56 LITERATURE OF SEA AND RIVER FISHING. 



descriptions of, and instructions on, almost every conceiv- 

 able country business and recreation, dissertations on 

 physic, chyrurgery, cookery, brewing, horticulture, book- 

 keeping, distilling, " ordering of feasts," the enrichment of 

 the Weald in Kent — cum innltis aliis quce nunc describere 

 lo}igum est. 



It is very probable that Markham received some ex- 

 traneous help in the composition of some of his treatises ; 

 but presuming them to be his own productions, let us take 

 one or two specimens of his style. For example — 



" Since Pleasure is a Rapture, or power in this last Age, stolne 

 into the hearts of men, and there lodged up with such a carefull 

 guard and attendance, that nothing is more supreme, or ruleth 

 with greater strength in their affections, and since all are now 

 become the sounes of Pleasure, and every good is measured by 

 the delight it produceth ; what worke unto men can be more 

 thankfull then the Discourse of that pleasure which is most comely, 

 most honest, and giveth the most liberty to Divine Meditation ? 

 And that without all question is the Art of Angling, which having 

 ever bin most hurtlessly necessary, hath bin the Sport or Recrea- 

 tion of God's Saints, of most holy Fathers, and of many worthy 

 and Reverend Divines, both dead, and at this time breathing." 



Our author's ideal of an angler is a very high one. He 

 must be, to use a common expression, a superlatively 

 " good all-round man ''—ad omnia paratns. 



" A skilfull Angler ought to be a generall scholler, and scene in 

 all the liberall sciences, as a grammarian, to know how either to 

 write or discourse of his art in true and fitting termes, either 

 without affectation or rudeness. Hee should have sweetness of 

 speech to perswade and intice others to delight in an exercise 

 so much laudable. Hee should have strength of arguments to 

 defend and maintaine his profession against envy or slander. 

 Hee should have knowledge in the sunne, moone, and starres, 

 that by their aspects hee may guesse the season ableness, or 



