42 LITERATURE OF SEA AND RIVER FISHING. 



health to both body and soul ; not to take too many persons 

 in theh- company, so that they may " not be let of their 

 game " or prevented " servhig God devoutly in saying 

 affectuously their customable prayer;" and, lastly, they 

 are not to be " too ravenous in taking game," or " to take 

 too much at one time," which they " might lightly do, if in 

 every point they do as this present treatise showeth them." 

 With a final injunction to anglers, that they "nourish the 

 game," and " destroy all such things as be devourers of it," 

 she assures them that " if they do after this rule they shall 

 have the blessing of God and St. Peter." 



Whether " Mrs. Barnes " is entitled to the appellation of 

 the " Diana of the English," and " this Rosa Bonhcur of 

 mediaeval literature," with which Mr. Adams, in one of the 

 Fisheries Handbooks, compliments her, though perhaps 

 somewhat ironically, readers of the Treatyse must decide 

 for themselves. They will certainly find in its quaint pages 

 an ample fund of amusement. 



But though the introduction of printing on the Continent, 

 and the appearance of an English book on angling only a 

 little more than twenty years after Caxton set up his 

 printing press in Westminster, might have been thought 

 likely to have soon called forth an abundance of piscatory 

 literature, this was hardly the case. Among foreign 

 authors of the sixteenth century on fish and fishing we 

 find Dubravius, Bishop of Olmutz, who wrote on fish and 

 fishponds in 1552 ; Heresbach, who, in 1594, published his 

 four books on Rustic Occupations, one of which, on fishing, 

 has been translated by Mr. Westwood in the Anglers Note 

 Book of 1880 ; and others who followed much in their line. 

 The names of Sannazarius the Italian poet, Olaus Magnus 

 Archbishop of Upsala, Salviani, Ongaro, and Villifranci 

 occur to the bibliographer ; also those of Gcsncr and 



