Fearing. — An Angling Library 65 



middle ages. It contains one chapter on fish and fish- 

 ponds. This is the earliest material on the subject in 

 the library. 



Of almost equal date is the manuscript of Pietro de 

 Crescenze, "Ruralium commodorum," "of rural affairs." 

 This work was produced repeatedly by all the early 

 printers, and indeed, the earliest printed book in the col- 

 lection, is the First Edition of Crescentius, printed by 

 Johan Schuszler in 1471. Another early edition of the 

 same work in the library is one printed in 1474 by the 

 celebrated John of Westphalia, at Louvain, the beauti- 

 ful old seat of learning in Belgium, only recently de- 

 stroyed. This work was very popular in the Middle Ages 

 and was translated into Italian, French and German, 

 and a copy of each is in the collection. Crescenze wrote 

 on fish-ponds and on how to make small ponds and in- 

 land lakes profitable. Books published before 1500 are 

 known as "Incunabula," or "Books in their cradle." 

 The library owns no less than fifteen of these specimens 

 of the early bookmaker's art. First in value, naturally, 

 comes the "Treatyse on the Art of Fysshing with an 

 angle," from the "Book of St. Albans," by the legendary 

 Dame Juliana Berners, and printed by the celebrated 

 Wynkyn de Worde at Westminster, in 1496. This is the 

 first book that treats of angling in the English language. 

 The first printed book to contain an illustration of an 

 angler using a float, was the "Dyalogus Creaturarum 

 Moralizatus," printed at Gouda in 1480. The library 

 contains copies of the 1482 and 1484 editions. 



The earliest known treatise on fishing is a work in 

 Flemish printed at Antwerp in 1492. A single copy 

 only of this work is known to exist. It is in the library 

 of Alfred Denison, who had a literal translation made 

 of it and twenty-five copies printed for private distri- 

 bution in 1872. The library possesses one of the twenty- 

 five copies, also the original manuscript of the transla- 

 tion, together with the corrected proof sheets and re- 

 vised proofs. 



