Nec desinat unquam
Tecum Graia loqui tecum Romana vetustas.—+Claudian.+
The following version does not aim at pleasing the mere literary
man. It was not undertaken with the ambitious expectation of being
generally acceptable. It is addressed to the coursing public alone—to
the amateurs of the leash; for whom the original was written, seventeen
centuries ago, by their representative of old, a courser of Nicomedia
in Asia Minor; and for whose amusement and instruction the same now
assumes an English garb.
The general reader will find little in it to interest him. He will
perhaps consider it altogether unworthy of his notice. The sportsman,
fond of
the musical confusion
Of hounds and echo in conjunction,
will read it with indifference, as treating of a branch of rural sport,
not congenial to his taste; and wonder that an attempt should be made
to bring under public notice so ancient a treatise on a subject of such
partial interest. But the courser, it is humbly conceived, the active
patron of the κύνες Κελτικαὶ proud of his greyhounds, that
are as swift
As breathed stags, aye fleeter than the roe,
will peruse it con amore, and find in its pages much that is
entertaining and practically useful, and that utility enhanced in the
department of annotation.
The literary courser, whose attention it more particularly solicits,
will reap the additional benefit of the light which is thrown on
Arrian’s text by the ancient authors of Greece and Rome; and be ready
to yield to the translator the humble merit of having collected in one
point of view the classical elucidations of the Cynegeticus,[1] and the
pertinent observations of writers of a later period.
Pro captu lectoris habent sua fata libelli!
The original manual is conversant with coursing, as practised in the
age of Hadrian and the Antonini, at which period the Celtic hound was
well known, and highly prized: but the annotations of the translator
have a more extensive range, being selected from various Cynegetica in
print and manuscript, from the first institution of coursing to the
present time.[2]
[Sidenote: Gratii Falisci Cyneg. vs. 203.]
[Sidenote: Ovid. Metam. L. +i.+ vs. 533. et L. +vii.+ vs. 781.]
[Sidenote: Martial. L. +iii.+ Epig. 47. et L. +xiv.+ Epig. 200.]
[Sidenote: Polluc. Onomast. L. +v.+ Præf.]
[Sidenote: Oppian. Cyneg. L. +i.+ vs. 401.]
[Sidenote: Nemesian. Cyneg. vs. 106.]
[Sidenote: Ejusd. vs. 64.]
The imperfect poem of Gratius, the Faliscian, on hunting, and the
often-cited simile of his contemporary Ovid, afford the earliest notice
of the canis Gallicus—for he was unknown to ancient Greece.[3] The
description of a single-handed course by the poet of the Metamorphoses,
as it is the first attempt of the kind by any classic author, so is
it unrivalled in the accuracy of its technical phraseology, and the
beauty of its poetry. Intermediate in point of time between the vivid
Ovidian sketch, and the full and perfect picture of Arrian, are the
faint outlines of the epigrammatist Martial: and subsequent to the
Bithynian’s, the somewhat doubtful portrait of the philologist Julius
Pollux, presented to the Emperor Commodus; and yet later, that of
Oppian, the Greek poet of Anazarbus, of the reigns of Severus and
Caracalla.—In these authors alone do we find any allusion to the
courser’s hound, till towards the close of the third century, when he
again appears in the Cynegeticon of Nemesian; who has cleverly struck
out in a few lines the elegant symmetry of his shape, and added thereto
some peculiar remarks on the selection, feeding, and entrance of
puppies. With the scanty portraiture of the Carthaginian poet we are
brought down to the reigns of Carus, his sons, “Divi fortissima pignora
Cari,” and Diocletian: at which epoch, memorable alike in the annals of
the world and its literature, the classical history of the leash may be
said to terminate, and therewith all notice of the Celtic hound.[4]
[Sidenote: Spelman. Gloss. pp. 113. et 551. Du Cange Gloss. in voce.]
[Sidenote: Spelman. in voce.]
We have no ancient records of the chase[5] to succeed the Greek and
Latin Cynegetica; for though it be true that the barbarian codes of
law, the Salic, Burgundian, and German, extended their protection to
our variety of Canis Venaticus, about the year 500, under the title of
Veltris and its synonyms; and some of the Cynegetical writers appear
to have been well known in the dark ages, and so highly valued in
the eighth century, as to be read among the higher Greek and Roman
classics, in the time of Charlemagne; and we believe coursing and
other sports were as attractive in the field, as the writers upon
such subjects were in the schools, (for the court of this prince
had its Veltrarii, officers of the greyhound-kennel, “qui veltres
custodiebant,”) still, instead of any formal treatise of this date
upon the pastime of the leash, we find for several centuries, only
incidental allusions to the greyhound, and his high repute, principally
as distinctive of the gentility of his possessor, until the publication
of “The Booke of Hawkyng, Huntyng, &c.” by Dame Juliana Berners, in the
fifteenth century.
[Sidenote: Haslewood’s Prolegomena to Book of St. Albans.]
[Sidenote: Warton’s Hist. of Engl. Poetry, Vol. +ii.+ p. 172.]
[Sidenote: Book of St. Albans.]
The didactic discourse of hunting, contained in this volume, commonly
known by its territorial appellation of “The Book of St. Albans,” may
be an amplified versification of the prosaic “Venery of Mayster John
Gyfford and Will^m Twety, that were with Kyng Edward the Secunde;” or
possibly a compilation and translation by the sister of Lord Berners,
or the “one sumtyme schole mayster of Seynt Albons” from earlier Latin
and French writers: but such authorities are as yet, I believe, unknown
to Antiquaries. Excepting, therefore, the few lines, before alluded
to, in the latest of the Latin Cynegetica, and the earlier portrait of
Oppian, which I consider referable to the hound in question, it may
be said that we do not possess in print any full description of “the
propritees of a good Grehounde” ἐκ τῶν ποδῶν ἐς τὴν κεφαλὴν, from the
time of the learned Courser of Nicomedia, till that of the sporting
prioress of Sopewell.
[Sidenote: Ms. Cotton. Vesp. B. +xii.+ Brit. Mus.]
[Sidenote: Henry VI. pt. +ii.+ act +ii.+]
Not that I am ignorant of the curious early treatise of Gaston Phœbus,
the celebrated Comte de Foix, written in the middle of the fourteenth
century, entitled “Des Deduitz de la Chasse de Bestes Sauvaiges et des
Oyseaux de Proye;” nor of a more rare work in manuscript, =The Mayster
of Game=, composed by Edmund Duke of York, “Edmund Langley, Edward
the Third’s fifth son,” in the latter part of the fourteenth century;
and therefore, in point of date, claiming a priority to the book of
St. Albans, as do, of course, the lucubrations of the Second Edward’s
attendants before mentioned. But these enchiridia of field sports
preceded the Sopewell collection only a few years; and in the Count de
Foix’s manual, as given by Fouilloux under the title of “La Chasse du
Roy Phebus,” there is nothing on our subject worth noticing.
[Sidenote: Ms. ut supra.]
In =The Crafte of Hontyng=[6] by Gyfford and Twety, the greyhound is
mentioned only once; and hare-coursing is not recorded at all.
[Sidenote: Hardyng’s Chronicle.]
The unpublished labours of the Duke of York,[7] “Edmonde, hyght of
Langley,” contain much original and valuable information: and it is
to be regretted that it is not rendered more available to coursers by
being committed to the press. With copious general descriptions of
our ancient field-sports, and animals obnoxious to the chase, =The
Mayster of Game= unites specific delineations of the shape of each
variety of canis venaticus, employed by British sportsmen of past
days, with occasional references to the chace practices of foreign
countries “by yonde the see.” The chapter of =greyhoundes and of here
nature=, as cited hereafter in illustration of Arrian, will be read
with pleasure. Indeed the Duke’s portrait of the Celtic hound is even
more minutely accurate and precise than its Grecian prototype, and =her
manners= as they are quaintly termed, and briefly sketched in the royal
Cynegeticus, establish many of the remarks of the younger Xenophon περὶ
τῆς γνώμης τῶν κυνῶν.
[Sidenote: Script. illust. M. B. auct. I. Baleo Cent. 8. 611.]
[Sidenote: Oldys in Biograph. Britannica, in voce Caxton, note.]
Still Dame Julyan’s compilation being, at least, the first of the
kind that issued from the English press, and the type of our modern
works of Venery, may be viewed as the earliest attempt, since the
revival of letters, to certify by intelligible canons, the corporeal
characteristics of a good greyhound. With the traditionary dogmata
of Sir Tristrem de Liones,[8] who was the reputed “begynner of all
the termes of huntynge and hawkynge,” it incorporates the accumulated
knowledge of many centuries. And the Dame[9] being no ordinary
personage—“Illustris fœmina, corporis et animi dotibus abundans, ac
formæ elegantiâ spectabilis—heroica mulier, ingeniosa virago”—“a second
Minerva in her studies, and another Diana in her diversions”—her
contemporaries would doubtless receive a cynegetical treatise from her
cloister at Sopewell, with gratitude and admiration.
After the publication of the book of St. Albans, other cynegetica
poetical and prosaic, in various languages, followed in rapid
succession; of which the earliest in my possession are from the presses
of Aldus and Feyerabendi; but collectively they afford very scanty
instruction on the history and practice of the leash.
[Sidenote: Venat. Herculis Strozæ, &c. Francofort. 1582.]
[Sidenote: Adrian. Cardinal. Venat. Aldus, 1534.]
[Sidenote: Venat. et Aucup. per J. A. Lonicer. Francof. 1582.]
[Sidenote: P. Lotich. Secundi Solitariensis Poem. omnia. Burmanni
Amstel. 1754.]
The Epicedium of the Florentine poet, Hercules Stroza, addressed to
the Duchess of Ferrara; the hendecasyllables of Adrian Castellesi,
and the quatrains of John Adam Lonicer, with their accompanying
“icones artificiosissimæ ad vivum expressæ,” add nothing to our stock
of information. And the same may be said of the chaste cynegetical
eclogues, “Sarnis et Viburnus,” of Petrus Lotichius Secundus,
Qui citharâ primus, qui primus carminis arte
Inter erat vates, Teutonis ora, tuos.
[Sidenote: Natal. Comes de Venatione Aldi fil. Venet. 1551.]
I have in vain examined the four books of “Natalis Comes de Venatione”
for more than the name of the canis Celticus—probably to be interpreted
of the war-dog of Gaul, rather than the Vertragus.
[Sidenote: Petri Angelii Bargæi Poemata omnia. Florent. 1568.]
The Cynegeticon of Peter Angelio, commonly called, from his Tuscan
birth-place, Bargæus, is said to have been the labour of twenty years.
It is a splendid specimen of modern Latinity, in beautiful Virgilian
hexameters, to which the literary courser will award their merited meed
of praise. The most approved shape of the “canis cursor” is correctly
portrayed, with a reference to the fabulous tale of the Ovidian Lælaps.
Nor has the poet disdained to enter on the minute and necessary details
of breeding, and kenneling the pack. Indeed the whole of his fifth
book is devoted to the “blanda canum soboles;” and the reader will
find incorporated in the instructions therein given, nearly all the
arcana of the Greek and Latin Cynegetica, excepting these of Arrian’s
Manual, which do not appear to have been known to the poet of Barga. He
employs the greyhound in coursing the fox, wolf, deer, and goat, but
gives no description of hare-coursing in any of the six books of his
Cynegeticon; nor in the eclogues entitled “Venatoria,” forming part
of the fifth book of his “Carmina.” Had the manuscript of Arrian’s
Cynegeticus been known to him, he would, doubtless, have entered as
fully into hare-coursing, as he has into every other variety of chase.
[Sidenote: C. Heresbachii Compendium Therouticæ universæ.]
Of Conrad Heresbach’s compendium of fishing, fowling, and hunting,[10]
attached to his larger work “de Re Rusticâ,” I have in vain
endeavoured to procure a copy. It is a prosaic work, treating more
of animal history, as I am informed, than of venation: still as this
abbreviator of the labours of his predecessors was a man of various
acquirements, and extensive erudition, it would have been satisfactory
to me to have examined his “Compendium Thereuticæ Universæ;” or at
least the first part of it, devoted to the hunting of terrestrial
animals.
[Sidenote: H. Fracastorii Alcon, seu de Curâ Canum.]
The Alcon of Fracastor is in every one’s hands; being annexed to the
editions of the Poetæ Venatici by Johnson and Kempher. It contains
nothing on the subject of coursing.
[Sidenote: M. A. Blondi de Canibus et Venat. libellus, Romæ 1544.]
[Sidenote: Joan. Darcii Venusini Canes Francof. 1582.]
To Michael Angelo Blondus or Biondi, we are indebted for the first hint
on clothing greyhounds in the field, and for other matters connected
with the discipline of the kennel and its inmates; and to Joannes
Darcius, a truly classic poet of Venusium, not unworthy the natal
town of Horace, for an elegant sketch of a hare-course, cited in the
subsequent annotations.
It is singular that the greyhound, indigenous as we suppose him
of Gallia Celtica, should have been so little noticed by his
countrymen—that a variety of chase heretofore peculiar to Gaul should
have been omitted in almost all the cynegetical works of Frenchmen of
the olden time; and that the same omission should be chargeable on the
moderns,—on the “Venerie Normande” of M. Le Verrier de la Conterie,
the “Traité de Vénerie” of M. D’Yauville, and even, to a great extent,
on the volume of the Encyclopédie Méthodique, which professes to be a
“Dictionnaire de toutes les espèces de Chasses.”
[Sidenote: Album Dianæ, &c. Cadomi 1655.]
Savary of Caen published a Latin poem on hare-hunting in seven
books,[11] entitled “Album Dianæ Leporicidæ, sive Venationis Leporinæ
leges,” of some rarity, but of little merit. He appears to have had
an especial dislike to the canis Gallicus, anathematizing the ancient
Celtic recreation in the very style of our own Somerville, who in many
parts of “The Chase” seemingly had his eye on the poet of Caen:
[Sidenote: Alb. Dianæ &c. L. +i.+ p. 7.]
Nam neque defixi canis irretita coturnix
Indicio, non insidiis oppressa Laconum
Heu leporum virtus, brevis illa et avara voluptas,
Et quorum nunquam cor est satiabile cædis
Nobile venandi nomen meruére!
The courser will scarce recognize his favourite dog in the slanderous
abstract misnomer of “Lacedæmonii pernix violentia monstri.”
[Sidenote: La Chasse du Loup. J. de Cl.]
[Sidenote: Turbervile’s B. of H. p. 246.]
[Sidenote: Countrey Contentments. Countrey Farme &c. &c.]
The celebrated works of Jaques du Fouilloux, and his contemporary Jean
de Clamorgan, do not treat of the use of the greyhound, except merely
“in setting back-sets, or receytes for deare, wolfe, foxe, or such
like:” but in “the noble art of Venerie” by Turbervile and Gascoigne,
in “the Jewell for Gentrie,” and the compilations of Gervase Markham,
we find much illustration of the science and history of the leash in
Great Britain.[12]
[Sidenote: Wase’s Illustrations of Gratius p. 74.]
Turbervile, or whoever be the translator of Fouilloux, has appended
an admirable breviary of coursing to “the booke of hunting:” and Wase
notifies of Gervase Markham, that “he hath reported the fruits of his
own experience, as in the whole cycle of husbandry accurately; so in
Cynegetiques excellently.” His chapter on coursing with greyhounds[13]
is well worthy perusal; as is also the description of the “Leporarius”
by Dr. Caius in his “Libellus de canibus Britannicis.”—Need I stop to
remark the doubtful features of the “canis alter præpete cursu” of
Vanière’s Prædium Rusticum?—Some few points belong apparently to the
Celtic hound,
[Sidenote: J. Vanierii Præd. Rustic. Lib. +iv.+]
Pes illi gracilis, longa internodia crurum,
Argutum caput, et levibus vis ignea plantis;
Demissumque brevi pectus se colligit alvo.
but his _latrancy_ (“insequitur claris lepores latratibus”) would
rather assign him to a different kennel. Works of a later date are too
well known to need particular notice.
[Sidenote: Arriani de Venatione]
[Sidenote: c. +ix.+]
[Sidenote: c. +x.+]
[Sidenote: c. +xv.+]
Very few are the improvements, either in the discipline of the
courser’s kennel, or his practice in the field, transmitted to us by
these collective cynegetica; and modern ingenuity has added little
to our knowledge in any department of coursing, as the reader of the
Nicomedian’s Manual will readily acknowledge. His remarks on the
physical indications of excellence in greyhounds, and of speed and
good blood,—derived from external shape and character generally,—on
the unimportance of colour,—on the indications afforded by temper,
tractability in the field, mode of feeding, &c. are perfect as far
as they go. Nor can we improve on his kennel management, in feeding,
bedding, (εὐνὴ μαλθακὴ καὶ ἀλεεινὴ), rubbing down, (τρίψις τοῦ
σώματος παντὸς,) exercising, alternated with confinement, &c. &c. As
to slipping-law, and the number of hounds to be slipped at once, his
injunctions μήτε ἐγγύθεν ἐπιλύειν τῷ λαγῷ, μήτε πλείους δυοῖν, are
strictly complied with at present by all fair sportsmen.
The Celts, it appears, had four different ways of coursing, all of
which are practised by modern amateurs, according to their several
tastes, and the nature of the countries in which they follow their
sport.
[Sidenote: c. +xix.+]
The superior class of Celtic gentlemen, ὅσοι μὲν πλουτοῦσιν αὐτῶν καὶ
τρυφῶσιν, employed persons to look out for hares in their forms, early
in the morning, and to inform them by a messenger what success they had
met with, before they left home themselves.
[Sidenote: c. +xx.+]
[Sidenote: c. +xxi.+]
A second class, probably less opulent, and not able to afford the
expense of hare-finders, mustered all their brother-amateurs, and beat
the ground in regular array, abreast of each other. Both these parties
were mounted on horseback; but a third class sallied forth on foot,
and these, Arrian says, were really workmen at the sport, αὐτουργοὶ
κυνηγεσίων: if any person accompanied the latter on horseback, he was
ordered to keep up with the greyhounds. A fourth mode of coursing,
sometimes adopted by them, was that of first loosing dogs of scent to
find, and start the game, and then slipping the greyhounds, as soon as
it came within sight.
Upon all of these different practices the father of the leash has
entered most fully in his classical Manual: and if to these points
we add his sensible remarks on the entering of puppies, on breeding,
management after whelping, feeding and naming of young dogs, comparison
of sexes, &c.; his merit will be allowed to be commensurate with his
antiquity, and his enchiridion not only the earliest in the annals of
the leash, but altogether the most abundant in valuable information.
[Sidenote: Countrey Contentments, B. +i.+ c. +i.+]
It is foreign to my purpose and inclination to enter into a prolix
defence of the courser’s pursuit, against the objections of its
adversaries in the field or closet. “I would not goe about,” in the
words of Gervase Markham, “to elect and prescribe what recreation the
husbandman should use, binding all men to one pleasure—God forbid!
my purpose is merely contrary: for I know in men’s recreations, that
nature taketh to herselfe an especiall prerogative, and what to one is
most pleasant, to another is most offensive; some seeking to satisfie
the mind, some the body, and some both in a joynt motion.”
We of the coursing fraternity prefer the “canis Gallicus,” and “arvum
vacuum” of Ovid, as instrumental to our choicest diversion;
[Sidenote: Nemesian. Cyneg. vs. 48.]
camposque patentes
Scrutamur, totisque citi discurrimus arvis;
Et————cupimus facili cane sumere prædas:
Nos timidos lepores——
but we do not forbid others
imbelles figere damas,
Audacesve lupos, vulpem aut captare dolosam.
For the refined diversion of coursing may be as disagreeable to the
fox-hunter, whose only joy is when
[Sidenote: Taming of the Shrew, Sc. +ii.+]
The hounds shall make the welkin answer them,
And fetch shrill echoes from the hollow earth,
[Sidenote: Ellis’s Histor. Letters, 2nd Series, Vol. +iii.+ p. 199.]
[Sidenote: A Kinge’s Xtian Dutie towards God, B. +iii.+]
[Sidenote: =M. of G. fo. 64.=]
[Sidenote: B. +i.+ c. 17.]
as it is delightful to the genuine amateur, on account of its chaste,
and temperate, and contemplative quiet. King James, in his Βασιλικὸν
Δῶρον, (himself, according to Sir Theodore Mayerne, “violentissimis
olim venationis exercitiis deditus,”) praises “the hunting with running
houndes, as the most honourable and noblest sort thereof,” and is
supported by the high authority of Edmund de Langley, Mayster of Game;
adding “it is a thievish forme of hunting to shoote with gunnes and
bowes, and greyhounde hunting is not so martiall a game.” But on the
other hand, Sir Thomas Elyot, in “The Governour,” speaking of “those
exercises apte to the furniture of a gentylman’s personage,” and “not
utterly reproved of noble autours, if they be used with oportunitie
and in measure,” calls “hunting of the hare with grehoundes a ryght
good solace for men that be studiouse, or theim to whom nature hathe
not geven personage, or courage apte for the warres; and also for
gentilwomen, which feare nether sonne nor wynde for appayryng their
beautie. And peradventure they shall be therat lesse idell, than
they shold be at home in their chaumbers.”—And the author of “The
Booke of Hunting,” annexed to Turbervile’s Falconrie, concludes his
treatise with the following singular panegyric “concerning coursing
with greyhoundes”—“the which is doubtlesse a noble pastime, and as
meet for nobility and gentleman, as any of the other kinds of Venerie
before declared: especially the course of the hare, which is a sport
continually in sight, and made without any great travaile: so that
recreation is therein to be found without unmeasurable toyle and
payne:[14] whereas in hunting with hounds, although the pastime be
great, yet many times the toyle and paine is also exceeding great: and
then it may well be called, eyther a painfull pastime, or a pleasant
payne.”
Coursing, more than the other laborious diversions of rural life, while
it ministers to our moderate sensual enjoyment, admits also during
the intervals of the actual pursuit of hound and hare, much rational
reflection, opportunities of conversation with our brethren of the
leash, and mental improvement. It tends, as Markham quaintly expresses
himself, “to satisfie the mind and body in a joynt motion;” for in the
beautiful poetry of a living patron of the Celtic dog, there is no
interval of idleness with the well-read courser;
[Sidenote: Marmion, Introd. to Canto +ii.+]
Nor dull between each merry chase,
Passes the intermitted space:
For we have fair resource in store,
In Classic and in Gothic lore.
[Sidenote: De Incert. et Vanit. &c. c. +lxxvii.+]
[Sidenote: The Anatomie of Abuses.]
But there are those who anathematize limiting and coursing, and other
rural recreation, either as sinful,[15] or indicative of barbarism
and mental degradation, in the ratio of the pursuit. Like Cornelius
Agrippa, they view venation _in genere_ as the worst occupation of
the worst of mankind; and say with Philip Stubbes, that “Esau was a
great hunter, but a reprobat; Ismael, a great hunter, but a miscreant;
Nemrode, a great hunter, but yet a reprobat, and a vessell of wrath;”
and bid us, in the poetic badinage of the poet of Cyrene, leave off
coursing:
[Sidenote: Callimachus, J. in Dian. vs. 154.]
ἔα πρόκας ἠδὲ λαγωοὺς
οὔρεα βόσκεσθαι· τί δέ κεν πρόκες ἠδὲ λαγωοὶ
ῥέξειαν;
swearing, with the melancholy Jaques,
[Sidenote: As You Like It. act +ii.+]
that we
Are mere usurpers, tyrants, and what’s worse,
To fright the animals, and to kill them up,
In their assign’d and native dwelling-place.
[Sidenote: Cicero de Nat. Deor. L. +ii.+ c. 63.]
But if “some habites and customes of delight” are allowable and
indispensable to the “contentment” of the human mind, and “men of
exceeding strickt lives and severity of profession” have indulged in
rural diversions, why need we regard the severe reflections of the
sensitive Monsieur Paschal, or his more modern plagiarists? why think
that wisdom loves not the courser’s sport? or that man is degraded
before the tribunal of sound reason by estimating aright the instinct
of any of the creatures around him? or made sinful in the eyes of his
Creator by availing himself of the adapted powers of the lowliest
of the brute race, for the subjugation of such wild animals as were
originally designed by a bountiful Creator for the sustenance and
recreation of man? “Canum verò tam incredibilis ad investigandum
sagacitas narium, tanta alacritas in venando, quid significat aliud
nisi se ad hominum commoditates esse generatos?”
[Sidenote: Manchester Memoirs V. +i.+]
The inference in regard to the chases and field sports generally is
surely just, “that man, by co-operating with such animals, employs
both his and their faculties on the purposes for which they were
partially designed: tending thereby to complete the bounteous scheme of
Providence, the happiness and well-being of all its creatures.”
[Sidenote: Jul. Cæsar. Scaliger. Epidorpidum L. +iv.+]
videtur
Natura parens hunc homini dedisse ludum,
Suà obire manu retia, defigere varos,
Hos cum docuit: cum accipitrem redire jussum
Jucunda canes cum leporarios creabat:
Nunquàm faciens frustrà aliquid carensve fine.
[Sidenote: Somerville, Chace. B. +iv.+]
The brute creation are man’s property,
Subservient to his will, and for him made.
As hurtful these he kills, as useful those
Preserves; their sole and arbitrary king.
Should he not kill, as erst the Samian sage
Taught unadvised, and Indian Brachmans now
As vainly preach; the teeming rav’nous brutes
Might fill the scanty space of this terrene,
Incumb’ring all the globe.
[Sidenote: Xenophon de Venat. c. +i.+]
[Sidenote: Hist. of Engl. Poetry, V. +ii.+]
Mr. Warton, the talented historian of English Poetry, a bookful
Academic, and not a μαθητὴς κυνηγεσίων, acquits the hunter of the
charge of barbarism, and acknowledges that “the pleasures of the chase
seem to have been implanted by nature; and under due regulation, if
pursued as a matter of mere relaxation, and not of employment, are by
no means incompatible with the modes of polished life.”
[Sidenote: Encyclopédie Méthodique sur les Chasses, avertissement.]
The difference of opinion on the subject of the chase has arisen
entirely from the different lights in which it has been viewed; the one
exhibiting its rational use, the other its intemperate abuse. “Elle a
trouvé autant de censeurs outrés que d’apologistes enthousiastes, parmi
les anciens et les modernes, parce qu’elle a été envisagée sous le
double rapport de son utilité et de ses abus.”
Amongst the ancient eulogists, in the Grecian language, will be found
Aristotle, Plato, Xenophon, Polybius, and Julius Pollux; in the Latin,
Cicero, Horace, Virgil, Seneca, Pliny, Justin, Symmachus, and others.
To which numerous phalanx of classic worthies there is no opponent
authority, save that of Sallust: and of more recent days, Petrarch, and
Cornelius Agrippa. Not to swell this prefatory matter with too many
citations from obsolete languages, I have referred the reader, who may
wish to know more of the _éloges_ alluded to, severally to the passages
in a note subjoined.[16] But touching the adverse party, a word or two
may be here admitted.
[Sidenote: Bell. Catal. c. +i.+]
In appreciating the authority of Sallust’s sentiments on the subject of
field-sports, as given in the studied preface of his Catilinarian War,
“Non fuit consilium socordiâ atque desidiâ bonum otium conterere: neque
verò, agrum colendo, aut venando, servilibus officiis intentum, ætatem
agere;” we should remark the ambitious tone of pretended philosophy
in which the introduction is written: “Nostra omnis vis in animo,
et corpore sita est. Animi imperio, corporis servitio magis utimur;
alterum nobis cum Diis, alterum cum belluis commune est.” And that
this distinction between mental and corporeal qualities, their proper
relation to each other, and the subordinate character of the latter to
that of the former,
[Sidenote: Oppian. Halieut. L. +v.+ vs. 94.]
ὡς οὔτ’ ἠνορέης, οὔτ’ εἴδεος ἔπλετ’ ὄνειαρ
τόσσον, ὅσον πραπίδων,
[Sidenote: Arist. Polit. L. +i.+ c. +vii.+]
[Sidenote: Historia Vitæ et Mortis.]
are kept up in the passage first adduced: in which he merely means
to say that he does not wish to spend his time in slothful idleness;
and that the rural vocations of agriculture and hunting, being of a
secondary and inferior character, more connected with the body than the
mind, are not agreeable to his taste, as the business and occupation of
life, “ætatem agere.” And we must allow that the entire and constant
dedication of time to practical agriculture, or rural sports, to the
care of flocks and herds, or the kenneling and coursing of greyhounds,
unvaried by such higher studies and pursuits as are characteristic
of well-educated men, must be deemed, in polished life, rather lowly
employment;—approaching too near to the class of occupations, which
the Stagirite considers sordid and servile, as being exercised by the
corporeal powers alone:—to avoid which, Sallust declares a decided
preference to speculative over bodily activity; to the “vita in
literis” over the “vita rusticana:” “quò mihi rectius videtur,” says
he, “ingenii quàm virium opibus gloriam quærere.” Disclaiming that
union of both, which we so much admire in the Athenian philosopher
of the Scilluntian retreat, and his counterpart, the modern literary
country gentleman; a fair example of an individual acting upon the
twofold principle on which Mr. Addison regulated his conduct. “As a
compound of soul and body, obliged to a double scheme of duties; and
thinking that he has not fulfilled the business of the day, unless he
has employed the one in labour and exercise, as well as the other in
study and contemplation.”
[Sidenote: Oppian.]
τῷ τις ἀεργίην δυστερπέα τῆλε διώκοι
καὶ κραδίης καὶ χειρός.
[Sidenote: The Governour, B. +i.+ c. +xxvi.+]
“It is not onely called Idelnes,” says Sir Thomas Elyot, “wherin
the body or mynde cesseth from laboure, but specially ydelnes is an
omission of al honest exercise.”
[Sidenote: Sir T. Elyot’s The Governour, B. +i.+ c. +xi.+]
[Sidenote: H. C. Agrippa in Dedicat. D. Aug. Furnatio.]
[Sidenote: De Vanit. et Incert. &c. c. +lxxvii.+]
Passing over, for the present, the objections of Petrarch, let us
pause for a moment on the vituperations of Henricus Cornelius Agrippa.
So confessedly crabbed a gentleman as this “noble clerke of Almayn,”
can add but little weight to the scanty file of semi-classical
oppositionists. Admitting in his dedication to Furnatius his mental
approximation to the canine qualities of the metamorphosed Queen of
Troy, “adeò ut ex ipsâ indignatione fermè cum Trojanâ illâ Hecubâ
versus sum in canem, ac nullarum virium sim ad benè dicendum, nil
amplius memini nisi mordere, oblatrare, maledicere, conviciari,” &c.,
his verdict cannot be received as that of a candid and unprejudiced
adversary. The general contempt with which he visits all the arts
and sciences, deprives his anti-cynegetical calumnies of much of
their poignancy, and renders his “ars crudelis et tota tragica, cujus
voluptas est in morte et in sanguine, quam ipsa deberet refugere
humanitas,”[17] &c. scarce worthy of the courser’s notice.[18]
The moderate and occasional recourse to field-diversions, with the same
object that influenced Pliny in their pursuit, “ut animus agitatione
motuque corporis excitetur,” is not reprehensible, nor inconsistent
with the due cultivation of the mind, and the fulfilment of the higher
duties of life.
[Sidenote: Petr. Lotichii 2di Eclog. +i.+ Sarnis. vs. 10.]
Ipse etiam citharam Phœbus quandoque reponit:
Et pharetras plectris, et mutat plectra pharetris.
But “there is an especiall need,” observes Christopher Wase, in
the preface of his translation of Gratius, after much just praise
of hunting, “to hold a strict reine over our affections, that this
pleasure, which is allowable in its season, may not entrench upon
other domesticall affaires. We must consider that it wastes much time,
and although it have its own praise, being an honest recreation and
exercise, yet it is not of the noblest parts of life. There is great
danger lest wee bee transported with this pastime, and so ourselves
grow wild, haunting the woods till wee resemble the beasts which
are citizens of them,[19] and, by continual conversation with dogs,
become altogether addicted to slaughter and carnage, which is wholly
dishonorable, being a servile employment. For as it is the privilege
of man, who is endued with reason, and authorized in the law of his
creation to subdue the beasts of the field, so to tyrannize over them
is plainly brutish.”
[Sidenote: Cowper’s Task, B. +vi.+]
On Noah, and in him on all mankind
The charter was conferr’d, by which we hold
The flesh of animals in fee, and claim
O’er all we feed on pow’r of life and death.
But read the instrument, and mark it well:
Th’ oppression of a tyrannous controul
Can find no warrant there. Feed then, and yield
Thanks for thy food. Carnivorous, through sin,
Feed on the slain, but spare the living brute.
[Sidenote: Senecæ Epist. +xiv.+]
When field amusements are allowed to engross the whole of our
attention, and in their pursuit to enslave, as it were, the mind to
the body; when they become the ἔργα of life instead of the πάρεργα,
its daily occupation, instead of the occasional recreation of its
leisure hours;[20] they constitute, as Rittershusius has well observed,
a culpable θηρομανία, and certainly tend, by devoting the attention
exclusively to inferior objects, to abridge the intellect of that
sustenance which it should occasionally derive from more refined
and important studies. “Fateor insitam esse nobis corporis nostri
caritatem: fateor nos hujus gerere tutelam: non nego indulgendum illi,
serviendum nego.”
[Sidenote: Petrarchæ Remed. Utriusque Fortunæ, Lib. +i.+ Dial. 32.]
With such ultra-sportsmen the translator has no community of sentiment:
nor will they experience from common sense less severity of reproof
than “Reason” bestows on them in the dialogue with “Joy” in Petrarch’s
“Remedia Utriusque Fortunæ.” “Ad honestum nihil idonei,” says Ratio,
“sylvas colunt, non vitam solitariam acturi, cui non minùs quàm
politicæ se ineptos sciunt, sed feris, ac canibus, et volucribus
convicturi, quod non facerent, nisi illis similitudine aliquâ juncti
essent: qui, si ex hoc voluptatem quandam, seu solam temporis fugam
quærunt, utrinque stulti, voti compotes forsan evaserint. Sin, nescio
quam, seu ingenii, seu magnificentiæ gloriam aucupantur, errant,”
&c.[21]
[Sidenote: Plin. Epist. L. +ix.+ 10.]
The whole dialogue is an admirable rebuke of the licentious sporting in
the days of this extraordinary genius.[22] “Hic amor, hæc felicitas,
et hoc totum, quod Creatori Deo, quod altrici patriæ, quod parentibus,
quod amicis redditis? Quis vos ferat, ad aliud natos, in his vivere,
si modo vivitis, hoc agentes?” says “Reason:” and I confess that I
am unable and unwilling to furnish “Joy” with a reply of defence;
approving, as I do, of the joint worship of Minerva and Diana,
recommended by Tacitus to his correspondent Pliny, and of making the
health of the body conducive to that of the mind: “ut sua menti
constet sanitas,” says Christopher Wase to William Lord Herbert, “et
justum corpori accedat robur.”
[Sidenote: Xenophon. Cyneg. c. +i.+]
[Sidenote: Orph. Argon. v. 377.]
[Sidenote: Xenophon. Cyneg. c. +i.+]
It must ever be borne in mind that the illustrious heroes of Xenophon’s
classic file acquired not their renown by hunting prowess alone, but by
its union with moral and intellectual endowments: ἐκ τῆς ἐπιμελείας τῆς
τῶν κυνῶν καὶ κυνηγεσίων καὶ ἐκ τῆς ἄλλης παιδείας πολὺ διενεγκόντες
κατὰ τὴν ἀρετὴν ἐθαυμάσθησαν. Chiron himself was invested with the
privileges and science of the chase on account of his moral worth, διὰ
δικαίοτητα—for he was δικαιοτάτος Κενταύρων. And the numerous disciples
of the craft, distinguished in the annals of the world as practical
sportsmen, from Cephalus and Æsculapius to Æneas and Achilles, left
other claims on the notice of posterity than those attached to their
characters as μαθηταὶ κυνηγεσίων.[23]
[Sidenote: Somerville, The Chace.]
know that such
Transporting pleasures were by heav’n ordain’d
Wisdom’s relief, and virtue’s great reward.
[Sidenote: Symmachi Epist. L. +i.+ E. 53.]
But it is time to cease both praise and reprehension: of the latter
I have been sparing; of the former, perhaps, too liberal. Symmachus,
“the wordy champion of expiring Paganism,” checks his friend and
correspondent Agorius in boasting too much of his “nodosa retia vel
pennarum formidines, et sagaces canes, omnemque rem venaticam, meliorum
oblitus;” and suggests “quare cum scribis, memento facundiæ tuæ
modum ponere. Rustica sunt et inculta, quæ loqueris, ut venator esse
credaris.” Wherefore, being myself addicted only to one branch of the
craft, viz. that of “greyhound-hunting,” in the phrase of our “pedant
king,”
[Sidenote: Sir Thomas More’s poems. “Manhod.”]
to nourishe up and fede
The greyhounde to the course—
[Sidenote: Symmachi Epist. L. +v.+ 6.]
[Sidenote: Xenophon. Anab. L. +v.+]
I am fearful of falling into the error of Agorius, and becoming
obnoxious to the same rebuke. Enough, therefore: and now for an
example.—Will the bookful recluse, the sedentary and learned
oppositionist qualify the scorn with which he views our varied
course of occupation in the library and the field, if we show him
that our opinions and practice “liberalia studia sylvestri voluptate
distinguere” are supported by a renowned example of antiquity; and
direct his attention to the latter and sequestered part of the life
“secretum iter, et fallentis semita vitæ” of the elder Xenophon,
in contradiction of the refined antipathies of Sallust?—bid him
contemplate the rival of Plato and Thucydides in his delightful retreat
at Scillus, “under the protection of the temporal sovereignty of
Lacedæmon, and the spiritual tutelage of Diana; diversifying the more
refined pleasures of his studious hours with the active amusements
of the field; breaking his dogs, training his horses, and attending
to the breed of stock; registering the observations of his personal
experience in these healthful pursuits with his own immortal pen; and
affording an example to scholars in all ages, that they should not
disdain to refresh their vigour, and renew their animation, by allowing
the unharnessed faculties to recreate themselves freely in country
sports, and exercise themselves agreeably in country business.”
[Sidenote: Burns, “The Twa Dogs.”]
O would men stay aback frae courts,
An’ please themselves wi’ countra sports,
It wad for every ane be better,
The laird, the tenant, an’ the cotter!
I wish it were in our power to enrol the name of the accomplished
Athenian among the first patrons of our particular branch of
field-sports; but the greyhound was unknown to the son of Gryllus.
We may, however, place the honour of the leash under the early
patronage of his celebrated namesake: whose talents, as a military
chief, were distinguished in the age in which he lived; whose works,
as a philosopher and historian, have been transmitted with reputation
to posterity, and continue to attract sufficient attention from the
literary world, to embolden us in directing the notice of such of our
opponents as consider the courser in a state of degraded existence, to
the younger Xenophon, in his twofold capacity of a man of literature,
and a patron of the leash. And we may conclude from the latter having
been considered worthy the illustration of his pen, that coursing was
not then classed with the “servilia officia” of rural life.
Before I proceed to the reasons which have induced me to lay before the
public the following translation, I cannot resist availing myself of
the opportunity, which a defence of the courser’s pursuit affords, of
transcribing a spirited and highly poetical production of the late Mr.
Barnard, of Brantinghamthorpe,[24] breathing the refined sentiments of
a gifted scholar and ardent courser, fired at the idea of his favourite
sport, his greyhounds, and his mountain thoughts being lightly or
disdainfully received in the world’s esteem!