A Treatyse of Fysshynge wyth an Angle

This facsimile is faithfully reproduced by photography; it is being printed on rough hand-made paper similar to that of the original, and will be bound in handsome contemporary binding. The interest and value of this reproduction will be greatly enhanced by Mr. BLADES’ Preface, which treats at length, in separate chapters, of the AUTHORSHIP, TYPOGRAPHY, BIBLIOGRAPHY, SUBJECT-MATTER, and PHILOLOGY of the Work.

As THE BOOK OF SAINT ALBANS is the Work in which THE TREATYSE OF FYSSHYNGE WYTH AN ANGLE was incorporated on its first publication, its possession by the Subscribers to the latter should be secured, in order to complete the set of “dyuerse bokys concernynge to gentyll and noble men.”

A full Prospectus concerning the publication of “The Book of Saint Albans” will be sent on application to

ELLIOT STOCK, 62 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON, E.C.

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A Treatyse of Fysshynge wyth an Angle.

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A TREATYSE OF FYSSHYNGE WYTH AN ANGLE

BY

DAME JULIANA BERNERS:

BEING A FACSIMILE REPRODUCTION OF THE FIRST BOOK ON THE SUBJECT OF FISHING PRINTED IN ENGLAND BY

WYNKYN DE WORDE

AT WESTMINSTER IN 1496.

With an Introduction by REV. M. G. WATKINS, M.A.

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ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON, E.C. 1880

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Preface to Dame Juliana Berners’ Treatyse on Fysshynge wyth an Angle.

The scholarly angler is here presented with an exact facsimile of the first English treatise on fishing. The book is of extreme interest for several reasons, not the least curious being that it has served as a literary quarry to so many succeeding writers on fishing, who have not disdained to adapt the authoress’s sentiments to their own use, and even to borrow them word for word without acknowledgment. Walton himself was evidently familiar with it, and has clearly taken his “jury of flies” from its “xij flyes wyth whyche ye shall angle to y^e trought & grayllyng;” while Burton, that universal plunderer, has extracted her eloquent eulogy on the secondary pleasures of angling for incorporation with the patchwork structure of his “Anatomy of Melancholy.” Besides giving the earliest account of the art of fishing, the estimate which the authoress forms of the moral value of the craft is not only very high, but has served to strike the keynote for all subsequent followers of the art both in their praises and their practice of it. To this little treatise more than to any other belongs the credit of having assigned in popular estimation to the angler his meditative and gentle nature. Many pure and noble intellects have kindled into lasting devotion to angling on reading her eloquent commendation of it. Such men as Donne, Wotton, and Herbert, Paley, Bell, and Davy, together with many another excellent and simple disposition, have caught enthusiasm from her lofty sentiments, and found that not their bodily health only, but also their morals, were improved by angling. It became a school of virtues, a quiet pastime in which, while looking into their own hearts, they learnt lessons of the highest wisdom, reverence, resignation, and love—love of their fellow-men, of the lower creatures, and of their Creator.