BIBLIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. xxix 



general opinion, that the whole book was written by Dame 

 Juliana Barnes. Sir John Hawkins unhesitatingly says : 

 " This book was written by Dame Juliana Barnes, prioress 

 of the nunnery of Sopewell, near St. Albans, a lady of 

 noble family and celebrated for her learninfr and accom- 

 plishments, by Leland,* Bales, Pitt, and others." That 

 a woman of this name lived and wrote about the time of 

 the Book, we cannot doubt. Bales describes her as en- 

 dowed with singular gifts of body and mind, illustrious, 

 beautiful, and accomplished ; w^ho, seeing that the sports 

 she describes were of use in drawing men from the vicious 

 consequences of idleness, and especially, as Ovid says, 



*' Otia si toll as, periere Cupidinis artes," 



not only exercised herself in the field, but wrote for the ad- 

 vantage of others in the house. He calls her " ingeniosa 

 Firao-o," and, after ascribing to her the other tracts which go 

 under her name, adds: ^^ She is said to have produced a little 

 work on fishing also ;" and that " she learned her heroical 

 philosophy from some veteran soldiers. She flourished 1460." 

 Pitt gives the same account, but, with that rash vanity which 

 led him, as Stillingfleet observes, to multiply books as well 

 as authors, romances a little more than his predecessor: yet 

 he also only says, that "s/ie is said not to have neoflected 

 fishing." Gervase Markham, on republishing the several 

 treatises together, under the title of The Gentlemaris 

 Academy, or the Book of St. Albans, ^c, reduced to a 

 better method, by G. M. (1595), says that "the book of 

 Hunting, Hawking, and Armory were compiled by Juliana 

 Barnes in 1486." Thus, all the evidence in favor of her 

 being the author of the tract on fishing, is its having been 



* The reference to Leland by Hawkins is a mistake. Her name does 

 not appear in Leland's list of British authors, neither is any mention made 

 of her in his Itinerary or Collectanea. 



