The following description of an archer, his bow, and accoutrements, is given in a MS. written in the time of Queen Elizabeth. "Captains and officers should be skilful of that most noble weapon, and to see that their soldiers according to their draught and strength have good bowes, well nocked, well strynged, every strynge whippe in their nocke, and in the myddes rubbed with wax, braser, and shuting glove, some spare strynges trymed as aforesaid, every man one shefe of arrows, with a case of leather defensible against the rayne, and in the same fower and twentie arrowes, whereof eight of them should be lighter than the residue, to gall or astoyne the enemye with the hail-shot of light arrows, before they shall come within the danger of the harquebuss shot. Let every man have a brigandine, or a little cote of plate, a skull or hufkyn, a mawle of leade of five foote in lengthe, and a pike, and the same hanging by his girdle, with a hook and a dagger; being thus furnished, teach them by musters to marche, shoote, and retire, keepinge their faces upon the enemy's. Sumtyme put them into great nowmbers, as to battell apparteyneth, and thus use them often times practised, till they be perfecte; ffor those men in battel ne skirmish can not be spared. None other weapon maye compare with the same noble weapon." Even in Elizabeth's reign the bow was thought to be more advantageous than the musket; because the latter was at that period very cumbrous, and unskilful in contrivance, while archery had been carried to the highest perfection. Mr. Grose tells us that an archer could formerly shoot six arrows in the time necessary to charge and discharge a musket; and, as a specimen of the aim to be taken, even in modern days, a practised bowman has been known to shoot twelve arrows in a minute, into a circle not larger than the circumference of a man's hat, at the distance of forty yards. [1] Notes by Mr. Grose, the antiquarian, in _Selections from Gentleman's Magazine_, vol. i. In the _Archaeologia_. vol. vi. we find it stated that "Artillery (_artillérie_) is a French term signifying _Archery_, as the king's _bowyer_ is in that language styled _artillier du roy;_ and from that nation the English seem to have learnt at least the cross-bow archery." [2] Grose. [3] Grose. [4] Hist. England, by Sir James Mackintosh, vol. i. [5] Dated from Clarence-terrace, Regent's-park. [6] Vide Grose on Ancient Armour. D'Alembert, Encyclopedie. Art. Arbalette. [7] Maitland's London. * * * * * THE GIPSEY FORTUNE-TELLER. (_For the Mirror_.) Augur only happy days, Gipsey, when thy glancing eye, Fain would dart its piercing rays, Through her future destiny. Life is yet without a shade, She has gathered flowers alone; Tell her not, that roses fade, When the ardent summer's gone.