2 THE EARLY MASTERS. 



of fish and fishing have been found upon some of the 



oldest temples and most venerable remains extant. In every 



community in savage life, too, are found instruments of 



angling :,;ru(Je enough, but sufficiently effective for the 



wants -af those .employing them ; showing the various arts 



.".uSQd'iii fishing 'to have been of primitive and universal 



' itiveritioiu 



It is not, however, our purpose to give a retrospective 

 history of angling. Our business lies with the present, 

 and with a very brief notice we shall dismiss the past. 



One of the first treatises in the English language on 

 angling is that of Dame Juliana Berners, or Barnes, in the 

 Book of St. Albans. It is entitled The Art of Fysshynge 

 with an Angle,' and was published in 1496. There were 

 other authors who added to the stock of angling litera- 

 ture, as Mascal and Markham ; but the next one of note 

 was the well-known Izaak Walton, who wrote ' The Con- 

 templative Man's Recreation,' and first published it in 

 1653, and in fifteen years it ran through five editions. 

 Since then, with the additions by Cotton and Venables, 

 the book has run through an extraordinary number of 

 editions, and is still republished at intervals. 



From that time down to the present the number of 

 writers upon angling matters has abounded beyond 

 measure, and the literature of angling is one of the richest 

 branches of literature we have. As the writers have 

 increased, each one adding his particular notion or two to 

 the common stock, so has the art progressed towards per- 

 fection, and, long ere this, fish would have become extinct, 

 but that nature has wisely ordained that, as the fishermen 

 become learned in their art, the fish shall become learned 

 also ; and thus hickory and horsehair, gut and steel, are 

 robbed of a portion of their destructiveness ; and although 

 our dear old friend and father Izaak no doubt would form 

 a most agreeable fishing companion, we question, if he 



