8 LITERATURE OF SEA AND RIVER FISHING. 



indeed on all matters connected with fish and fishing. It 

 numbers about 3,000 volumes, and yet does not contain 

 two-thirds of the works (or rather, editions) mentioned 

 in the BibliotJieca Piscatoria. It is hardly necessary to 

 enlarge on the enthusiastic devotion and the long purse 

 required to form such a library, or on its literary value, as 

 it is only in such a collection that the most rare of angling 

 books can be consulted. Collectors now sigh in vain for 

 such volumes, and hunters of old bookstalls and other 

 places which suggest the possible presence of literary 

 treasures have very great difficulty in finding old angling 

 books. The value of these is constantly rising as the 

 search for them increases, and bibliomania becomes more 

 and more of an endemic. Recently the writer considered 

 himself fortunate in picking up one of the volumes by 

 G. M. (Gervase Markham), dated 1653, which includes a 

 dissertation on fishing. Several works and their different 

 editions by that author are not specially scarce ; yet the 

 second edition of his Young Sportsviaii s Delight, &c,, 

 though imperfect, is now worth as many pounds as the 

 first sold for pence in 17 12. The only perfect copy known 

 to be in existence is that in the Denison library. Many 

 of the works in this grand collection are almost priceless. 

 Among others there are two editions of J. D.'s Secrets of 

 Angling, of the second and third of which there are no 

 other copies. When these were sold at Prince's Sale in 1858 

 they fetched £6 and £T) 14-f. respectively; but it would 

 probably require two o's added to the 6 to represent the 

 pounds they would realise now if offered to public com- 

 petition. Mr. Denison once missed another valuable edition 

 of J. D.'s Secrets ; and only an enthusiastic collector can 

 sympathise with the regret he feels at letting slip a chance 

 which may never offer itself again. Only twice in this 



