Poetical allusions — Chancer, Spenser 159 



mentioned which are useful in affording food for 

 swine. 



Chaucer' has the followino- lines on the method 

 of shootinor : — 



o 



'T' enlarge his breath (large breath in amies needful), 

 Or else by wrestling to wex strong and heedful, 

 Or his stiffe amies to stretch with eiighen bow, 

 And manly legs still passing to and fro.' 



Spenser - thus alludes to archery : — 



' Long he them bore above the subject plaine, 

 So far as eughcn bow a shaft may send, 

 Till struggling strong did him at last constraine 

 To let them downe before his fiightes end.' 



One of the earliest English writers on this 

 subject was Roger Ascham, who published in 1545 

 his Toxophilus, from which quotations will be found 

 in the chapter on bows. 



Chaucer also refers to the yew among other 



trees : ^ — 



' With many high lorer and pyn 

 Was renged clene all that gardyn ; 

 With cipres and with oliveres, 

 Of which that nigh no plente here is. 

 There were elmes grete and stronge, 

 Maples, asshe, ook, asp, planes longe, 

 Fyn ew, popler and lindes faire. 

 And other trees ful many a payre.' 



Mr. Francis T. Palgrave, in his charming Land- 



^ Mother Hubbard's Talc. " Faerie Queene, B. i. c. xi. 19 ; i. 8, 9. 



•* Koniaiiut of the Rose. 



