224 RECREATIONS OF A NATURALIST 



schoolmaster who printed the book for her.^ Thus 



we read : — 



" Wheresoevere ye fare by frith or by fell, 

 My dere chylde take hede how Tristram doth you tell 

 How many maner beestys of venery ther are. 

 Lysten to your dame, and she shall you lere," 



The doggerel rhymes, no doubt, were intended 

 as an aid to memory. This first edition, then, 

 contained three treatises — the first on hawking, the 

 second on hunting, the third on the blazing of 

 arms. None of them was original, but all were 

 compiled from older manuscripts, which have been 

 identified. From the colophon to the third treatise 

 it is clear that it was not original, but was 

 "translatyd and compylyt togedyr at Seynt 

 Albans." It was, in fact, translated from the Latin 

 MS. of Nicolas Upton, De Studio Militari. The 

 Treaty se of Fysshynge with an Angle formed no 

 part of the Boke of St Albans, and was not printed 

 until ten years later (1496) by Wynkyn de Worde, 

 Caxton's assistant and successor at the Westminster 

 press. With this, naturally, Dame Juliana Berners 

 had nothing whatever to do, and the mistake in 

 attributing it to her probably arose from finding it 

 included by Haslewood in the first important 

 reprint of the book in black letter in 18 10, and 

 supposing from the title that it was a reprint of the 

 first edition. Haslewood, however, took the second 

 edition as being more complete with the treatise 



1 Haslewood alludes to him as "the monkish schoolmaster," 

 in which case, of course, there could have been no marriage. 

 But there is no evidence of any kind to warrant the assumption 

 that he was a monk. 



