576 LITERATURE OF SEA AND RIVER FISHING. 



notably Dr. W. Worship in a sermon entitled The Fisher. 

 in 1615, and the Rev. Jerome Phillips in one called The 

 Fisherman, in 1623. Among laymen, the Hon. R. Boyle 

 was a contributor to it with his Reflections, in 1665. This 

 edition is rare; but there is a reprint of the book by 

 Masson, of Oxford (1848). Readers can hardly be re- 

 commended to trouble themselves about it, except as a 

 literary curiosity by a seventeenth century moraliser, who, 

 after his kind, can spin out long strings of commonplace 

 contemplations on such commonplace subjects as on " One's 

 drinking water out of the brimes of his hat," and on 

 "Catching a store of fish at a baited place." But this 

 style of literature gradually died out as a better taste 

 prevailed. 



Resuming mention of those who may truly be called 

 contributors to the literature of fishing, we come to one 

 who was at first only modestly known by his initials, 

 J. D. A notable work, of very great interest and literary 

 merit, is The Secrets of A ngling : teaching the choicest Tooles, 

 Baytes, and Seasons, for the taking of any fish, in Pond or 

 River ... by J. D., Esquire. The first edition was published 

 in 1613, and there are copies of it in the Bodleian Library, 

 and in the collections of Mr. Denison and Mr. Huth. 

 It is in the form of a poem in three books, but, though 

 mention of it anticipates the chapter on English Poets of 

 the Angles, it must here be introduced, because it may 

 be fairly considered as a practical treatise on fish and 

 fishing. Izaak Walton, who quotes from it, attributed it to 

 "John Davors," and R. Howlett,in his Angler's Sure Guide 

 (1706), to Dr. Donne; while it has also been credited 

 to no less than six different poets of the name of 

 "Davies"; but its authorship was finally determined in 

 1811, by the evidence of the books of the Stationers 1 



