INTRODUCTORY REMARKS ON ANGLING, 



ANGLING, from the earliest periods of the world, has been 

 considered a source both of amusement and profit. Walton, 

 or old Izak, as he is more familiarly called, in his remarks on 

 the Antiquity of Angling, goes back as far as the days of the 

 sons of Adam, and the Book of Job, in which latter he proves 

 the first mention of fish-hooks. The earliest authentic infor- 

 mation, however, we have of Angling as an amusement, can 

 be dated as far back as the days of the Romans. Trajan, the 

 Roman Emperor, is mentioned as one who loved Angling, and 

 also, if we may credit history, of eating the result of his days' 

 sport in epicurean style. Plutarch also speaks of Mark An- 

 tony and Cleopatra as using angling as a principal recreation ! 

 We know little, however, of any perfection in the art, until 

 the year 1486, when a treatise on the subject was published 

 by a lady, celebrated at that time for her beauty and ac- 

 complishments, entitled " The Treatyse of Fyssynge with 

 an Angle, by Dame Julyana Berners, Prioress of the Nun- 

 nery near St. Albans." The book would at the present day 

 be considered a curiosity, if we may judge from the follow- 

 ing quaint extract, in which she shows the superiority of 

 fishing over fowling : 



" The Angler atte the leest, hath his holsom walke, and 

 mery at his ease, a swete ayre of the swete sauoure of the 

 mede floures, that makyth him hungry ; he hereth the melo- 



