THE GENTLE CRAFT. 3 



tion in remote times, and we have it on the authority of 

 the Venerable Bede that the people of Sussex were at one 

 time rescued from famine by being taught by Wilfred to 

 catch fish. Among the earliest printed books is one on 

 fishing by a countrywomen of our own, Dame Juliana 

 Berners, Bernes,- or Barnes, (whichever it is,) prioress of the 

 nunnery of Sopwell, near St Alban's. This curious tract is 

 entituled, " The Treatyse of Fysshynge wyth an Angle," 

 and appears by the colophon to have been printed by old 

 Wynkyn'de Worde in 1496. The old lady shows that if 

 sport fails the ambitious angler, his time is not spent in 

 vain ; for has he not " atte the leest, his holsom walke, 

 and mery at his ease, a swete ayre of the swete sauvoure 

 of the meede flowres, that makyth him hungry ; he hereth 

 the melodyous armony of fowles ; he seeth the young 

 swannes, heerons, ducks, cotes, and many other fowles, 

 wyth theyr brodes ; whyche me semyth better than alle 

 the noyse of houndys, the blastes of hornys, and the scrye 

 of foulis, that hunters, fawkeners, and fowlers do make ? 

 And," says the good old lady, " if the angler take fysshe, 

 surely there is no man merier he is in his spyryte." Then 

 amidst the many other books that have been written for 

 the solace of the angler, stands old Isaak Walton, with the 

 " Complete Angler," as immortal as the language in which 

 it is written in, and the instincts of the people by whom it 

 is read. 



I fancy, however, that few anglers care for that smat- 

 tering of science which too many modern writers throw 

 over -the sport. They are somewhat indifferent to the 

 " Eudiments of Ichthyology," and are heedless of the clas- 

 sification which their spoil might receive in a museum. 

 They rather want to know the habits of the flah, where he 



