xxxii INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 



may have been, hitherto, totally unacquainted with 

 Waltonian lore. We allude to a tract, written by 

 Dame Juliana Barnes, Prioress of the Nunnery of 

 Sopewell, near St. Alban's, and entituled The Trea- 

 tyse of Fysshinge with an Angle, being part of a book 

 " known to the curious in typographical antiquities 

 bv the title of the Book of St. Albans. Enprented at 

 Westmestre by Wynkyn de Worde, in 1496, in small 

 Folio ; the book consists of a treatise on Hawking, 

 another on Hunting, which is all in verse ; a book 

 wherein is determined the Lygnage of Cote Armures, 

 the above-mentioned treatise of Fishing, and the 

 method of-Blasynge of Armes." 



The work is now of the most extreme rarity, yet 

 it was, doubtless, well known to Walton, some of 

 whose descriptions may be considered as paraphrastic 

 of the following beautiful passage, setting forth those 

 incidental pleasures of the Angler, which exist quite 

 independently of his taking fish, — he having, 



" Atte the leest his holsom walke, and mery at 

 his ease, a swete ayre of the swete savoure of the 

 meede floures that makyth him hungry ; he hereth 

 the melodyous armony of fowles ; he seeth the 

 yonge swannes, heerons, duckes, cotes, and many 

 other foules, wyth their brodes ; whyche me semyth 

 better than alle the noyse of houndys, the Wastes 

 of hornys, and the cryes of foulis, that hunters, 

 fawkeners, and foulers can make. And if the angler 

 take fysshe, surely then is there noo man merier 

 than he is in his spyryte." 



