of tbe 1Rot>, IRtfle, anfc Gun 



contemplative lovers to rede and understand, made by 

 a noble Clerke Piers of Fulham, sometime usher of 

 Venus School, which hath briefly compiled many 

 pretty conceits in love under covert terms of fishing 

 and fowling." 



All we know of Piers of Fulham is contained in 

 his curious poem. From his own showing he must 

 have been a notorious gossip and picker-up of scandal : 



Piers of Fulham was a well-governed man ; 

 He knew the condition of every bride, 

 There was no husband from him hyde. 



How he got his information he does not say 

 possibly he wormed it out of his friends at angling 

 suppers ; in any case he must have been a very un- 

 pleasant person to all his married neighbours. But even 

 admitting that his references to angling are allegorical, 

 he was evidently well versed in the gentle craft. 

 He knows all about "gins and baytes of delyte," 

 " nettys and angle hookys " ; he can tell you how 

 to lay night-lines in "weris and sprenteris [whatever 

 they may be] in narrow brookys." He has a sports- 

 manlike aversion to poaching on his neighbours' 

 preserves, and is a stickler for fair fishing in running 

 rivers that are common to all honest anglers. He 

 knows the habits and habitats of all fresh- water fish, 

 and above all he recognises the attraction of the sport 

 for the " contemplative "thereby forestalling " Father 

 Izaak " in his pet phrase. 



There are four manuscripts of this poem of Piers 

 of Fulham in existence, two at Cambridge and two 



