[1] The editors of the Greek libellus confine their remarks almost
exclusively to critical annotations on the text. Indeed Holstein’s
edition has no notes; Blancard’s, only a few marginal emendations; and
Zeune’s and Schneider’s, very few parallel passages. Such classical
citations, therefore, as are adduced by the translator, are for the
most part of novel application.
[2] The quotations from the Cynegeticus of Xenophon the elder refer to
the chase-practices and kennel-discipline of Greece, antecedent to the
institution of coursing.
[3]
[Sidenote: Bocharti Hierozoic. L. +ii.+ c. +lvi.+]
[Sidenote: Ejusdem Præfat. ad Lectorem.]
[Sidenote: Ovid. Metam. L. +iii.+]
This statement is limited to classical authors alone; the Biblical
scholar might possibly arraign its accuracy, if made more general;
though it scarce needs qualification to suit the doubtful
interpretation of the Hebrew text of Proverbs ch. +xxx.+ ver. 31.
No allusion occurring elsewhere in the sacred volume to dogs of
the chase, though many to the earlier varieties of Venation with
predatory instruments, it is improbable that the words of Agur to
his pupils Ithiel and Ucal should refer to the most uncommon of the
canine tribe, the canis Leporarius, Gallicus, or Vertragus. The Hebrew
expression, however, for “accinctus lumbis,” “girt in the loins,” as
explained in the margin of the English version, is understood by Jewish
lexicographers to designate the greyhound, and is so rendered in the
English text. But with the learned Bochart (Præfat. ad Lectorem—wherein
he corrects a few errors of the body of his work, and gives his latest
and most mature opinions on certain Scriptural difficulties—a part of
his writings apparently overlooked by modern annotators, to the farther
propagation of error) I should rather understand the horse to be the
animal alluded to—“equum intelligi malim, qui non solùm expeditè, sed
et superbè, et cura pompâ quâdam incedit: et lumbos habet cingulâ vel
zonâ verè succinctos. Quod an de cane dici possit valdè ambigo.” After
all, perhaps, no particular animal may have been intended by the son
of Jakeh. The term may have a general reference to any animal of the
frame alluded to—“substricta gerens—ilia—”. The chapter containing the
passage in question is not found in the Septuagint; indeed the Greek
version of the LXX. terminates with the 29th chapter.
[4]
[Sidenote: Themistii Orat. +xxvii.+]
In the 27th oration of Themistius, the eclectic philosopher of
Paphlagonia, a passage occurs, which, as far as merely mentioning
Celtic dogs by name, may be said to prolong the notice to the fourth
century. The whole passage, as illustrative of the author’s subject,
“_non loca attendenda sed homines_,” is curious and worthy of
citation—ὅστις δὲ ἀγαπᾷ κύνας, τούτῳ προσφιλὲς μὲν κτῆμα, καὶ Κέλται,
καὶ Λάκαιναι σκύλακες· δάκνει δὲ αὐτὸν καὶ τὸ Καστορίδων φύλον, καὶ
τὸ Ἀρκαδικὸν αὐτὸ, καὶ τὸ Κρητικὸν, αἷς φύσις τῶν θηρίων ἐλέγχειν
τὰς εὐνὰς κατὰ τὴν ὁδὸν ἐπισπομέναις. οὐ παρόψεται δὲ οὐδὲ τὰς οἴκοι
σκυλακευθείσας, εἰ μήτε κάλλους ἐκείνων μήτε ὠκύτητος λείποιντο. In
favour of the greyhound being here cited, it may be remarked that the
Bithynian courser calls the Celtic dog μέγα κτῆμα (cap. +xxxii.+) and
his shape καλόν τι χρῆμα, and derives his name ἀπὸ τῆς ὠκύτητος, as the
characteristic distinction of the race. See some remarks on the “Canes
Scotici” of Symmachus hereafter.
[5] The Cynosophium alone, a Greek work “de Curâ Canum,” breaks the
silence of many centuries. It is supposed to have been compiled, about
the year 1270, by Demetrius of Constantinople, author of the first
treatise “de Re Accipitrariâ,” and physician to the Emperor Michael
Palæologus. To what is borrowed from the two Xenophons, nothing
is added of novelty or interest, save in the department of canine
pathology; indeed it is almost entirely confined to kennel-management
and therapeutics. No notice is taken of any variety of dog by name. The
reader, who may wish to consult its medical nostrums, will find the
treatise attached to the “Rei Accipitrariæ Scriptores” of Rigaltius
(Lutetiæ +mdcxii.+) and to the “Poetæ Venatici” of Johnson (Londini
+mdcxcix.+).
[6]
[Sidenote: Warton’s Engl. Poetry, V. +ii.+ 221.]
The =Crafte of Hontyng= is supposed to be a version by Gyfford from
a more ancient work by Twety or Twici—“Le art de Venerie le quel
Maistre Guillaiue Twici Venour le Roy d’Angleterre fist en son temps
per aprandre autres.” The greyhound is mentioned fol. 4. =of blowing=.
“Whañ a mañ hath set up archerys and greyhoundes, and the beest be
founde and passe out the boundys, and myne houndes aftir,” &c.
[7] These instructions were written for Henry Prince of Wales,
afterwards Henry V.
[8]
[Sidenote: Scott’s Sir Tristrem.]
The “Morte Arthur” tells us, that “Tristrem laboured ever in hunting
and hawking, so that we never read of no gentleman more that so used
himself therein,” &c. and in the rich poetry of Spenser, the knight
informs Sir Calidore,
my most delight hath always been
To hunt the salvage chace, amongst my peers,
Of all that rangeth in the forest green,
Of which none is to me unknown, that ever yet was seen.
[9]
[Sidenote: Biograph. Brit. note, Caxton, p. 367.]
The Biographia Britannica is amusingly severe in its strictures on
the renowned Mrs. Barnes, and her incongruous occupations in the
field and cloister. “There appears such a motley masquerade—such
an indistinctness of petticoat and breeches,—such a problem and
concorporation of sexes, according to the image that arises out of the
several representations of this religious sportswoman or virago, that
one can scarcely consider it, without thinking Sir Tristram, the old
monkish forester, and Juliana, the matron of the nuns, had united to
confirm John Cleveland’s ‘Canonical Hermaphrodite.’”
[10] Should the reader meet with any extracts from the Compendium in
the subsequent annotations, they are to be received on the authority of
Conrad Gesner, from whose “Historia Quadrupedum” they are selected. The
same learned work has afforded the few parallel passages adduced from
Albertus Magnus, Belisarius, and Tardif. For all others the translator
is himself answerable, having culled them from the original sources,
and generally from the most approved editions.
[11]
[Sidenote: Alb. Dianæ &c. L. +iv.+ p. 52.]
Innuba, qui pariter cœlebs, duo numina cultu
Assiduo colit, Artemidem junxitque Minervæ,
Carus utrique Deæ Savary, quem sedula semper
Investigandi leporis tenet ultima cura.
[12]
[Sidenote: Symmachi Epist. L. +ii.+ Epist. 77.]
[Sidenote: See the Appendix Class +iii.+]
[Sidenote: Cotton. Mss. Tiber. B. +v.+]
The date of the greyhound’s introduction into these islands is with
difficulty ascertained. If the “septem Scoticorum canum oblatio” of
Flavian, wherewith he graced the Quæstor’s spectacle of his brother
Symmachus at Rome, be really coarse varieties of the Celtic type, as
supposed by Christopher Wase, this hound must have been found here as
early as the reign of Theodosius. Indeed Hector Boethius and Holinshed
place him amongst us at an earlier period: nor is it improbable that he
originally accompanied the Scoto-Celts from the continent of Europe at
their primary irruption into Ireland and Scotland. We have evidence of
his being an inmate of the Anglo-Saxon kennels in the days of Elfric,
Duke of Mercia; and manuscriptal paintings have descended to us of a
Saxon chieftain and his huntsman, attended by a brace of greyhounds, of
the date of the 9th century—the earliest representation which I have
seen of this hound as connected with British field-sports.
[13] Contained in his work entitled “Countrey Contentments.” In
addition to which, “The Countrey Farme,” by the same author, a
compilation from the French, will be read with amusement.
[14]
[Sidenote: Oppian Halieut. +i.+ vs. 28.]
Τερπωλὴ δ’ ἕπεται θήρῃ πλέον ἠέπερ ἱδρώς.
[Sidenote: Vlitii Venatio Novantiqua.]
Coursing has ever been held an honourable and gentlemanly amusement in
Great Britain, from its earliest annals to the present time. Nor can I
discover any authority for the truth of Vlitius’s opinion, as given in
his note on the Veltraha of Gratius. “Ne ideò Vertragis suis sagaces
posthabeat ille Xenophon: nam hodiè in Angliâ sagaces nobilissimi
quique exercent; Vertrago autem leporem conficere, indignum benè nato
parum abest quin habeatur.” Such never was the opinion entertained of
“greyhound hunting,” in King James’s phrase:—indeed the farther we
go back into the history of the leash, the higher it ranked in the
scale of British field-sports. See the “Constitutiones Canuti Regis de
forestâ”—and Blount’s Ancient Tenures passim, for instances of the high
repute in which the courser’s hound has ever been held in Great Britain.
[15] The reader will be amused with Simon Latham’s epilogue to the
third edition of his “Faulconry,” wherein he combats (for he wrote
in ticklish times, 1658) with his usual quaintness of style and
illustration, the notion of the sinfulness of rural sports: inferring
that they may “be lawfully and conscientiously used with moderation by
a magistrate or minister, or lawyer or student, or any other seriously
employed, which in any function heat their brains, waste their bodies,
weaken their strength, weary their spirits; that as a means (and
blessing from God) by it their decayed strength may be restored, their
vital and animal spirits quickened, refreshed, and revived, their
health preserved, and they better enabled (as a bow unbended for
shooting) to the discharging of their weighty charges imposed upon
them.”
[16] Aristot. de Polit. L. +i.+ c. +v.+ plato de legibus l. +vii.+
Xenophon. Cyropæd. L. +i.+ c. +v.+ l. +viii.+ c. +xii.+ respub.
lacedæm. c. +iii.+ cyneget. c. +i.+ +xii.+ +xiii.+ Polybius Hist. L.
+xxxi.+ jul. pollux onomast. l. +v.+ Præfat. Commodo.—Cicero de Nat.
D. L. +ii.+ de officiis l. +i.+ horat. l. +i.+ epist. +xviii.+ virgil.
æneid. l. +vii.+ +ix.+ Seneca de Provid. c. +ii.+ plinii panegyr. traj.
d.—justin. hist. epit. l. +xxxvii.+ Symmach. Epist. L. +v.+ Ep. 66.
It will be readily ceded that the amatory expostulation of Sulpitia to
her dear Cherinthus,
[Sidenote: Tibulli Eleg. L. +iv.+ 3.]
Sed procul abducit venandi devia cura
O pereant sylvæ, deficiantque canes!
Quis furor est, quæ mens, densos indagine colles
Claudentem teneras lædere velle manus?
Quidve juvat furtim latebras intrare ferarum,
Candidaque hamatis crura notare rubis?
and the epistle of Ausonius to the ruralist Theon,
[Sidenote: Ausonii Epist. +iv.+ 39.]
Sed tu parce feris venatibus, et fuge nota
Crimina sylvarum: ne sis Cinyreïa proles,
Accedasque iterùm Veneri plorandus Adonis;
are too jocular to place Tibullus and the poet of Bourdeaux on the side
of the Catilinarian historian.
[17] The plaintive poet of “The Task,” B. +iii.+ has seemingly borrowed
from Agrippa’s page the memorable crimination of the hunter’s pursuit:
[Sidenote: Cowper’s The Garden.]
Detested sport,
That owes its pleasures to another’s pain;
That feeds upon the sobs and dying shrieks
Of harmless nature, &c.
[18]
[Sidenote: J. Lipsii Saturnal. Sermon. L. +i.+ c. 7.]
I purposely omit all notice of the “Venatio Amphitheatralis,” or “V.
in arenâ” of ancient Rome; of which Tertullian, Augustin, Chrysostom,
and the Christian Cicero, Lactantius, have written with merited
reprobation. “Cum viderent pietatis damno, addictum devinctumque
populum his ludis; passim invecti in eos, ut libidinis, sævitiæque
fontes; et bene illi.” Not a word can be advanced in palliation of
these brutal outrages of humanity,
[Sidenote: Prudentius.]
illa
Amphitheatralis spectacula tristia pompæ!
[Sidenote: Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, c. +iv.+]
[Sidenote: Cyprian. ad Donatum.]
wherein man was “butcher’d to make a Roman holiday”—“Homo occiditur ad
hominis voluptatem.” With this monstrous variety of Venatio, so called
κατ’ ἐξοχὴν, and recorded as such with horror, we have nothing to do;
with its abettors under any qualified form, the modern frequenters of
the cock-pit or bear-garden, the heroes of a bull-bait, and patrons
of mercenary pugilists, the rivals of the “municipalis arenæ perpetui
comites” of Juvenal’s days, we have no sentiments in common. We
have hailed with exultation the victory already effectuated, or in
course of gradual achievement, over the ferocious barbarities of the
amphitheatre, and the semi-pagan cruelties of more modern spectacles—a
victory that is attempering the pastimes of the English people to
the religion and morality of the age; and we sincerely deplore the
existence of the θεάτρον κυνηγετικὸν of Dio, under any modification, in
any part of the civilized world.
[Sidenote: Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, c. +i.+ s. 68.]
The Sabbath comes, a day of blessed rest;
What hallows it upon this Christian shore?
Lo! it is sacred to a solemn feast:
Hark! heard you not the forest monarch’s roar?
Crashing the lance, he snuffs the spouting gore
Of man and steed, o’erthrown beneath his horn;
The throng’d arena shakes with shouts for more;
Yells the mad crowd o’er entrails freshly torn,
Nor shrinks the female eye, nor ev’n affects to mourn.
[Sidenote: K. Henry VI. Pt. +ii.+ act +ii.+ sc. 1.]
Let Christianity transfuse its lenient spirit into all our sports, and
instead of the amphitheatrical entertainments, and barbarian amusements
of infidels, let us have such as are congenial to the humanity of
Christians. Let us be the champions of rational recreation, not of
brutal gratification;—the friends of man, and not unnecessarily the
enemies of inferior animals;—spectators in our temperate and innocent
diversions of the dog’s innate faculties and prowess for the seizure of
the destined animals of the chase—“to see how God in all his creatures
works,” and witnesses of “the curious search or conquest of one beast
over another, persued by a naturall instinct of enmitie;—” how
[Sidenote: Rokeby, c. +iii.+ 1.]
The slow hound wakes the fox’s lair,
The greyhound presses on the hare;
but not hostile instigators of canine ferocity to the heartless maiming
and slaying an unnatural prey—a species of animal conflict never
intended by creative wisdom; and wherein violence is done to natural
instinct to minister to man’s unhallowed sport.
[19]
[Sidenote: H. C. Agrippæ de Vanitate &c. c. +lxxvii.+]
Cui dum nimium insistunt, ipsi abjectâ humanitate feræ efficiuntur,
morumque prodigiosâ perversitate, tanquam Actæon mutantur in naturam
belluarum.
[20]
[Sidenote: Βασιλικὸν Δῶρον, B. +iii.+]
“In using either of these games observe that moderation,” says King
James to Prince Henry, “that ye slip not therewith the houres appointed
for your affaires, which ye ought ever precisely to keepe; remembering
that these games are but ordained for you, in enabling you for your
office, for the which ye are ordained,” &c.
[21]
[Sidenote: J. Firmici Astronomic. L. +v.+ c. +viii.+]
According to the decisions of judicial astrology in casting nativities,
Julius Firmicus remarks that the following personages, “equorum
nutritores, accipitrum, falconum, cæterarumque avium, quæ ad aucupia
pertinent, similiter et Molossorum, Vertagrorum, et qui sunt ad
venationes accomodati,” being born when the planet Venus is in
Aquarius, are incapable of application to any more laudable pursuit
than hunting and hawking.
[22]
[Sidenote: De Incert. et Vanit. &c. c. +lxxvii.+]
The chasseurs of Agrippa’s days, laical and clerical, were equally
reprehensible. From the Thebans, this literary Timonist tells us, the
worst of men, Venation passed to the Trojans, not much better, and
thence to Greece and Rome, brutalizing the inhabitants of the earth in
its progress—“Tandem hæc exercitia in se reverâ servilia et mechanica
eo usque evecta sunt, ut positis quibusque liberalibus studiis, hodie
prima nobilitatis elementa atque progressus sint, illis ducibus ad
summum gradum perveniatur: hodieque ipsa regum et principum vita,
ipsa etiam (proh dolor!) abbatum, episcoporum, cæterorumque ecclesiæ
præfectorum religio, tota inquam venatio est,” &c.
[23]
[Sidenote: La Fauconnerie de Messire Arthelouche de Alagona.]
The disastrous casualties that have befallen divers of the worshipful
but rash disciples of Chiron and his compeers are recorded _in
terrorem_ by a Sicilian amateur of falconry. Will the timid courser
venture to mount his “smart hack or Zetland shelty,” after reading the
following summary of these fatalities? “Meleager en perdit la vie, pour
la victoire rapportée sur le sanglier de Calidoine. Le bel Adonis fut
tiré par un sanglier. Actéon fut dévoré de ses propres chiens. Cephale
y tua sa chère Procris, et Acaste en fut interdict, ayant occis le
fils du Roy qui luy avoit esté donné en charge, comme fut Brutus pour
avoir tué son père Sylvius par mesgarde. Un Empereur fut occis par la
beste qu’il poursuivoit. Un Roy en courant à la chasse se cassa le col
en tombant de cheval.” The legitimacy of the inference drawn by Le
Conseiller et Chambellan du Roy de Sicile is doubtful—“Que qui craindra
ces dangereux effectz qu’il s’adonne à la vollerie, où il trouvera sans
doubte plus grand plaisir.” The superior pleasure of the latter is
as equivocal as its inferior danger; and pursued to excess, I should
think, must share equality of peril and of blame.
24
[Sidenote: Symmachi Epist. Lib. +ix.+ Ep. 28.]
Of Mr. Barnard, who was accustomed to enliven the sedentary pleasures
of his intellectual pursuits with the active and salutary recreation of
coursing, and to shake off, in Horatian language, “inhumanæ senium ...
Camœnæ,” in the company of his greyhounds, on the wolds of Yorkshire,
the reader must pardon me, if I speak with the deepest regret. He was
indeed, like Maximus the friend and correspondent of Symmachus, “inter
sodales Apollinis ac Dianæ, utriusque sectator,” or in the apposite
words of Ercole Strozzi,
[Sidenote: Cæsaris Borgiæ Ducis Epicedium.]
sylvæ scius, et scius artis
Pieriæ, Phœbo et Phœbæ gratissimus æquè.
But alas! gifted as he was, far beyond the ordinary worshippers of the
sylvan goddess, he hath “begun the travel of eternity,”
[Sidenote: Sophoclis Trachin. v. 887.]
βέβηκε ... τὴν πανυστάτην
ὁδῶν ἁπασῶν.
The periodical publications of the day have given to the world the
mournful tribute of a scholar to his memory: and when the voice of
affection hath sung “the deathless praise” of a departed son, that of
friendship may be silent. But let it not be supposed that the learning
and genius of this accomplished man were confined to the inferior
and perishable subjects of the courser’s pursuit. The powers of his
talented mind were directed also to the high and heavenly callings of
his profession; and among other subjects, to the commemoration in verse
and prose, of the saints and martyrs of the Protestant Church. In the
words of the Nutricia of Politiano, he was indeed
[Sidenote: Carm. quinque illustr. Poetar. p. 178.]
Felix ingenio, felix cui pectore tantas
Instaurare vices, cui fas tam magna capaci
Alternare animo, et varias ita nectere curas!
His poetical version of the poems of the younger Flaminio, a celebrated
Latinist of the sixteenth century, on which he was engaged till his
fatal illness, and the publication of which he fondly anticipated, will
add, I trust, to his posthumous fame.
[Sidenote: Pindar. Pyth. +viii.+ 131.]
ἐν δ’ ὀλίγῳ
βροτῶν τὸ τερπνὸν αὔξεται· οὕτω
δὲ καὶ πιτνεῖ χαμαὶ, ἀποτρόπῳ
γνώμᾳ σεσεισμένον.
ἐπάμεροι. τί δέ τις; τί δ’ οὔ τις;
σκιᾶς ὄναρ ἄνθρωποι.
[Sidenote: Platonis Menexenus.]
As the originator of the Courser’s Stud Book, and the indefatigable
compiler of its genealogical tables, (an attempt “multâ deducere
virgâ,” to derive “by trees of pedigrees,” as Dryden says, the speed
and shape of each celebrated descendant, in the greyhound kennel,
from the recorded genealogies and performances of a far-famed
ancestry,—ἀγαθοὶ δὲ ἐγένοντο διὰ τὸ φῦναι ἐξ ἀγαθῶν,) the name of
Mr. Barnard must be recorded in the annals of coursing with lasting
gratitude; notwithstanding the prolegomena of a vicarious editor have
occasioned the substitution of a second name on the title-page of the
work, after the unexpected death of the original projector:
[Sidenote: Euripidis Hippol. 56.]
οὐ γὰρ οἶδ’ ἀνεῳγμένας πύλας
Ἅδου, φάος τε λοίσθιον βλέπων τόδε.
But let us cease this querulous display of individual feeling.
Many did not know him; and those who did—his relatives—his friends
and correspondents—have felt too much already. And the preface to
so trivial a work as a Courser’s Vade-Mecum is not a fit occasion
for descanting on the high merits of a Christian scholar; nor is
lamentation over the dead a suitable prelude to the entertainment of
the living.
[Sidenote: Ejusdem vs. 1456.]
καὶ χαῖρ’· ἐμοὶ γὰρ οὐ θέμις φθιτοὺς ὁρᾷν,
οὐδ’ ὄμμα χραίνειν θανασίμοισιν ἐκπνοαῖς.
[25] Many of the Greek and Latin classics having been edited by English
Divines, the latter fell under the lash of Young in the memorable lines,
When churchmen Scripture for the Classics quit,
Polite apostates from God’s grace to wit, &c.
[26] These terms are also misapplied in the Cynegeticon of the poet of
Barga, and in the Album Dianæ Leporicidæ of Savary of Caen. The latter,
speaking of Spain and Italy, says—
[Sidenote: Lib. +i.+ p. 5.]
Non alit in leporem catulos nisi forte Lacones
Hesperia, &c.
and of the Italians and their chase he writes,
[Sidenote: Lib. +i.+ p. 6.]
Et lepori indicunt solo Lacedæmone bellum.
[27]
[Sidenote: Arriani Cynegetic. passim.]
Arrian invariably calls himself Xenophon; and his predecessor of
the same name he designates, for distinction’s sake, τὸν πάλαι, τὸν
πρεσβύτερον. In the Cynegeticus he refers to him as τῷ Γρύλλου, τῷ
ἐμαυτοῦ ὁμωνύμῳ, ἐκείνῳ τῷ Ξενοφῶντι.
[28] With the citizenship of Rome, bestowed upon him by the Emperor,
when in Greece, as it is supposed, A.D. 124, he assumed the Roman
name of Flavius: and subsequent to his return from the prefecture of
Cappadocia, he was probably raised to the consulate.
[29] Aulus Gellius particularly authenticates his literary connexion
with Epictetus, where he alludes (Noct. Attic. L. +xix.+ c. +i.+) to
the latter’s διαλέξεις “ab Arriano digestas,” &c.
[30] These instructions are written, as military orders, in the
imperative mood. Ὁ δὲ ἡγεμὼν τῆς πάσης στρατιᾶς Ξενοφῶν, τὸ πολὺ μὲν
πρὸ τῶν σημείων τῶν πεζικῶν ἡγείσθω, ἐπιφοιτάτω δὲ τάσῃ τῇ τάξει, κ.
τ. λ. Such were some of the duties which he enjoined on himself as
commander-in-chief.
[31] The practical courser will not deny to Hormé the merit, which on
his lord’s voucher, he is entitled to; few greyhounds, even in their
prime, in modern days, could vie with their redoubted prototype and
master four hares per diem.
[32] In addition to the authors already cited, or referred to, he is
also mentioned by Arnobius, towards the close of his second book.
It is a truth worth recording, that, from Photius to Saint-Croix and
Chaussard, the last translator of Alexander’s Anabasis, no writer has
impugned his veracity and honesty as an historian, nor his literary
style as a scholar.
[33]
[Sidenote: Jugement sur les Anciens Principaux Historiens, &c. p. 84.]
The vanity which La Mothe Le Vayer discovers, so glaring in his
history, and more particularly in what he says of himself in the 12th
chapter of the first book of the Anabasis of Alexander, before quoted,
and from which Gronovius and Raphelius satisfactorily exculpate him,
I confess I do not see. The pride of the historian is not beyond the
dignity of his subject.
[34] Chiron, the son of Saturn and the nymph Philyra, is fabled to have
received his knowledge of hunting from Apollo and Diana; and to have
instructed the numerous disciples, recorded by Xenophon in the first
chapter of his Cynegeticus, in the science and practice of the chase.
[Sidenote: Natalis Comes de Venatione L. +iv.+]
Quis primus tulit ista viris? hominumne Deûmne
Ingeniis inventa? dedit quis commoda tanta?
Delia Phillyridem primum Chirona fugaces
In sparsos per rura greges, sylvâque vagantes
Armavit, fecitque vias in commoda tanta.
[35] For the connexion of the Chase with Military Tactics, see Xenophon
de Venatione c. +xii.+, the latter part of c. +xiii.+ cyropædia l.
+i.+ c. +v.+ διὰ τοῦτο δημοσίᾳ τοῦ θηρᾷν ἐπιμέλονται· ὅτι ἀληθεστάτη
δοκεῖ αὕτη ἡ μελέτη τῶν πρὸς τὸν πόλεμον εἶναι. L. +viii.+ c. +xii.+ De
Republicâ Lacedæmon. c. +iv.+
[36]
[Sidenote: Xenophon de Venat. c. +ii.+]
See Xenophon de Venat. c. +ii.+ whence the Greek poet of the chase has
derived the manners, dress, and weapons of his hunter: Oppian. Cyneget.
+i.+ 81. The curious reader will be amused with the illustration of
Xenophon’s second chapter; of Gratius’s Cynegeticon, v. 332. and Oppian
loc. cit. (all treating on the subject of the hunter’s character, &c.)
in Edmund de Langley’s =Mayster of Game=: wherein (c. +xix.+ p. 70.)
he tutors the hunter from the age of seven or eight (“for oo craft
requireth al a mannys lif or he be parfite therof, &c.”) in all the
arcana of kennel management; and particularly enjoins that he be “wel
avised of his speche, and of his termys, and ever glad to lerne, and
that he be no booster ne jangelere,” &c.; and so Xenophon, ἐπιθυμοῦντα
τοῦ ἔργου καὶ τὴν φωνὴν Ἕλληνα, τὴν δὲ ἡλικίαν κ. τ. λ.
[37]
[Sidenote: Jul. Pollucis Onomast. L. +v.+ c. +iv.+ 26. 27.]
Three varieties of nets were employed by Grecian sportsmen, ἀρκύες,
δικτύα, and ἐνοδία, corresponding to the Roman _casses_, _retia_,
and _plagæ_. See Xenophon de V. c. +ii.+ The first were conical,
tunnel-shaped, purse-nets; κεκρυφάλῳ δὲ ἐοίκασι κατὰ τὸ σχῆμα, εἰς ὀξὺ
καταλήγουσαι: the second, nets or hayes for open places, for encircling
coverts, &c. τὰ ἐν τοῖς ὁμαλοῖς, καὶ ἰσοπέδοις ἱστάμενα: the third,
road-nets, for being placed across roads, and tracks frequented by
animals of chase, τὰ ἐν ταῖς ὁδοῖς of Julius Pollux.
[38] Xenophon treats of entrapping deer, &c. de Venat. c. +ix.+; of
hares, &c. c. +v.+ and +vi.+; of dogs, &c. c. +iii.+ +iv.+ and +vii.+;
of stag-hunting, &c. c. +ix.+; of the boar-chase, c. +x.+; of the
bear and lion chases, &c. c. +xi.+; and many of the same subjects are
beautifully described in the Cynegetics of the poet of Anazarbus,
and delineated in Montfaucon, Tom. +iii.+, and in the rare plates of
Joannes Stradanus and P. Galle, under the title of “Venationes Ferarum.”
[39]
[Sidenote: Minshæi Emendatio in voce Grei-hound.]
Τοῦ γένους τῶν κυνῶν τοῦ Κελτικοῦ—the greyhounds of modern days.
Coursing having been first practised by the inhabitants of Gallia
Celtica, the greyhound was called κυὼν Κελτικὸς, canis Gallicus,
(quibus Galli maximè utuntur, and not Grei-hound, q. _Grecian_ hound,
quòd primùm fuerit in usu inter _Græcos_). A splendid representation of
this most elegant of the canine race is engraven by Pere Montfaucon,
Tom. +iii.+ pl. 56. f. 5. from the Arch of Constantine, from whose work
it has been again copied on stone to illustrate this treatise. For an
account of the Scythian and African horses, see notes on chap. +xxiii.+
and +xxiv.+
[40] See Biographical Notice of Arrian in the prefatory matter.
[41]
[Sidenote: περὶ Ἱππικῆς, c. +i.+]
Xenophon de Re Equestri, c. +i.+ gives his reason for uniting his
own opinions to those of Simon, and filling up the omissions of his
predecessor’s work: “because his friends would esteem his own opinions
more deserving of confidence from agreeing with those of so able
an equestrian;” and moreover he undertakes to supply from his own
resources, whatever the dedicator of the brazen horse of the Eleusinium
at Athens had omitted to notice.
[42] The two reasons in proof of the elder Xenophon’s ignorance of the
Celtic breed of swift-footed hounds are quite satisfactory: the one
derived from the limited geographical knowledge of the Greeks, the
other from the comparative speed of the hare and hound, as described in
his manual; which statement is just the converse of what it would have
been, had he been acquainted with the genuine greyhound.
[43]
[Sidenote: Geography of Herodotus.]
Ἄγνωστα γὰρ ἦν τὰ ἔθνη τῆς Εὐρώπης. The Greeks, in the elder Xenophon’s
days, appear to have known very little of the western countries of
Europe, and scarce any thing even of Italy itself. It is true that
there were, at that time, many Grecian colonies westward, and through
them a knowledge of the productions of the more north-western interior
might have reached the mother-country. But there was no particular
inducement for the Greek merchants to penetrate far inland: and the
Celts had not as yet crossed the Alps, nor even arrived at any part
of the coast of the Mediterranean—any well-known country. The very
distance at which the father of history places the Celts, viz. as “the
most remote people in Europe, after the Cynetes,” is an indication of
this fact. It is the opinion of Niebuhr that the navigators of Greece
rarely visited the unexplored coasts of the occidental seas. Indeed,
the interior of Gaul was unknown even to the Romans before the time
of Julius Cæsar. Although they were masters of Romana Provincia, a
tract on the sea-coast contiguous to Italy, they knew nothing of the
multitudinous tribes spread over the country between the Rhine and the
Ocean; which latter were not thoroughly known, nor their manners and
natural productions ascertained, till the visit of Augustus Cæsar; when
probably the Romans first became acquainted with the native hound of
the interior.
[Sidenote: Expedit. Alexandri, L. +i.+ c. +iv.+]
[Sidenote: Cæsar. de Bell. Gall. L. +i.+ c. +i.+]
It is impossible to speak with any degree of certainty of the origin
and distribution of the ancient Celtæ, or ătæ, or Galli, as they
were variously called by the Greeks and Romans. Whether derived from
Ashkenez, the grandson of Noah; or from Celtus, Gallus, and Illyricus,
sons of Polyphemus; or from Celtes, a king of Gaul,—matters not.
Leaving these knotty points of genealogy to others, let it suffice
that the Celts, at an early period, occupied a large portion of
Western Europe. Herodotus mentions them in Melpomene s. 49. οἳ ἔσχατοι
πρὸς ἡλίου δυσμέων μετὰ Κύνητας οἰκέουσι τῶν ἐν τῇ Εὐρώπῃ: and our
author states that Celtic legates came to Alexander from the shores
of the Ionian sea, παρὰ Κελτῶν τῶν ἐπὶ τῷ Ἰονίῳ κόλπῳ ᾠκισμένων ἧκον.
Extensive as the name must have been at that time, it was subsequently
confined to fewer tribes; and, in the days of Julius Cæsar, was
appropriated to the inhabitants of Gallia Celtica, a territory
between the Loire and Seine, which at a later period borrowed a new
denomination from the celebrated colony of Lugdunum, or Lyons. “Gallia
est omnis divisa in partes tres: quarum unam incolunt Belgæ; aliam
Aquitani; tertiam, qui ipsorum linguâ Celtæ, nostrâ Galli appellantur.”
But I think it probable that Arrian did not intend to use the term
Celtic in its limited sense, as having reference exclusively to the
district of Gaul so denominated by Cæsar, but as comprehending also the
more southern parts of the country. So also Silius Italicus, L. +iii.+
Pyrene celsâ nimbosi verticis arce
Divisos Celtis altè prospectat Iberos.
And Oppian, in the conclusion of his third Halieutic:
Ῥοδανοῖο παρὰ στόμα θηρητῆρες
Κελτοὶ—
Indeed Strabo, L. +i.+, Plutarch, in Cæsare, in Crasso; Appian, Bell.
Civil. 2., and others, call the Gauls in general by the name of Celtæ;
and the ancient Greek geographers knew of only two nations in Europe
besides themselves, the Celtæ and the Scythæ, the former in the West,
the latter in the North.
[44]
[Sidenote: Skinner, Etymologicon.]
The specific name of Graius, or Græcus, by which Linnæus, Ray, and
others, have designated the greyhound, is unfortunate, as it has led
to the erroneous opinion that he was known to ancient Greece; whereas
it is satisfactorily proved by the younger Xenophon, that his Athenian
namesake was not only not acquainted with the Celtic breed of dogs,
but that no dogs of similar qualities were known to his predecessor,
when he wrote his celebrated treatise on Hunting. Skinner doubts the
truth of Minshew’s assertion, already cited, of the Greeks having first
employed the greyhound in the chase; “quod facilè crediderim,” says the
former etymologist, “si authorem laudâsset.” I know of no authority
for such an assertion, and discredit the fact. Indeed, the belief of
the existence of the courser’s hound in ancient Greece may be traced
to the misconceptions of the gentlemen “è Societate Jesu,” and others,
who have favoured us with their expositions of antiquity; and who have
understood every keen-nosed, latrant Spartan to be a genuine greyhound.
Scholars, ignorant of natural history, and naturalists ignorant of
classical learning, have alike given currency to the opinion, in
opposition to the contrary statement of the text. Against which the
assumption of Savary of Caen,
[Sidenote: Album Dianæ Leporicidæ, p. 5.]
Græcia perniciem leporum Lacedæmona pridem
Emisit, &c.
[Sidenote: Historie of Irelande, p. 8.]
and the quaint tale of Holinshed can have no weight. For with all due
regard to the laborious Raphael, and his coadjutors in historical
research, I think it far more consistent with probability that his
“peerlesse hounde” was a Celtic greyhound, (to whom “pleasantnesse of
mouth” is incorrectly granted by historic licence,) the associate of a
Celtic Scot, proximately from Ireland, remotely from Celtic Gaul, than
as “fetched so far as out of Græcia from a citie called Molosse, whence
the breed of him first came.”
[45]
[Sidenote: De Venatione, c. +v.+]
Contrary to what you would suppose would be the result of a contest
of speed between them, on comparing the respective shapes of the two
animals. The hare _being made for speed_, and _not so_ the dog, the
former, if caught by the latter, is caught παρὰ φύσιν σώματος: thence
the inference of Arrian that Xenophon was unacquainted with greyhounds,
_who are made_ for speed, is a fair deduction. The words of the latter
are: κατὰ πόδας δὲ οὐ πολλάκις ὑπὸ τῶν κυνῶν διὰ τὸ τάχος κρατεῖται·
ὅσοι δὲ ἁλίσκονται, παρὰ φύσιν τοῦ σώματος, τύχῃ δὲ χρώμενοι· οὐδὲν γὰρ
τῶν ὄντων ἰσομέγεθες τούτῳ ὅμοιόν ἐστι πρὸς δρόμον· σύγκειται γὰρ ἐκ
τοιούτων, κ. τ. λ.
[46] See Xenophon de Venat. c. +vi.+
[47] Εἰ παραδράμοι τὰς ἄρκυς—if she pass by the tunnel or purse-nets
without entering their mouths. The ἄρκυες or _casses_ were placed,
here and there, in the line of the main hayes, δίκτυα or _retia_;
and as the hare passed along exploring a place of escape, terrified
by the _formido_ above, and the meshes below, (continuous except
where the purse-nets with the running noose, βρόχος or _laqueus_,
were introduced,) she attempted to pass at the supposed opening, and
became by her struggles entangled in the purse, which immediately
closed at its slip-knot entrance. Arrian, perhaps, uses the term ἄρκυς
generically for every variety of net, and not specifically for the
tunnel. See the Venationes Ferarum of Johannes Stradensis and Philippus
Galle, tab. +xviii.+ “Sic leporem in laqueos agitant,” &c.
[48] In the 21st chapter Arrian remarks that greyhounds answer every
purpose, and supersede the use of nets altogether: he there writes
τὰς ἀγαθὰς as synonymous to τὰς ὠκείας; and the latter epithet being
more distinctive of the hounds intended to be designated, I have so
translated the former epithet in the present instance. Any dog may be
good of his kind, but a greyhound alone fleet.
[49] Diana having been particularly worshipped in Crete, on the
authority of Ovid’s
[Sidenote: Ovid. Fast. L. +iii.+]
Pallada Cecropiæ, Minoïa Creta Dianam
Vulcanum tellus Hypsipilæa colit,
[Sidenote: De Naturâ Animal. L. +iii.+ c. +ii.+]
[Sidenote: Xenophon. de Venat. c. +x.+]
we expect to find the inhabitants addicted to hunting; and such was
their character according to Ælian: Κύων Κρῆσσα κούφη, καὶ ἁλτικὴ,
καὶ ὀρειβασίαις σύντροφος· καὶ μέντοι καὶ αὐτοὶ Κρῆτες τοιούτους
αὑτοὺς παραδεικνῦσιν, καὶ ἄδει ἡ φήμη. But it is worthy of notice that
although Arrian attributes to Xenophon a description of the hunting
practices alone of the Cretans and Carians, there is no mention, in the
Cynegeticus of the latter, of these ardent sportsmen or their hounds,
save that in his chapter on boar-hunting he orders Indians, Cretans,
Locrians, and Spartans to be taken to the field, as a fit pack to
contend with such ferocious game, μὴ τὰς ἐπιτυχούσας (picked dogs) ἵνα
ἕτοιμοι ὦσι πολεμεῖν τῷ θηρίῳ.
[Sidenote: Ejusdem c. +iii.+]
Arrian’s meaning therefore must be that Xenophon’s description, such as
it is, (in hare-hunting confined to the Castorian and Foxite hounds,)
is applicable to the Carian and Cretan sporting alone, and can have no
reference whatever to the peculiar practices of the Celtic coursers.
However, I do not believe the difference between the Spartan and Cretan
or Carian hounds to have been very marked, and Xenophon, possibly,
may have included the two latter with the former in his general
classification of καστόριαι and ἀλωπεκίδες.
[50] Τὸ Καρικὸν καὶ Κρητικόν. The Cretan and Carian hounds were amongst
the most celebrated of antiquity—powerful, quick-scented, and nimble.
For a full account of them see the Appendix.
[51] The Celtic beagle, or Segusian hound, is well known to modern
sportsmen, answering exactly to the description here given of him. See
the Appendix.
[52] Αὐταὶ ἰχνεύουσαι σὺν κλαγγῇ καὶ ὑλαγμῷ. So Oppian,
[Sidenote: Oppian. Cyn. +i.+ 505.]
ἀλλ’ ὁπότ’ ἴχνεος ὀψὲ διηερίοιο τυχήσῃ,
καγχαλάα, κνυζεῖ τε κεχαρμένος.
[53]
[Sidenote: De Venat. c. +v.+ 7.]
[Sidenote: Wase’s Preface to his Translation of Gratius.]
Τῷ δρομαίῳ οὐ μεῖον ἢ τῷ εὐναίῳ. Holsten has here misapprehended his
author in the version of the 1st edition. Xenophon, with his usual
accuracy, explains the difference of the two scents: τὰ μὲν εὐναῖα
ὁ λαγὼς πορεύεται ἐφιστάμενος, τὰ δὲ δρομαῖα τάχυ. The former is of
course a stronger scent than the latter; for the hare goes slowly to
her form, often stopping, and saturating the ground with her trail; but
her pace, when pursued, is quickened, and leaves less impregnation.
Wase thinks the “accessusque abitusque ferarum” of Gratius (Cyneg.
v. 242.) has the same meaning as these terms of Xenophon. Blane’s
translation is here, as in almost every passage of the least
difficulty, erroneous.
[54]
[Sidenote: Cæsar. De B. G. L. +i.+ 5. 10.]
Ἑγουσίαι. The Segusiani were inhabitants of Gallia Celtica on the
western side of the Rhone. “Hi sunt extra provinciam trans Rhodanum
primi.” By Cicero they are called Sebusiani (pro P. Quintio). See C.
Venatici Class II. in the Appendix.
[55] Xenophon’s observations on the mode of hunting of the dogs he
has described, (viz. the Castorian and Foxite hounds of Sparta,) have
anticipated all that can be said about these Segusian beagles. See
Xenoph. de Venat. c. +iii.+ c. +iv.+ and c. +vi.+ The latter hounds are
not mentioned in the Cynegeticus of the elder Xenophon.
[56] Οὐέρτραγοι—Vertragi, Veltrachæ. See the etymology of this Celtic
term explained in the Appendix, C. Venatici Class III. Our author is
mistaken in deriving the term ἀπὸ τῆς ὠκύτητος. Its roots are _velt_
campus, and _racha_ canis.
[57]
[Sidenote: Onomast. L. +v.+ c. +v.+ 41.]
[Sidenote: Apud Macrob. Saturnal.]
Διάπονοι. So named, according to Pollux, because they not only kept
up the contest through the day, but slept near their antagonists, and
went to work again in the morning. “Perdita nec seræ meminit decedere
nocti.” Varius.
[58] The ἰταμαὶ are probably the πάριπποι of Pollux.
[59]
[Sidenote: The Countrey Farme. c. +xxii.+]
Τὴν δὲ ἰδέαν, καλόν τι χρῆμά εἰσι, &c. How characteristic of the ἀνὴρ
θηρευτικὸς of the text is this burst of admiration of the Vertragus,
the fleetest and most beautiful of hounds! “Of all dogs whatsoever the
most noble and princely, strong, nimble, swift, and valient.”
[60] Blane omits this and ten succeeding chapters.
[61] Λέξω δὲ καὶ αὐτὸς, &c. “I too,” says Arrian, “will relate the
indications,” &c.; for Xenophon had also written on the external
character of dogs, and it was Arrian’s intention not to recapitulate
what his predecessor had already discussed, but to fill up the lacunæ
of his treatise. The variety of hound, however, described by the elder
Xenophon being different, and the indications of excellence equally so,
it was necessary for the younger Athenian also to enter on the subject
of external character.
[62]
[Sidenote: De Venatione, c. +iv.+]
[Sidenote: Gratii Cyneg. vs. 272.]
[Sidenote: Oppian. Cyneg. +i.+ 401.]
Μακραὶ ἔστωσαν ἀπὸ κεφαλῆς ἐπ’ οὐράν. So Xenophon of the Spartans,
χρὴ εἶναι μεγάλας, &c. Length of body is insisted on by the ancients
as an essential characteristic of γενναιότης in the horse, cow, and
dog. Gratius notes the “longum latus” of the latter, and Oppian his
μηκεδανὸν κρατερὸν δέμας, as necessary to perfection of form. Such
a structure is generally indicative of speed: and as an example the
writer may specify a high-bred greyhound in his own possession, 5 feet
2 inches long:
[Sidenote: Horat. L. +i.+ Od. +xvi.+]
Ocyor cervis, et agente nimbos
Ocyor Euro.
Vlitius, the learned editor of the Poetæ Venatici, mentions that
greyhounds were called in his day, κατ’ ἐξοχὴν, “_the long dogs_,” as
by modern coursers.
[63] Καὶ μὴν καὶ αἱ μείζονες—εὐφυέστεραι τῶν σμικρῶν.
Our most distinguished modern greyhounds, as Millar, “facilis cui
plurima palma,” Snowball, and others, have been large dogs, _lengthy_,
muscular, and low on the legs:
[Sidenote: Sir Walter Scott.]
Who knows not Snowball? he whose race renown’d
Is still victorious on each coursing ground?
Swaffham, Newmarket, and the Roman Camp,
Have seen them victors o’er each meaner stamp.
[Sidenote: Rhetoric. L. +i.+ c. +v.+]
If we qualify the size by the conditions laid down by Aristotle in the
ἀρεταὶ σώματος, we shall probably hit the mark as to μέγεθος, whose
ἀρετὴ is defined τὸ ὑπερέχειν κατὰ τὸ μῆκος, καὶ βάθος, καὶ πλάτος, τῶν
πολλῶν, τοσούτῳ μείζονι, ὥστε μὴ βραδυτέρας ποιεῖν τὰς κινήσεις διὰ τὴν
ὑπερβολήν.
[64]
[Sidenote: Polluc. Onom. L. +v.+ c. +x.+ 57.]
Pollux has well observed ἀρεταὶ δὲ κυνῶν, ἀπὸ μὲν σώματος, μεγάλαι,
μηδὲ ἀσυμμετροὶ, μηδὲ ἀνάρμοστοι.
[Sidenote: Xenophon. de Venat. c. +iii.+]
The Vertragi, like Xenophon’s Spartan Foxites, should not be high
on the legs, nor loose-made—αἱ ὑψηλαὶ μὲν καὶ ἀσύμμετροι, ἀσύντακτα
ἔχουσαι τὰ σώματα, βαρέως διαφοιτῶσιν—they labour in their course.
[Sidenote: =Mayster of Game=, c. +xv.+ fol. 66.]
“The good greyhounde,” says Edmund de Langley, “shuld be of middel
asise, neither to moche neither to litel, and then is he good for alle
beestis,” &c.
[65] The head of the greyhound is a remarkable feature in his external
character:
[Sidenote: Oppian. Cyneg. +i.+ 401.]
——ἄρκιον ἠδὲ κάρηνον,
κοῦφον, ἐΰγληνον, κυαναὶ στίλβοιεν ὀπωπαί·
κάρχαρον, ἐκτάδιον τελέθοι στόμα.
[66]
[Sidenote: De Venat. c. +iii.+ also c. +iv.+]
[Sidenote: Onomastic. L. +v.+ c. 37.]
[Sidenote: Onomastic. L. +ii.+ c. +iv.+ 73.]
Xenophon reprobates hook-nosed hounds, αἱ δὲ γρυπαὶ ἄστομοι, καὶ διὰ
τοῦτο οὐ κατέχουσι τὸν λαγῶ. Pollux would have the heads light and
airy, κοῦφαι καὶ εὔφοροι: and when speaking on human anatomy, explains
the terms γρυπαὶ and σιμαὶ, ἐπὶ δὲ τοῦ σιμοῦ, φαίης ἂν ὡς ἔστιν ἡ ῥὶς
ἐκ μέσων κοίλη· ὥσπερ ἐπὶ τοῦ γρυποῦ ῥὶς καμπύλη. Many of the features
of Pollux’s portrait of the C. Venaticus are appropriate to the Celtic
hound. See Onomast. L. +v.+ c. 37.
[Sidenote: =Mayster of Game=, c. +xv.+ fol. 66.]
The more modern Cynegetica agree, in all important points, with the
structure approved by Arrian: “A greihounde shuld have a longe hede and
somdele greet ymakyd in the manere of a luce, a good large mouthe and
good sesours the on agein the other, so that the nether jawes passe not
hem above, ne that thei above passe not hem by nether.”
[Sidenote: Book of Hawkyng, &c. 1486.]
A grehounde sholde be
Heeded lyke a snake.
[Sidenote: Markham’s Countrey Content. B. +i.+ p. 48.]
“Capite et collo oblongis,” says Belisarius: “longo et plano capite,”
Albertus. “He should have a fine, long, lean head, with a sharp nose
rush-grown, from the eyes downwards.”
[67] Ἰνώδη—sinewy. Xenophon says, ἰνώδη τὰ κάτωθεν τῶν μετώπων: but his
namesake is indifferent on this point.
[68] Oppian describes the eyes of lions as
[Sidenote: Cyneg. +iii.+ v. 26.]
Ὄμματα δ’ αἰγλήεντα:
and again,
[Sidenote: v. 32.]
καὶ πυρὸς ἀστράπτουσιν ἀπ’ ὀφθαλμῶν ἀμαρυγαί:
of the leopard or panther,
[Sidenote: v. 69.]
——ὄμμα φαεινὸν,
γλαυκιόωσι κόραι βλεφάροις ὑπὸ μαρμαίρουσι,
γλαυκιόωσιν ὁμοῦ τε, καὶ ἔνδοθι φοινίσσονται
αἰθομέναις ἵκελαι, πυριλαμπέες:
of the lynx,
[Sidenote: Cyneg. +iii.+ v. 90.]
βλεφάροισιν ἀπ’ ὀφθαλμῶν ἀμαρυγαὶ
ἱμερόεν στράπτουσι.
[69]
[Sidenote: =Mayster of Game=, c. +xv.+ fol. 66.]
Xenophon de Venat. c. +iii.+ condemns blink-eyed and grey-eyed hounds
as bad and unsightly, αἰσχραὶ ὁρᾶσθαι: but Oppian particularly
specifies blue eyes as preferable to all others; and I have known
many azure-eyed dogs of great merit. The darker the eye, however, the
better. “Her eynne shuld be,” according to De Langley, “reed or blak
as of a sphauke:”—“full and clear, with long eye-lids,” according to
Markham. The reader of Anacreon will understand the sort of eye admired
in the greyhound, from the
[Sidenote: Anacreon. Od. +xxix.+]
μέλαν ὄμμα γοργὸν ἔστω
κεκερασμένον γαλήνῃ—
of the 29th Ode; and at the same time, perhaps, smile at the quotation.
[70] The early part of this chapter, devoted to the portraiture of
the author’s beloved Hormé, interrupts his general description of the
greyhound’s shape, which he again resumes after gratifying his personal
feelings in an affectionate interlude of canine biography; ostensibly
introduced to prove that a blue-eyed hound (κύνα χαροπὴν, οἵαν
χαροπωτάτην) may possess all the essential excellencies of his race.
[71]
[Sidenote: Stephani Schediasm. L. +iv.+]
[Sidenote: Eustath. ad Il. H. p. 692.]
I have taken the liberty of changing the sex of this favourite dog,
according to the example of Holsten; because I think it probable that
Arrian may have used the feminine gender here, and generally through
the treatise, not from the animal spoken of having been really of that
sex, but from its being usual with Xenophon and other classic authors
to employ the feminine gender when speaking of the dogs of the chase.
Indeed, it has been remarked by Eustathius and others, that such was
the custom of the ancient Greek writers, whenever they spoke of any
kind of animals collectively. But Arrian does not apply the feminine
gender to dogs _gregatim_ only, but also individually: and the same
prevalence of this gender is also observable in the Latin poets. It
must be confessed, however, that the name Hormé (Angl. _Rush_) is more
applicable to a bitch than a dog.
[72]
[Sidenote: Chronique de Froissart, and note to Johnnes’s Transl. V.
+iv.+ 657.]
It is generally believed that greyhounds have very weak attachments;
and the fickle companions of Charles de Blois and of Richard II.
favour such an opinion. But against these well-known examples of
canine infidelity, we may place others of extraordinary attachment
to their lords; at the head of which let Hormé stand, πρᾳοτάτη καὶ
φιλανθρωποτάτη, the beloved and affectionate hound of the founder of
the leash:
[Sidenote: Natalis Comes de Venat. L. +i.+]
Possem multa canum variorum exempla referre,
Ni pigeat studium parvarum noscere rerum.
[Sidenote: =Mayster of Game=, c. +xii.+ fol. 47-49.]
To the tales of inviolable attachment recorded by the royal pen of
Edmund Duke of York, of “the greihounde boothe good and faire of Kyng
Apollo of Lyonnys,” and the “wel good and faire greihounde that was
Aubries of Mondidert,” the reader is referred for farther examples; nor
should he forget the martyr Charles’s dying eulogy of the Celtic hound.
Vide J. C. Scaliger de Subtil. ad Card. Exerc. +ccii.+ the last of the
Historiæ Duæ Nobilissimæ;, sect. 6.
[73]
[Sidenote: Cicero de Naturâ Deor.]
“Amans dominorum adulatio.”
——nulla homini magè prodiga grati
Officii quadrupes, dominisque fidelior ipsis!
says the kind-hearted poet of Venusium: and again,
[Sidenote: J. Darcii Venusini Canes.]
Usque sequetur ovans, tua nec vestigia quoquam
Deseret, at lateri semper comes ibit herili.
Sistis iter? sistit—properas? velociùs Euro
Scindit in obliquum campos, &c.
[74] The following lines from a canine epitaph, “De Mopso fidissimo
cane,” are not inapposite:
[Sidenote: Septem Illust. Vir. Poëmata Amst. 1672.]
Custos assiduus domi forisque
Nostri principis, et comes fidelis:
Equo seu fuit ire, sive curru,
Seu tritâ pedibus viâ voluptas.
Hinc me carior haud erat; nec alter
Posthac est aliis futurus annis
Me carus magis, aut magis peritus
Blandiri domino, &c.
[75] Ἐπανίοντος πρόεισι, θαμινὰ ἐπιστρεφομένη, κ. τ. λ.
[Sidenote: J. Darcii Venusini Canes.]
——si post terga relinquas,
(Nam dominum crebrò aspiciens observat euntem)
Ille moram cursu pensat, viden’ ecce repentè
A tergo ut vultuque hilaris blanditur amico, &c.
[76]
[Sidenote: Vanierii Præd. Rustic. L. +iv.+]
——fidas ad limina custos
Excubias agit, et nutus observat heriles;
Ut quò jussa vocant velocior advolet: idem
Nunc hilari congaudet hero, nunc _tristior ægro
Assidet_.
[77] So Calpurnius of the pet stag:
[Sidenote: Eclog. +vi.+ 35.]
——sequiturque vocantem
Credulus, et mensæ non improba porrigit ora.
[78] The ancients cleansed their hands with the soft crumb of bread
after meals, and threw it to their dogs. These pieces of bread were
called ἀπομαγδαλίαι: the μειλίγματα of the Homeric simile:
[Sidenote: Homer. Odyss. +x.+ 216.]
ὡς δ’ ὅταν ἀμφὶ ἄνακτα κύνες δαίτηθεν ἰόντα
σαίνωσ’, (αἰεὶ γάρ τε φέρει μειλίγματα θυμοῦ).
Hence probably Juvenal’s “sordes farris mordere canini.”
[79] Πολύφθογγος.
[Sidenote: Martial. Issa Publii.]
Hanc tu si queritur, _loqui_ putabis.
Sentit tristitiamque gaudiumque.
[Sidenote: Anyta Epidauria.]
Did Hormé’s “verba canina” (Ovid, in Ibin) extend to the imitation
of spoken language, as in the memorable case of M. Leibnitz’s dog,
recorded by him (“témoin oculaire”) in the Hist. de l’Acad. Royale des
Sciences, ann. 1715? or are we to understand that this most musical
of hounds, φιλοφθόγγων ὠκυτάτη σκυλάκων, only “gave tongue,” like his
congeners, with various intonations of bark?
[Sidenote: Apollon. Rhod. L. +iii.+ 1216.]
ὀξειῇ ὑλακῇ χθόνιοι κύνες ἐφθέγγοντο—
making up by intelligence, and significancy of action, for deficiency
of speech:
[Sidenote: Nonni Dionysiac. L. +xvi.+]
εἰσὶ καὶ ἐν σκυλάκεσσιν ἐχέφρονες, οἷσι Κρονίων
ἀνδρομέην φρένα δῶκε καὶ οὐ βροτέην πόρε φωνήν.
[Sidenote: Andreas Naugerius, Carm. +v.+ Illustr. Poetar.]
Nunc blandè assiliebat hùc et illùc
Ludens, atque avido appetebat ore.
Erectis modo cruribus, bipesque
Mense adstabat herili, heroque ab ipso
Latratu tenero cibum petebat.
[80] Ὑποπτήξασα λιπαρεῖ—
[Sidenote: The Chace. B. +i.+]
The fawning hound
Salutes thee cow’ring.
[Sidenote: Lucretius. L. +v.+ 1071.]
Plorantes fugiunt summisso corpore plagas.
[81]
[Sidenote: Buffon, H. N. Le Chien.]
“Plus sensible au souvenir des bienfaits qu’à celui des outrages, il ne
se rebute pas par les mauvais traitemens, il les subit, les oublie, ou
ne s’en souvient que pour s’attacher davantage; loin de s’irriter ou
de fuir, il lèche cette main, instrument de douleur, qui vient de le
frapper; il ne lui oppose que la plainte, et la désarme enfin par la
patience et la soumission.”
[82] Σοφωτάτη. Plato also has κύων σοφωτάτος.
[83] Ἱεροτάτη—“holiest;” Encycl. Metropol., article “Hunting.” It
is scarcely possible to express this epithet in English. Zeune’s
Index Græcitatis gives “præstantissima.” I do not like Mr. Smedley’s
translation, E. M.; and yet I cannot suggest a better in its place than
that of the version. A coursing friend substitutes “perfectly divine.”
[84] He now returns from his beautiful episode on Hormé to the physical
indications of excellence in greyhounds generally. The _conque_ of the
ear is semi-pendulous, and yet the greyhound has the power of elevating
it with as much ease as the less reclaimed varieties of dog. This
particular structure gives the appearance, noticed in the text, of the
ear being broken; and also adds to its seeming magnitude.
[85] The modern courser prefers the small ears of the Oppianic hound,
[Sidenote: Oppian. Cyneg. +i.+ +v.+ 403.]
βαιὰ δ’ ὕπερθεν
οὔατα λεπταλέοισι περιστέλλοινθ’ ὑμένεσσι:
[Sidenote: =Chap.= +xv.+ =fol.= 66.]
and excludes the pricked ear, the “rectæ aures” of Fracastor. Albertus
recommends “aures acutæ retrorsùm directæ, et parvæ:” the Mayster of
Game, “the eerys smal and hie in the maner of a serpent:” Gervase
Markham, “a sharp ear, short, and close-falling:” but the most correct
notion of the ears of a perfect greyhound is imparted in the line
[Sidenote: Nemesian. Cyneget. 113.]