32 NOTES ON FISH AND FISHING. 



NOTE II. 



THE LITERATURE OF PISHING. 

 " Of making many books there is no end." 



" Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few 

 to be chewed and digested." — Bacon. 



Antiquity of angling literature — The " Book of St. Albans," by Dame 

 Juliana Berners (or Barnes) — Authors before Izaak Walton — Wal- 

 ton's contemporaries — Walton — Critics of Walton — Character of 

 Walton — Proposed memorial to Walton — Other contemporaries of 

 Walton — Authors after Walton to end of 18th century — Authors 

 from 1800 to present time — Poetical literature of angling — Clergy, 

 men-authors on angling — General character of angling literature — 

 Catalogues of angling^literature — Books on angling recommended — 

 Angling cannot be learnt from books — Want of an " Angler's Organ." 



Among the ancients there is no one who can fairly claim 

 to be called an author on angling, except Oppian, who 

 wrote his Halieutica, five books in Greek on the nature 

 of Fish and Fishing, some time in the latter half of the 

 second century, a translation of which by Diaper and 

 Jones (1722), is by no means bad reading. But the art 

 of Fishing or Angling can claim the distinction of being 

 one of the first subjects treated of in a printed book in 

 this country, for within ten years of Caxton issuing from 

 his press in Westminster (Westmestre) his first book 

 printed in England, Blclcs and Sayinges of the Philo- 

 sophers (M.77), Wynken de Worde published the famous 



