68 ANCIENT ANGLING AUTHORS 



angle annoynt your baite but with this confection, 

 and though the water be never so unseasonable, or the 

 Fish never so ill disposed to bite, yet be sure you 

 shall not lose your labour, but take, when all men 

 else faile of their purpose, for the secret hath been 

 rarely approved, and hitherto hath been maintained 

 with great secresie. 



In the eleventh edition of the Cheap and Good 

 Husbandry, published 1664, twenty-seven years after 

 Markham's death, a slightly different description of 

 this ointment is given : 



Lastly, if you take the oyle of Aspray, and coculus 

 Indie, and Assafoetida beaten, and mix with as much 

 life honey, and then dissolve them in the Oyle of 

 Polypody, and so keepe in a close glass ; then when 

 you angle annoint your bait with this confection, 

 though the weather be never so unseasonable, etc. 



In describing the methods of angling for the 

 different kinds of fish, Markham appears to be 

 ignorant of the habits of the barbel, which he 

 identifies with the grayling as follows : 



The Barbell, or Grayling which some call the 

 Umber, are very subtill, and crafty Fishes : therefore 

 you must be careful that your bayts be sweet, and 

 new, and when you angle for them doe in all things 

 as you doe for the Trout, for they bite aloft in the 

 Summer, and at the bottome in the Winter. Your 

 lines must be extra ordinarilly strong, and your 

 hooke of a threepeny compasse, for they are Fishes 

 of waighty bodies. 



Directions, which are apparently taken from 



