LIFE OF WALTON. 



to be an original, it will be necessary for him to take a 

 view of the state of angling at the time when he wrote ; 

 and that he may be the better able to do this, he will 

 consider, that, till the time of the Reformation, although 

 the clergy, as well regular as secular on account of 

 their leisure, and because the canon law forbad them 

 the use of the sanguinary recreations of hunting, hawk- 

 ing, and fowling we re the great proficients in angling, 

 yet none of its precepts were committed to writing ; 

 and that, from the time of the introduction of print- 

 ing into this kingdom, to that of the first publication of 

 Walton's book, in 1653, an interval of more than one 

 hundred and fifty years, only five books on this subject 

 had been given to the world : of the four latest, some 

 mention is made in the margin*; but the first of that 

 number, as well on account of its quaintness as antiquity, 

 and because it is not a little characteristic of the age 

 when it was written, deserves to be particularly distin- 

 guished. This tract, intitled, The Treatise of Fys- 

 shynge wyth an Anglc^ makes part of a book, like 



* " A booke of fishing with hooke and line, and of all other instru- 

 " ments thereunto belonging. Another of sundrie engines and traps to 

 l< take polecats, buzzards, rats, mice, and all other kinds of vermine and 

 " beasts whatsoever, n\ost profitable for all warriners, and such as delight 

 M in this kind of sport and pastime, Made by L. M. 4to. London, 1590, 

 1596, 1600." 



It appears by a variety of evidence, that the person meant by these 

 initials was one Leonard Mascall, an author who wrote on planting and 

 grafting, and also on cattle. Vide, infra, Chap. IX. 



Approved experiments touching Fish and Fruit, to be regarded by the lovers of 

 Angling, by Mr. John Taverner, in Quarto, 1600. 



The Secrets of Angling, a poem, in three books, by J. D. Esq. Octavo, 

 1613. Mention is made of this book, in a note on a passage in the en- 

 suing dialogues : and there is reason to think, that it it the foundation of 

 a treatise, intitled, The whole Art of Angling, published in Quarto, 1656", 

 by the well known Gervase Markham, as part of his Country Contentments, 

 or Husbandman's Recreations, since he confesses, that the substance of his 

 book was originally in rhime. Of Markham's book, a specimen is given 

 in a note on page 102. 



Barker's Art of Angling, printed fcv 12mo. in 1651, and again in 4to. 

 in 1653. A third edition was publisher! in 1659, under the altered title 

 of Bark*** Delight, or the Art of Angling. See Accounts of the Author s 

 infra. 



