THE OLDEST BOOK ON FISHING 227 



from, was at that time written in our language. 

 The close correspondence in many passages forbids 

 the idea that the two versions were independent 

 translations from another tongue. 



Here, then, we have a treatise on fishing which 

 was in existence before the first edition of the Book 

 of St Albans was printed, and yet was not included 

 in it, being evidently unknown to Dame Juliana 

 Berners and her printer. As there is no evidence 

 to show that either of them had any hand in the 

 productions of the Westminster press, we are forced 

 to the conclusion that the popular notion which 

 attributes the treatise of 1496 to Dame Juliana 

 Berners is a fallacy, and the sooner this is re- 

 cognised the better. It is not a little surprising 

 that Mr Satchell did not view the matter in this 

 light when writing his instructive preface to the 

 "older form" above mentioned. 



What literary anglers should now endeavour 

 to do is to discover some of the earlier "books of 

 credence" which were known to the writer of the 

 Treatise of Fishing. They may still be preserved 

 amongst the manuscripts in continental libraries, 

 and should be looked for bound up with tracts on 

 " Venerie," amongst which they have possibly 

 escaped the notice of students more intent on the 

 literature of other branches of field sports. 



Probably few anglers are aware that in 1492, a 



small quarto volume on fowling and fishing, written 



originally in Flemish, was printed at Antwerp by 



Matthias van der Goes. Its extreme rarity may be 



judged from the fact that only one copy of the first 



