REVIEWS 497 



Like his prey, the author is often lured into many devious byways, shady 

 nooks and sunny corners, but, Hke the Pied Piper, he lures pleasantly his 

 readers after him. 



In olden days it was a " far cry to Loch Awe," more recently as far, or 

 further, to Tipperary ; but when Mr. Rad cliff e gets his readers on the trail he 

 paces them leisurely round the globe, and not only by the watery parts of it- 

 ransacking with purposeful patience, and brightly commenting upon, the 

 archives of Greece and Rome, of Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, Palestine, India, 

 China, Japan, the country of the Aztecs, with peeps, en passant, at the recently 

 discovered frescoes in the caves of Palaeolithic and Neolithic man. He brings 

 to light much that is of interest to the antiquary and folklorist and he explodes 

 not a few common but erroneous beliefs. He exonerates Dr. Johnson from 

 being the fons et origo of the saying about the " fool " and the " worm " ; 

 frees Plutarch, who has been accused of despising fishing, from any such stain 

 on his character, but, lest "all men should speak well "of fishermen, he reminds 

 us that Plato and Byron did not admire them. Again, he shows the origin 

 and purpose of the;«s primes noctis — for he gets queer fish in his net at times — 

 like its analogue the mercheta niulientm, so frequent in charters, to be nothing 

 more dangerous to chastity than a tax originating in the Church's desire 

 partly to encourage continence, and partly to take under its aegis a practice 

 of continence in vogue, and traced to the days of Tobias mentioned in the 

 Vulgate version of the Book of Tobit, where the reference would suggest an 

 earlier origin, probably also religious. Yet the popular error is hydra-headed, 

 and though it has been dealt with at different times (e.g. Archcsologia Scotica, 

 vol. iii, p. 64) it appears in our own day in one of the stories by Neil Munro. 



Mr. Radcliffe claims for Martial of the Epigrams the honour of " the very 

 first mention of a fishing-fly." It occurs in Book V, Ep. xvii : 

 " Odi dolosas munerum et malas artes. 

 Imitantur hamos dona. Namque quis nescit 

 Avidum vorata decipi Scarum musca." 

 It is difficult to understand why, when the MSS. themselves read vorata . . . 

 musca, so many editors of highest repute, though by no means all, read 

 vorato . . . musco. Had there been a MS. reading musco, one might suppose 

 that, according to the canon of textual criticism, proclivi lectioni prcBstat 

 ardua, editors might choose musco, especially as vorata is a somewhat 

 heavy word to go with musca. They might also be influenced by the fact 

 that we have no mention, in the notices of various crafts, of any artificial 

 fly-makers, although Quis nescit would imply a prevalent use of that lure. 

 But as evidently none of the MSS. gives musco, which, as a conjecture, is but 

 shakily supported by information derived from Pliny and Athenaeus, who, in 

 turn, derive from Aristotle, and as the point of the epigram is rather enhanced 

 by the reading musca, Mr. Radcliffe's reasoning would appear to be sound. 



He thinks and searches for himself, not accepting without proof the ipse 

 dixit of even Paley, and if classical editors shrug their shoulders at this little 

 parody — " Nor do these Olympian editors, who sit beside their proof-sheets, 

 and whose notes are hurled far below them in the valley, condescend to explain 

 to us poor gropers after light how moss to a sea-fish like the Scarus can be of 

 value as food " — they can anathematise him in the words of the Accadian 

 folk-saw : 



" Thou dost evil, — 

 To the Everlasting Sea 

 Thou shalt go." 

 But then, as Mr. Radcliffe, at the beginning of his book, adopts the wish of 

 Andrew "of the brindled hair" — 



" Grant that in the shades below 

 My ghost may land the ghosts of fish," 

 they will all be satisfied. 



