism is found in Vos, Alvin, ‘The Formation of Roger Ascham's Prose Style,’ Studies in Philology, 61, no. 3 (July 1974), 344–370.Google Scholar

4 ‘Life of Roger Ascham’ [attributed to Samuel Johnson] in The English Works of Roger Ascham, ed. James Bennet (London, 1761), p. vi.

5 See the suggestive essay by Greene, Thomas M., ‘Roger Ascham: The Perfect End of Shooting,’ ELH, 36, no. 4 (December 1969), 609–625.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 A description of the ideal model of perfect eloquence is sought in the Orator (Locb ed., ii, 7-8), De Optimo Genere Oratorum (1, 3), and De Oratore (i, 118).

7 P. 85. I have been unable to discover whether a particular debate is referred to here; the matter seems to pertain to Ockham or Scotus. The reference reminds the reader of the academic curriculum, with its daily practice in logic and rhetoric (from which the present dialogue is a respite!).

8 See Hubbell, H. M., tr., Cicero: De Inventione … , Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, and London: Heinemann, 1949), p. 4.Google Scholar

9 P. 73. Ryan suggests a parallel between Wilson's triads of topics and the three divisions typical of a treatise on sport. These divisions are traceable to Xenophon, the father of the practical treatise, whom Cheke had taught Ascham to admire; see Ryan, p. 69.

10 See Ascham's first letter to Sturm (Hatch, p. 329; Giles, 1, 187).

11 Hettler, Alfred, Roger Ascham: sein Stil und seine Beziehung zur Antike (Elberfeld, 1915). PP. 28ff.Google Scholar; cited and supported by Ryan, pp. 75f.

12 Vol. 4 (1821), 80. The incident is recorded in The Scholemaster and in a letter to Sturm (see Ryan, p. 313, n. 2).

13 Toxophilus refers to Phaedrus, 246c, not, as Ryan notes, to the passage ‘246E.’ With one exception, I use Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns's edition, The Collected Dialogues of Plato including the Letters, Bollingen Series 71 (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1961).

14 Jowett's rendering of this sentence.

15 Giles's translation, I, xl; the Latin is found in I, 52. Ascham calls his book literally ‘de re Sagittaria.’ Edward Grant, in his ‘Oratio de Vita et Obitu Rogeri Aschami…’ (1576), rpt. in Giles, III, 317, calls it ‘De arte sagittaria’.

16 ‘Observatio quaedam est, … earum rerum, quae in dicendo valent; quae si eloquentes facere posset, quis esset non eloquens? … Sed ego in his praeceptis hanc vim et hanc utilitatem esse arbitror, non ut ad reperiendum, quid dicamus, arte ducamur, sed ut ea quae natura, quae studio, quae exercitatione consequimur, aut recta esse confidamus aut prava intellegamus, cum, quo referenda sint, didicerimus.’

17 P. 99. Cf. De Oratore, l, 149-151.

18 Gertrude E. Noyes, in ‘A Study of Roger Ascham's Literary Citations with Particular Reference to His Knowledge of the Classics,’ Diss. Yale 1937, p. 247, notes that this passage in Brutus (xci, 316) is echoed in Toxophilus (p. 98).

19 Elyot is often regarded as Ascham's direct source for the subject of shooting. In the final chapter of Book 1 of The Governour (ed. H. H. S. Croft, 2 vols. [London: Kegan Paul, 1883], 1, 286 and 305), Elyot asserts ‘That shotyng in a longe bowe is principall of all other exercises’ concluding that ‘it incomparably excelleth all other exercise, passetyme, or solace.’ Elyot appears in Ascham's dialogue (p. 53) as an acquaintance of Toxophilus’ who is cited as an authority for the origin of shooting in England. Moreover, Ascham is probably invoking the authority of Elyot when he says in the preface to Toxophilus (p. xv): ‘If any man woulde blame me, eyther for takynge such a matter in hande, or els for writing it in the Englyshe tongue, this answere I maye make hym, that whan the beste of the realme thinke it honest for them to use, I one of the meanest sorte, ought not to suppose it vile for me to write… .’

20 See, e.g., in The Education of a Christian Prince, tr. Lester K. Born (1936; rpt. New York: W. W. Norton, 1968), pp. 162-172.

21 The importance of the theme of trust is further emphasized by the dramatic placement of Philologus’ one-line response (just cited) between two lengthy speeches by Toxophilus.

22 English Prose: Selections, 4 vols. (New York and London: Macmillan, 1893-95), 1, 269.

23 René Wellek and Austin Warren argue the value of distinguishing ‘the world view which emerges from the work … [from] the view didactically stated by the author within or without the work’ (Theory of Literature, 3rd ed. [New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1962], pp. 245f.). I have borrowed several terms from their chapter on ‘Evaluation.’

24 This congruency is high in Ascham's scale of perfection. In A Report and Discourse of the Affaires and State of Germany, he expresses admiration for Albert, Margrave of Brandenburg: ‘when he talketh he so frameth hys toung to agree with hart, as speakyng and meanyng seemeth to be alwayes at one in hym’ (p. 147). Maurice, Duke of Saxony, is also praised for his belief that ‘wordes should be so framed with the toung, as they be alwayes ment in the hart’ (p. 155).

25 Greene, ‘Roger Ascham: The Perfect End of Shooting,’ p. 620, remarks that the skill of shooting ‘possesses a moral dimension as well. But the skill is discerned in operation, not in mere potentiality: it is demonstrated by hitting the mark.’

26 Greene, pp. 620f., has illustrated the depth of meaning in Ascham's use of this word in Toxophilus. Several more far-reaching aspects of ‘comeliness’ should be recorded. Ascham maintains in the ‘Euphues’ section of The Scholemaster (pp. 194f.) that comeliness in the speaking voice, and even in the human face, enhances eloquence, gives power to what is taught : ‘ … surelie, a cumlie countenance, with a goodlie stature, geveth credit to learning, and authoritie to the person… .’ Ascham was constantly sensitive to the didactic application of aesthetic beauty. To John Aylmer, Lady Jane Grey's tutor and later Bishop of London, Ascham wrote of the eloquence of the countenance of his pupil, Princess Elizabeth. ‘I teach her words,’ he said, ‘and she teaches me things. I teach her the tongues to speak, and her modest and maidenly looks teach me works to do… .’ Cited by Coleridge, Hartley, ‘Memoir of Roger Ascham,’ Northern Worthies (1833), rpt. in Mayor, John E. B., ed., The Scholemaster (London: Bell, 1934), p. 18.Google Scholar

27 See Plato, Republic, iv, 444e; v, 452e; Symposium, 201c et seq., 204e et seq.

28 Cf. Elyot's ‘hole quiar synging in one tune’ (Of the Knowledge Which Maketh a Wise Man, ed. Edwin Johnston Howard [Oxford, Ohio: Anchor Press, 1946], p. 32). In neither Ascham nor Elyot do we find the possibility of a duplicitous comeliness in the figure of honor, which Spenser would exploit in the cases of Guyon and Philotime and Arthur and Prays-desire.

29 See pp. 85 and 105. Early in the dialogue Toxophilus asserts that ‘comparisons… make playne matters’ (p. 22), and later he equates comparison with ‘honeste contention’ or what we would call competition, which leads to victory, pleasure, and excellence (p. 57). The discussion of shooting as a heteropathic medicine (pp. 30f.) is further evidence of Ascham's thoroughgoing belief in the efficacy of contraries.

30 Intellectual imperfection is easier to conceal. Ascham heatedly contrasts shooting in broad daylight with the deceitful play with cards and dice in dark corners. The surprising vehemence of his attack on this vice no doubt arises in part from the fact that it involves deliberate deception of the judgment.

31 Cf. Ne sutor ultra crepidam (‘Shoemaker, stick to your last’) in Erasmus, Adagia; More's ‘Mery Gest’ is also based on this wisdom. Ascham alludes to the adage later in this speech.

32 In The Scholemaster, pp. 202ff., Ascham compares the schoolmaster, the governor, and the father—‘Praeceptore, Paedagogo, Parente.’ On p. 220 he warns the ‘great ones in the Court’ that they are responsible for ‘all misorders in Religion… .’ He goes so far as to assert that he who cannot like ‘ Tullie in Rhetoricke and Eloquence’ will probably presume to mislike ‘greater matters: that is either in Religion, to have a dissentious head, or in the common wealth, to have a factious hart’ (pp. 243f.).

33 April 4, 1550. Hatch, pp. 336f.; Giles, 1, 192. The letter was written with a view to publication, so that its compliments may be suspected of self-interest. ‘Ascham was always on the alert for chances to benefit himself,’ Hatch notes (p. 339), ‘but one can hardly believe that he was entirely selfish.’ The same might be said of his letter to Cheke, dated February 12, 1548 (Giles, 1, 160-162; excerpted in English, lvi-lvii), which also praises Elizabeth.

34 Grant's full title is: ‘Oratio de Vita et Obitu Rogeri Aschami, ad Adolescentulos Latinae Linguae Studiosos’ (Giles, III, 294-355). m Coleridge's ‘Memoir’ (in The Scholemaster, ed. Mayor) see especially pp. 9 and 38.

35 April 11, 1562. Hatch, p. 715; Giles, II, 67. The ring was carried by a mutual friend, Michael Schütz, who had adopted the name Toxites.

36 The Scholemaster, pp. 267f.