22 BIBLIOTHECA PISCATORIA. 



sold at his shop in St. Dunstan's Churchyard, Fleet-street. 

 1657; atid [with new title page] printed for Humphrey Moseley 

 and are to be sold at the Princes Amies in St. Paul's church- 

 yard, 1659, 12°. Reprinted: London, Burn, 1820. 12°; and 

 Hodgson and Co. [some copies] E. Bryant, 1826. 12°. 



["Barker's delight" is also inserted in the "Young sportsman's 

 miscellany," London, 1826. lamo. One copy of the reprint by 

 Burn was on vellum and is now in the Denison collection ; four 

 were on straw-coloured paper. One hundred copies were printed. 

 The two vellum copies of Burn's reprints produced £,2. 2s. at 

 a sale in Jan. 1843, but two paper copies were recently priced at 

 50S in a bookseller's catalogue(!) In an "Epistle to the Reader," 

 prefixed to the 1st edition. Barker states that he was born and 

 educated in "Brac-meal, in the libertie of Salop." And that he 

 was there "a freeman and Burgesse of the same Citie." "I 

 am grown old," he tells us, "and therefore am willing to set forth 

 my true e.xperience that I have been gathering these fifty years." 



In "Barker's delight," this 'Epistle to the reader' is transmogrified 

 into an Epistle dedicatory, " To the Right Honorable Edward 

 Lord Montague, Generall of the Navy, and one of the Lords 

 Commissioners of the Treasur}'." It opens thus : — "Noble Lord, I 

 do present this my book, as I have named it. Barker's Delight, to 

 your honour. I pray God send you safe home to your lady and 

 sweet babes. Amen, Amen." He speaks again of his e.xperience, 

 which, by some unaccountable arithmetical progression, is extended 

 this time, to " three-score years." and he ends by declaring that 

 he takes as much pleasure in the dressing of fish, as in the taking of 

 them, "and to shew how I can perform it, to furnish any Lord's 

 table, onely with trouts, as it is furnished with flesh, for 16 or 20 

 dishes. And I have a desire to preserve their health (with help of 

 God) to go dry in their boots and shoes in angling : for age taketh 

 the pleasure from me." 



The body of the work begins thus: — "Noble Lord, under favour, I 

 will compliment and put a case to your Honour. I met with a 

 man, and upon our discourse, he fell out with me, having a good 

 weapon but neither stomach nor skill : I say this man may come home 

 by Weeping Cross, I will cause the clerk to toll his knell. It is the very 

 like case to the gentleman angler that goeth to the river for his 

 pleasure : this angler hath neither judgement nor experience, he may 

 come home light-laden at his leisure." 



Barker was the first propagator of the heresy of salmon-roe. He 

 says: "I have found an experience of late, which you may angle with, 

 and take great store of fish. ..The bait is the roe of a salmon, or trout, 

 if it be a large trout, that the spawnes be anything great. If I had 

 but known it twenty years ago, I would have gained a hundred 

 pounds, onely with this bait. I am bound in duty to divulge it to 

 your Honour, and not to carry it to my grave with me. The greedy 

 angler will murmur at me but for that I care not." 



The "enlargement," of the second edition consists mainly of cul- 

 inary recipes, and of some scraps of verse, roughly coopered and 

 stiff-jointed. The culinary feature is of such frequent occurrence, 

 that one is apt to take Barker for parcel angler, parcel cook, and to 



