ANCIENT ANGLING AUTHORS 7 



disceyue Fisshes. Therfor let us forsake it, that we 

 be not loste by the fowle apetyte of glotonye. 

 Trincha than spake and sayde. It is but folye to 

 forsake soo goode a morsell, and so delycyous, for a 

 lytle vayne dred for rathir I my self shal attaste 9f 

 it first, & dyne with it with great plesure and 

 swettenesse. And Tarye thou and beholde my 

 chaunce. And whyle that she swalowyd in the mete, 

 she felte the hokys that were hydde. And she wolde 

 fayne haue retournyd bakwarde, but the Fissher 

 pluckyd her up to him, and the Luce fledde swyftlye 

 and sayde thus. 



Of othir mennys sorowe corected mote we be, 

 Euyr that fro parell we mowe escape free. 



It is curious to look back from the present time, 

 when ladies are taking so active a part in most of 

 the so-called "manly" sports, and to find that the 

 first existing work on angling in the English 

 language is attributed to a lady writer, one Dame 

 Juliana Berners, or Barnes. 



This work, entitled the Treatyse of ffysshynge wyth 

 an Angle, was first printed in 1496, and was published 

 then as part of the Book of St Allans. It seems 

 probable, however, that the treatise on fishing was 

 compiled some time before this date. 



Mr Joseph Haslewood, in the introductory notes 

 to his facsimile reproduction of the Book of St 

 Albans (1810), says: "The period of writing this 

 treatise may be fixed, with some confidence, to 

 have been early in the fifteenth century." He calls 

 attention to the fact that allusion is made in the 



