A dictionary of sports; or, companion to the field, the forest, and the river side. Containing explanations of every term applicable to racing, shooting, hunting, fishing, hawking, archery, etc. ... With essays upon all national amusements / By Harry Harewood.

  • Harewood, Harry, pseud.?
Date:
1835
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A dictionary of sports; or, companion to the field, the forest, and the river side. Containing explanations of every term applicable to racing, shooting, hunting, fishing, hawking, archery, etc. ... With essays upon all national amusements / By Harry Harewood. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    je 18 ARC seen in this country. It is not the fiery dashing animal I had supposed, but with more rationality about him, and more apparent confidence in his rider, than the majority of English horses.” »See Horse, &c. ARCHED LEGS. A horse is said to have arched legs when his knees are bent arched-wise. This expression applies to the fore quar- ters. In some it is occasioned by over-work, in Brassicourts it is na- tural. ARCHERY. There are but few amusements that are more conducive to health and pleasing associations in their pursuit, than that of archery, which is of so great antiquity, that at what period and by whom first practised is very uncertain. The heathens attributed the invention of the bow to several persons. Pliny says Scytha, a son of Jupiter, by a daughter of Tellus, found it out; others consider Perses, a son of Per- seus and Andromeda, as the inven- tor: but Diodorus Siculus and the majority assign the honour of the discovery to Apollo, who wore a crown of laurel because he excelled every onein shooting and playing on the lyre. The statue of Apollo Bel- videre is supposed by antiquaries to have had a bow in the hand; and the Mythology says Apollo destroyed with arrows the serpent Python, whom Juno had sent to persecute Latona. Certain it is that no in- strument has so generally obtained throughout the earth as the bow. This general prevalence makes it doubtful whether more persons than one may not justly lay claim to the invention as their own: we find it in the remotest parts of Asia, and the most northern of Europe; in Africa, also, itis common. The discoverers of the New World, too, found the bow and arrows among the Ameri- cans. It is not improbable, moreover, that Nimrod knew the use of the bow, considering he was a mighty hunter and a man of war. We are certain that the later patriarchs were ARC not ignorant of it (vide Gen. xxi. 20): “and God was with the lad Ishmael; and he grew, and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer.’ The Grecians, too, were wel] acquainted with these weapons, and their bow (says Montfaugon) was shaped after the letter >. Though we find very little men- tion of the bow in the Roman armies, yet they often employed auxiliary archers in their wars. Domitian, Commodus, and Theodosius were uncommonly dexterous in the use of the bow. There were masters at Rome to teach the art, among whom was T. Flavius Expeditus, whose image Spon has given from a sepul- chral bas relief, where he is called Doctor Sagittarum. Leo ordained that all the youth of Rome should be compelled to use shooting, more or less, and always bear their bow and quiver about with them till they were eleven years old. He also adds: “ We strictly command you to make proclamation to all men under our dominion, which be either in war or peace; to all cities and towns; and, finally, to all manner of men—that every free man have bow and arrows of his own, and every house have a bow and forty arrows for every occasion ; and that they exercise themselves in holts, hills, dales, woods, and plains, to inure them to all the chances of war.” ' The Saxons, according to Verste- gen, first brought the bow into gene- ral use in this country ; and they in all probability derived their know- ledge from the Scythians, who were excellent archers. Camden thus speaks of this fasci- nating art:—‘ Amongst all the Eng- lish artillery, archery challengeth the preeminency as peculiar to our nation, as the sarissa was to the Macedonians; the gesa to the old Gauls; the framea to the Germans; the machera to the Greeks; first showed to the English by the Danes ; brought in by the Normans, and con- tinued by their successors to the