" The Treaty se of FyssJiynger 1 3 



It is evident that Hawkins obtained this 

 information about Dame Juliana Berners 

 from Oldys. 



Mr. William Blades, in his most in- 

 teresting "Introduction" to Mr. Elliot 

 Stock's very fine facsimile reprint (1881) 

 of The Boke of St. Albans^ devotes some 

 pages to the work of demolishing the 

 claims which for over a century have been 

 made on behalf of Dame Juliana Berners 

 by biographers and editors of the cele- 

 brated Boke. He says there is " not the 

 shadow of evidence " that she wrote The 

 Treaty se of Fysshynge, and " not a particle 

 of evidence that she ever presided over 

 the nunnery of Sopwell " ; and yet Mr. 

 Blades appears to think that she existed, 

 for on another page he says, " that the 

 greater portion of the. book on Hunting 

 was compiled by Mistress Barnes is pro- 

 bably correct." But whoever gave us the 

 treatise of fishing makes no claim to 

 have written it. He or she distinctly 

 says, " I have compyled it." Mr. Van 

 Siclen, who edited an American re- 

 print, thinks it may have been written by 

 Dame Juliana, because only a woman could 

 have given such directions for making 

 a rod, and that no man could have beerr 

 guilty of " so delightful a non sequitur in 

 many of the arguments " ; which, as 



