That the greater portion of the book on Hunting was compiled by Mistress Barnes, is probably correct,[1] and had she written much more, and produced even an original work on the subject, she would not have stood alone, even at that early period, as an authoress. Crystine de Pisan, two of whose works were printed by Caxton, was contemporary with Julians Barnes, and left not only numerous original writings behind her—one of which was upon the Art of War—but left her mark, and that no mean nor ignoble one, upon the political course and moral development of her countrymen. But Dame Julyans’ work upon Hunting is certainly not original, as indeed very few works upon any subject were at that period. This is evident from a glance at the text and the grouping of the subjects. It begins with distinguishing the varieties of beasts and their ages; the proper names by which to designate the beasts, singly and together; on hunting and dressing a Roe, a Boar, a Hare; of flaying; of the horns of a Roebuck; of the Hart; of the seasons; of the Hare. Then follows, from another source, an interpolation of a discourse between a Master of the Hunt and his man, going over portions of the same ground again; and this ended, we get back again to the original MS. and the dismemberment of various beasts. All through, with the exception of the interpolated conversation, the text is addressed to “My deare childe.” Thus we read—“Do so, my child;” “Think what I say, my son;” “My lief childer;” “Say, child, where you go? my dame taught you so.” Evidently that portion was originally written for a mother to use as a school-book, by which her son would learn to read, and, at the same time, become familiar with the terms of venery. Footnote 1: Taking Berners and Barnes to be the same word, it is curious to note—in connection with the work attributed to Dame Juliana, viz., The Book of Hunting—that the masters of that sport employed men called _Berners_, to be ready with relays of horses and to feed the hounds.—_See_ Halliwell’s “Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words.” In the Bodleian Library is a small manuscript on the Terms of the Chase, the beginning of which is:— “Mi dere sones, where ye fare, be frith or by fell, Take good hede in his tyme how Tristram wol tell.” This manuscript was probably copied by some youth as a school-exercise, which would account for the following odd colophon—“Explicit, expliceat, ludere scriptor eat.” Compare the above with the opening stanza of the verses we attribute to Mistress Barnes:— “Wheresoever ye fare, by frith or by fell,[2] My dear child, take heed how Tristram doth you tell.”[3] Footnote 2: “By frith or by fell” = by forest or by plain; but see Halliwell’s Dictionary. Footnote 3: