The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-09-28

character, half sportsman, half a chef, in
the employ of the foreign legation. and
always protesting that he laid no claim to
scholarship or a literary style. He was
none the less sure, however, of his knowl-
edge of fishing and preparing fish for food.
for. says he in his last edition of the DE
light, II am now grown old. I
have written no more than mine own ex-
perience and practice . IL any noble
or gentle angler of what degree soever he
be, have mind to discourse Of any of
these wages and experiments. L live In
Henry the THIS Gifts, the next door to the
Gatehouse in Westm. My name is Barker,
where shall be ready, as long as pleased
God. to satisfie them and maintain my art
through life which is not like to be long,"
FISH COOKERY.
Following Barker the literature on an
Cling began to contain more and more about
cookery in its application to the fish of
stream or lake. Even the so-called ''pis-
catorial poets,' almost all of whom may
be found in the Harvard collection, make
mention of this branch in their treatises on
fishing. We find, for example:
MY strung line was 26 yardes long
/ gave him turn though
/ found him strong
wound up my line to guide him from shear
The handbook helps much but the cookery
more"
These crude and tottering verses are from
one OF the manuals called Delights.
which were published extensively in the
eighteenth century. There were Delights
for the cook, the gardener the lady's maid,
the sailor, the soldier, the angler-and APP
parently for every class of society. There
were also such manuals as 1.-The Compleat
Housemaid," the "Compleat Farmer" and
the like. some of which contained direc-
tons for fishing, making fish traps. and
preparing fish for the table.
England, of course, was not alone in pro-
ducing works on fishes and angling; there
were a number of foreign writers and some
few works In Latin. The chief in interest
of these in the Harvard collection is the
work of Guilluame De Saluste, seigneur Du
Bartas, called by its author Divine
Weekes and Workes,' which contains, in
general account of the creation, pains
taking list of the fishes created on the fifth
day. In the translation it was an immense
ly popular English book.
Among other curiosities of the collection
is tome published from the old manu-
script of a Derbyshire fisherman of two
centuries ago. entitled "Flees and the arty-
fishall flee making" The book contains
actual specimens of artificial flies and
samples of the material for making them.
Another volume is the work of David
Cairncross, who. strangely enough, in the
middle of the last century and its enight-
ment, put forth a beautifully bound and
illustrated work to prove that the eel has
for its progenitor modest little species of
beetle. Near by is queer-shaped. fat old
tome, once the property of William Penn,
and bearing his autograph on the fly leaf
Such are some of the bits of interest that
an afternoons ramble through the Bartlett
library brings to light. Each new volume
or each weathered. frowning tome in leath-
er may hide between its covers some pretty
versified lines on angling, some interesting
instruction in the art, some quaint philos-
ophy of the seventeenth century sportsman,
or plates of strange tropical fishes, beauti-
fully set forth In color, or curious theory
of forgotten crank OF the salmon pool or
trout brook, or some scrap of description
which quickens the memory of the book
worm to the sound of the wind in the pines
the sight of the fresh greenery of the
mountain torrent, and the smell of the
cracking brentwood fire. Perhaps, at the
end of ones examination, one recalls the
old verses of John Dennys, who sings OF
the angler as one
''who with his angle and his bookes
Can think the longest day well spent.
And praises God when back he looks
And finds that all innocent