Taverner’s Certaine _Experiments concerning Fish and Fruite_ followed in 1600. Then came in 1613 the _Secrets of Angling_ of the celebrated angling poet, J. D. [John Dennys], whose verses have perhaps never yet been surpassed; and finally, in 1651, appeared Barker’s _Art of Angling_. With this fisherman and “ambassador’s cook,” as he calls himself, Walton must often have conversed. It is a further testimony to the attractions which angling has always possessed for contemplative natures that the art appears here systematised, so to speak, as early as the middle of the fifteenth century in England, where it has been practised ever since with more enthusiasm and skill than in other countries. There is a sad gap in angling literature from the days of Ausonius, at the commencement of the fourth century, to those of Dame Juliana Berners. Fly-fishing, indeed, is not named between the time of Ælian and that of the Treatyse. It is clearly described by the former writer, who alone among the ancients mentions it, but in the present book it is spoken of under the term “angling with a dubbe,” as if it were well-known and practised. Not only so, but it is clear that the writer had books of angling lore before her, perhaps monkish manuscripts, as Hawkins suggests, which would be of inestimable interest could they now be recovered. Thus in speaking of the carp, the reader will find she writes—“as touchynge his baytes I haue but lytyll knowlege of it. And me were loth to wryte more than I knowe & haue prouyd. But well I wote that the redde worme & the menow ben good baytys for hym at all tymes as I haue herde saye of persones credyble & also founde wryten in bokes of credence.” No better rules can be given for fly-fishing at present than the two which she prescribes for angling—“for the fyrste and pryncypall poynt in anglynge : kepe y^e euer fro the water fro the sighte of the fysshe,” and “also loke that ye shadow not the water as moche as ye may.” The “troughte” is to be angled for “wyth a dubbe” [artificial fly] “in lepynge time;” but as for the salmon, “ye may take hym : but it is seldom seen with a dubbe at suche tyme as whan he lepith in lyke fourme & manere as ye doo take a troughte or a gryalynge.” With the imperfect tackle and clumsy rod of those days, it is no wonder that the capture of salmon with a fly, which is still the crowning achievement of the craft, could seldom be effected.