xxviii BIBLIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. 



OF St. Albans, which has in the Colophon the true title: 

 " Here in thys boke afore ar contenyt the bokys of Hawk- 

 ynge and llimtynge, with other pleasuris dy verse, as in 

 the boke apperis ; and also of Coot Armoris, a nobuU 

 worke. And here now endyth the Boke of Blasynge of 

 Armis, translalyt and compylyt togedyr at Seynt Albons, 

 the yere from the Incarnacion of our Lorde Ihii Crist. 

 M.cccc.Lxxxvi."* " On the last leaf is the device of 

 Wynkyn de Werde, and on the reverse that of Caxton. 

 This leaf is wanting in the copy in the British Museum " 

 (Sir Henry Ellis's Cat. of Angling Books reprinted by 

 Pickering, 1835). Lowndes says that there are only two 

 perfect copies extant, and Dibdin estimates such a copy at 

 £420. In 1810 that laborious bibliographer Hasle- 

 wooD pubHshed a fac simile of this edition with a valuable 

 preface. The treatise on Hunting is written in verse, and 

 is, according to good antiquarian authorities, a tract by Sir 

 Tristam (called by Manwood, in his Forest Laws, a Monk 

 and a Forester) turned into rhyme. A woman is made to 

 address the readers, and, having bid them give heed to 

 what Tristam says, she adds : " if you listen, you shall 

 learn of your dame," &c., and bids them : 



" Say, childe, where you goe, youre dame taght you soe." 



At the end of the poem are these words : Explicit 

 Dame Julyans Barnes in her boke of Huntynge. 



The treatise on angling appears first in the second 

 edition of the Book of St. Albans, 1490; and is added to 

 the other.s already named thus : Here begynnyth The 

 Treatyse of Fyshynge with an angle. The orthography 

 is much the same as that of the rest. 



Who the writer of this Treatyse was, cannot now be 

 ascertained. The fact that her name appears, as we have 

 seen, at the end of the poem on hunting, gave rise to a 



* Copied from Oldys's note to Caxton, Biog. Brit. 



