4 THE IDYL OF THE SPLIT-BAMBOO 



world of mingled riches and poverty, pleasure and 

 pain, of steadfast affections and changing regard; 

 and it possesses a considerable literature, both de- 

 lightful and classical, extending from before the 

 times of Dame Juliana Berners, prioress of Sopwell 

 nunnery, and of its patron saint Izaak Walton, down 

 to the present day. " Bards have sung its praises, 

 traditions have hallowed it, and philosophers have 

 reveled in the gentle pastime, since the days of 

 Oppian and Homer." Need we say here for the 

 enlightenment of anyone that Walton is the immor- 

 tal author of " a discourse on fish and fishing not 

 unworthy the perusal of most anglers," the same 

 being, as another famed angling writer aptly has 

 characterized it, " a conglomeration of fertile mead- 

 ows, crystal brooks, meandering streams, milk-maids' 

 songs, and moral reflections," which down through 

 the years has continued to " prove irresistible." 



Perhaps the reader may now be curious to know 

 something of what the good Dame Berners had to 

 say of " fysshynge ", in the year 1500 A. D. 

 "Dowteles thene folowyth it, that it must be the 

 dysporte of fysshynge with an angle. For all other 

 manere is also laborous, and grevous, whych many 

 tymes hath be seen cause of grete infirmytes. But 

 the angler may have no colde, nor no dysease nor 

 angre, but if he be causer hymself. For he may not 

 lese at the moost but a lyne or an hoke: of whych 

 he may have store plentee of his owne makynge, as 



