Qui norunt Dominum, manumque lambunt
Illam

Quid quod Nomen habent, et ad magistri
Vocem quisque sui venit citatus.'

'Rash angler, here thy guilty sport forbear,
These finny natives are a monarch's care;
The gentle kind obey his known command,
And feed familiar from his sporting hand;
Each has his name, which, severally, they hear,
And to their owner's summons straight appear.'

We find some account, in the early history of Welsh literature, that angling occasionally furnished a topic for versifying among the poets of Wales. Taliesin is mentioned as one of the piscatory bards, who flourished about A.D. 560, and wrote a poem of some length on one of the Welsh kings having been found in a salmon weir; and likewise on the value and importance of this repository of the monarch of the streams.'

There was a paper read a few years ago, at a society of antiquaries at Arras, in France, on an old manuscript treatise on fishing, found among the remains of the valuable library belonging to the Abbey of St. Bertin's, at St. Omer. This work was supposed, by the style of writing, to have been composed about the year one thousand; and to have been divided into twenty-two chapters. As far as could be gathered from the mutilated remains of the work, the author's main object was to prove that fishers had been men singularly noticed by divine approbation; and he supports this theoretical view from the leading incidents in the life of the fishermen of Judea, through whom Christianity was promulgated to the world. There was likewise appended to the manuscript a full list of all river fish, the baits used for taking them, and the suitable seasons for angling for each sort of fish. One of the French critics on this singular production says-That angling was sufficiently common in the days of our Saviour is obvious to every one who possesses the New Testament; and it has always proved suggestive to our minds that the greatest event the world has ever witnessed— the greatest change ever effected on human society-and which is destined to advance and increase till all mankind shall feel the benefits of its influence-was brought about by the agency of a few poor fishermen. It would seem as if the innocency of their gentle occupation had acted as a becoming preparation for that life of gentleness and charity, and purity and benevolence which was to distinguish them above all men, and give them their glorious pre-eminence in the universal church of Christ.'

On the revival of letters in Europe, or about the commencement of the fourteenth century, angling effusions in prose and verse partook of the general mental impetus of the age. The Italians wrote piscatory plays, and other fanciful and light pieces on fishing generally, both by sea and land. They invested their Syrens and Tritons with angling habits and modes of thought; and made them expatiate, in glowing terms, on the beauties arising from the contemplation of the floods and hills, and woods and valleys, of their picturesque and highly interesting country. In one of the manuscript plays of this kind, in the library of the Vatican, at Rome, we have the adventures of a lover, who kept up a correspondence with the object of his affections by means of the art of angling; and we have the various contrivances or dodges he used, to gain his ends, and overreach the jealous vigilance of the lady's parents, depicted with great minuteness and humour. There are likewise songs introduced, descriptive of river scenery, and to represent the parallel which the imagination may institute between the variable success that anglers meet with and the common and every-day transactions of human life. We shall try to give the meaning of one of these dramatic songs, premising that the kind reader must make due allowances for the lameness of our imitation. Almost every disciple of the rod will yield his ready assent to the truthfulness of the general sentiment conveyed in this somewhat antiquated Italian piece.

'How oftimes with my rod in hand,
In wandering by the stream,
I've liken'd the angler's magic wand,
To life's deceptive dream!

'The sky, perchance, looks fair and bright,
The breeze curls on the brook;
The waters ting'd to please the sight,
Trout waiting for the hook!

'We plunge and strive from spot to spot,
But not a fish will rise;

In wonderment, at our ill lot,
Turn up our wistful eyes.

In daily life the same we see,

When hope mounts on the wing;

Our means to ends may not agree,
And grief from labour spring.

Again, sometimes, the day is sour,
And darkened is the sky;

Fair sport seems far beyond our power,

Though artful be our fly.

'But here, again, at fault we are;
Success attends our skill,

And fish in scores come wide and far,
Our fishing creel to fill.

"In life's career the same we see,
When hope flags in the rear,
And dark's the shade of destiny
When our success is near.

'A moral, too, your line may point;
When tangl'd is the hair,
Let patience with her oil anoint,
"Twill save you from despair.

'The same in life when ills assail,
Perplex'd with mischiefs rank,
Patience and skill will seldom fail
To unloose the knotted hank.'

One of the most early productions of British literature relative to angling, is the poetical piece attributed to a Scottish poet called Blind Harry, who flourished about the termination of the fourteenth century. The lines attributed to him are upon a fishing excursion by Sir William Wallace. We cannot insert the entire production, but shall make a selection of a few lines to show its scope and character.

'Till Irvine water, fish to tak he went,

Sic fantasy fell in his intent.

To lead his net a child furth with him yede,
But he, or noon, was in a fellon dread.
His swerd he left, so did he never again;
It did him gude, suppose he suffered pain.
Of that labour as then he was not slie,
Happy he was took fish abundantly.'

The story goes on to say that Wallace meets in his rambles with Lord Percy, who was then Captain of the town of Ayr. A contention sprung up about the right to fish. Sir William is made to say,

"It were reason, methink, ye should have part,

Waith* should be dealt, in all place, with free heart."
He bade his child, "Give them of our waithing."

The Southron said, "As now of thy dealing
We will not tak; thou wald give us o'er small.”
He lighted down, and frae the child took all.
Wallace said then, "Gentilemen gif ye be,
Leave us some part, we pray, for charity.

* Spoil taken in sport.

One aged knight serves our lady to day :
Good friend, leave part, and tak not all away."
"Thou shalt hae leave to fish, and tak thee mae,
All this forsooth shall in our flitting gae.

We serve a lord; this fish shall till him gang."
Wallace answered, said, "Thou art in the wrang."
"Wham thous thou, Scot! in faith thou' serves a blaw."
Till him he ran, and out a swerd gan draw.
William was wae he had nae wappins there
But the pontstaff, the whilk in hand he bare.
Wallace with it fast on the cheek him took,
With sae gude will, while of his feet he shook.
The swerd flew frae him a fur-bried on the land.
Wallace was glad, and hint it soon in hand;
And with the swerd awkward he him gave
Vnder his hat, his craig* in sunder drave.
By that the lavet lighted about Wallace;
He had no help only but God's grace."

In 1496, we have a treatise on angling, printed by Wynkin de Worde, in the form of a small folio, which is a republication of the celebrated Book of St. Albans,' and containing a tract entitled The Treatyse of Fysshinge wyth an Angle,' and ornamented with a somewhat rude woodcut of an angler.

This work has been commonly attributed to Jane Juliana Berners, or Barnes, a prioress of the Nunnery of St. Albans. The angler,' says this fair writer, atte the leeste, hath his holsom walke, and merry at his ease, a swete ayare of the swete sauoure wherewith the melodyous armory of fowlls, he seeth the younge swannes, heerons, duckes, cotes, and many other fowles, with their brodes; whych to me seemeth better than all the noyse of houndry, the blastes of hornes, and the scrye of fowles, that hunters, fawkeners, and fowlers can make. And if the angler of the fysshe, surely thenne, is there noo man happyer than he is in his sporyte.'

From this time to the appearance, in 1590, of A booke of Fishing with Hooke and line, and all other instruments thereunto belonginge, made by L. M.' (Leonard Mascale), we have little or nothing on the fishing art. It was, however, occasionally handled by the writers and poets of the day, in songs and squibs. We have an old ballad in 'Disprayse of Women that allure but love not.'

'Those days are all ypast,
That date is fleeted by;

They myrrors were, dame Nature made,
Her skilful hand to try.

'Now course of kinde exchaungde

Doth yield a woorsen graine,
And women in these latter years,

These modest matrons staine.

'Deceit is their delight,

Great fraudes in friendly lookes ;
They spoil the fish for friendship's sake,
That hover on their hookes.

They buy the bait too deare,

That so their freedome loze ;
And they the more deceitfull are,
That so can craft and gloze.'

In 1600, we have another treatise under the following title:'Certain experiments concerning Fish and Fruit, practised by John Tavener, Gent., and by him published for the benefit of others,' London. A few years before this date we find a work on fish, published by Casper Schwenkfeld, called Therio Trophæum Silesiæ,' in which there is much curious research and speculation on the habits, medical properties, and instincts of all the known classes of fish. There was, likewise, another work, about the same period, printed at Leipsic, on the different modes of angling for fish of all kinds. This is but a small work, of about thirty octavo pages.

From this period, and for many ages afterwards, the literature of angling was, like the other branches of knowledge and art, at a very low ebb. There can be no doubt, however, that angling was followed in these times as a rural amusement, and that it formed a topic of eulogy and recommendation to the few of those favoured spirits who then held a pen in their hands, and committed their thoughts to paper. We are informed, from the records of early French literature, that in most of the large libraries in France, Italy, and Spain, there are manuscript articles on Fishing, of various remote dates, but of a somewhat fugitive and puerile cast.

The Piscatory Eclogues' of Sanazarius are well known. They were republished by Pope, in his collection of 'Poemata Italarum.' These effusions have been the topic of critical controversy among angling writers. Mr. Draper and Mr. Jones think highly of them, and maintain that their author gained more reputation by them than from all his other works together. Moses Browne entertains a different opinion. He says, 'Per