animal sacrifices, were small pieces of flesh cut from every part of
the beast, and offered to the gods, (see Homer, passim): but hunters,
according to Pitiscus, dedicated to the Goddess of the Chase the head,
horns, feet, skin, &c. of the slaughtered game; to which custom Nisus
alludes in his invocation to Diana:
[Sidenote: Æneid. L. +ix.+ 406.]
Si qua tuis unquam pro me pater Hyrtacus aris
Doma tulit, si qua ipse meis venatibus auxi,
Suspendive tholo, aut sacra ad fastigia fixi:
Hunc sine me, &c.
[292] Ὁ τῇ νίκῃ πολέμου ἀκροθίνια. Before the spoils of victory were
distributed among the warriors, they considered themselves obliged to
make an offering out of them to the Gods, to whose assistance they
were indebted for them all. Those separated to this use were termed,
according to the author of the Archæologia Græca, ἀκροθίνια, because
taken ἀπ’ ἄκρου τοῦ θινὸς, from the top of the heap.
[293]
[Sidenote: De Nugis Curialium L. +i.+ c. +iv.+]
To Henricus Cornelius Agrippa, and his Origin of the Chase, reference
is elsewhere given. Identical with his view of its rise, progress,
and demerit, is that of Joannes Sarisberiensis, in his Policraticus,
_De Venaticâ et autoribus et speciebus ejus, et exercitio licito et
illicito_. “Et primi quidem Thebani,” says John, (who wrote in the
reign of our second Henry, and from whom later authors have purloined
the oft-repeated reprobation,) “si fidem sequamur historiæ, eam
communicandam omnibus statuerunt. Et ex quo suspecta sit omnibus
gens fœda parricidiis, ipcestibus detestanda, insignis fraude, nota
perjuriis, hujus artificii, vel potiùs maleficii, in primis præcepta
congessit, quæ postmodum ad gentem mollem imbellemque, levem et
impudicam (Phrygios loquor) transmitteret,” &c.
[294]
[Sidenote: Hor. Sat. L. +i.+ S. +iii.+ vs. 101.]
Armis from _armi_ not arma. Wase’s version is wrong. The term is more
commonly applied to the shoulder or arm of animals than man: but the
sense of the passage requires the interpretation I have put upon it,
and is farther illustrated by the “unguibus et pugnis” of Horace, and
“meræ vires” of Ovid:
[Sidenote: Ovid. Art. Am. L. +ii.+]
Tum genus humanum solis errabat in agris;
Hisque meræ vires, et rude corpus erat.
Politian elegantly exemplifies the Faliscian’s meaning in his Silva,
entitled Nutricia;
[Sidenote: Carmina V. Illustr. Poet. p. 159.]
Sed longum tamen obscuris immersa tenebris
Gens rudis, atque inculta virûm, sine more, sine ullâ
Lege propagabant ævum, passimque ferino
Degebant homines ritu, visque insita cordi
Mole obsessa gravi, nondùm ullos prompserat usus,
Nil animo, duris agitabant cuncta _lacertis_.
[295] For Perseus’s title to this post of honour Oppian is my only
voucher; but his words are decisive:
[Sidenote: Cyneg. L. +ii.+ vs. 8.]
ἐν μερόπεσσι δὲ πρῶτος ὁ Γοργόνος αὐχέν’ ἀμέρσας,
Ζηνὸς χρυσείοιο πάϊς κλυτὸς εὕρατο Περσεύς.
[296]
[Sidenote: J. Sarisberiensis de N. C. L. +i.+ c. +iv.+]
Will the reader admit the explanation of the Policraticus as to the
fabulous connexion of these hybrids with the chase: “nempe qui his
studiis aut desidiis insistunt, semiferi sunt, et abjectâ potiore
humanitatis parte, ratione morum prodigiis conformantur?” and again,
“Venatores omnes adhuc institutionem redolent Centaurorum. Rarò
invenitur quisquam eorum modestus aut gravis,” &c.
[297]
[Sidenote: The Times.]
“The light-footed Greek of Chiron’s school,” as Churchill calls him.
[Sidenote: Pind. Nem. Carm. L. +iii.+ 85.]
τὸν ἐθάμβεεν Ἄρτε-
μίς τε καὶ θρασεῖ’ Ἀθάνα,
Κτείνοντ’ ἐλάφους ἄνευ κυ-
νῶν δολίων θ’ ἑρκέων·
ποσσὶ γὰρ κράτεσκεν.
[298]
[Sidenote: Plin. Paneg. Trajan. Dict. 81.]
Nec mediocre pacis decus habebatur submota campis irruptio ferarum, et
obsidione quâdam liberatus agrestium labor.
[299] According to Manilius the power of fashioning implements of
hunting, breeding dogs of good pedigrees, breaking them in, &c. is
derived from sidereal influence at our nativities:
[Sidenote: Manilii Astronomicon. L. +v.+]
At Procyon oriens, quum jam vicesima Cancri
Septimaque ex undis pars sese emergit in astra,
Venatus non ille quidem, verum arma creatis
Venandi tribuit: catulos nutrire sagaces,
Et genus à proavis, mores numerare per artes,
Retiaque, et validâ venabula cuspide fixa,
Lentaque contextis formare hastilia nodis,
Et quodcumque solet venandi poscere cura
In proprios fabricare dabit venalia quæstus.
[300]
[Sidenote: c. +iii.+ fol. 21.]
[Sidenote: c. +iv.+ fol. 25.]
We have the authority of the most ancient record of British field
spoils, called =Mayster of Game=, (a curious manuscript in the British
Museum,) for the general use of much of the classic furniture of the
chase in France and England five centuries ago. Let the reader compare
the following with the Greek and Latin Cynegetica: “_Of the Hare, and
the methods of taking her_. Men slee hares with greyhoundes and with
rennynghoundes by strengthe, as in Engelond; but ellis where thei slee
hem with smale pocketes and wt p^rsuetes and wt smale nettis, with
hare pipes and with long nettis and with smale cordes that men casten
where thei mak here brekyng of the smale twygges whan thei goon to
hure pasture,” &c.—“_Of the Herte._ Men taken hem with houndis, with
greyhoundis, with nettis, and with cordes, and with other harnays;
with puttes and with shott, and with other gynnes, and with strengthe,
as y shal say here after,” &c. Almost all the instruments of this
royal armoury, the fruits of De Langley’s extensive experience at home
and abroad, and as such recorded in his hunting manual, have their
counterparts in the works of Xenophon, Gratius, Oppian, and Nemesian.
[301]
[Sidenote: Certaine Illustrations, &c. p. 24.]
“We are not sensible of Gratius’s great care in the choice and ordering
of speares,” in the language of his illustrator, “nor of his provision
in showing to set engines, and dig pits, which men prize in those
countries where beares and lyons, with such ravenous beasts, do abound.
We seem to have a different end in our hunting, which hath introduced a
different stile of hunting,” &c.
[302] The arts of war and hunting advanced _passibus æquis_; both at
first equally rude, and destitute of ingenuity of contrivance in their
respective instruments of assault:
[Sidenote: Hor. Sat. L. +i.+ Sat. +iii.+ 101.]
Unguibus et pugnis, dein fustibus, atque ità porrò
Pugnabant armis quæ post fabricaverat usus.
Before the age of Homer, the bow and arrow, “the artillery of ancient
heroes,” the ἔγχος or δόρυ, _spear_ or _pike_, ξίφος the _sword_, and
κορύνη the _club_, constituted the entire armoury of the warriors and
hunters of semi-barbarous Greece. See Iliad +xi.+ and +xvii.+ Odyss.
+ix.+ and +xix.+ How scanty was the furniture of Hercules in his attack
of the Nemean lion!
[Sidenote: Theocriti Idyll. L. +xxv.+ 206.]
αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ κέρας ὑγρὸν ἑλὼν, κοίλην τε φαρέτραν,
Ἰῶν ἐμπλείην, νεόμην· ἑτέρῃφι τε βάκτρον
εὐπαγὲς, αὐτόφλοιον, ἐπηρεφέος κοτίνοιο,
εὔμετρον.
[Sidenote: Sir T. Elyot’s. The Governour. B. +i.+ c. +xviii.+]
The Persian hunting of Cyrus, as described in the Cyropædia, (L. +i.+
c. +v.+), presents us with _warlike_ weapons alone. “Than tooke every
man” (I quote from The Governour) “with hym his bowe and quiver with
arowes, his sword or hach of steele, a little tergat, and two dartes.”
[303] “The _formido_,” Wase admonishes the reader of his Preface to
Gratius, “may be in some measure retriv’d by looking into the Sicilian
hunting, where it continues in use at this day. When the nobles or
gentry are inform’d which way a herd of dear passeth, giving notice to
one another, they make a meeting. Every one brings with him a cross-bow
or long-bow, and a bundle of staves. These staves have an iron spike
at the bottom, and their head is boared with a cord drawn through all
of them. Their length is about four foot. Being thus provided, they
come to the herd, and there casting themselves about into a large ring,
they surround the deer, and then every one of them receives a peculiar
stand, and there unbinding his fagot, ties the end of his cord to
the other who is set in the next station; then to support it, sticks
into the ground each staffe about the distance of ten foot one from
another. Then they take out feathers which they bring with them dyed
in crimson for this very purpose, and fastned upon a thrid which they
tie to the cord, so that with the least breath of wind they are whirl’d
round about. Those which keep the severall stands, withdraw, and hide
themselves in the next covert. After this the chiefe ranger enters
within the line, taking with him only some hounds, which draw after the
herd, and coming near with their cry, rouse it. Upon which, the deer
fly till they come towards the line, where they turn off to the left,
and still gazing upon the shining and shaking feathers, wander about it
as if they were kept in with a wall or pale. The chief ranger pursues,
and calling to every one by name, as he passeth by their stand, cries
to them that they should shoot the first, third, or sixth, as he shall
please; and if any of them miss or single out any other then that
which was assigned by the ranger, it is counted a disgrace to him: by
which means, as they pass by the severall stations, the whole herd
is kill’d by diverse hands.... These stakes are of the same use with
those _ancones_[304] mention’d in Gratius, but it might seem that they
are farther improv’d.”—“These things,” continues the translator of the
Faliscian, “may be of use to have been premitted;” and with the same
view they are here introduced by the author of this Appendix.
[304] The _staves_ of the Sicilians are the _ancones_ of Gratius—the
στάλικες and σχάλιδες of the Greek hunters.
[305]
[Sidenote: Agamemnon vs. 1386.]
The complete and helpless entanglement of the victim of the tunnel-net
is admirably described by Seneca, in the simile of The Agamemnon, where
Cassandra likens the son of Atreus, ensnared in a _cassi_-form vest
(so happily called by Æschylus πημονὴν ἀρκύστατον) by the “semivir”
Thyestes and the adulteress queen-consort, to a boar inextricably
enveloped in these toils:
[Sidenote: Senecæ Agamem. Act. +v.+ 886.]
At ille ut altis hispidus sylvis aper,
Cum casse vinctus, tentat egressus tamen,
Arctatque motu vincla, et incassùm furit,
Cupit fluentes undique et cæcos sinus
Disjicere, et hostem quærit implicitus suum.
See the definitions of Pollux in my notes to the first Chapter of
Arrian’s Cynegeticus—ἄρκυες, δίκτυα, ἐνόδια.
[306]
[Sidenote: Certaine Illustrations of the Cynegeticall Poem of Gratius.
p. 68.]
“In Poland, when the king hunts,” observes Wase, “his servants are
wont to surround a wood, though to the space of a mile or better in
compasse, with toiles, which are pitched upon firme stakes: this being
done, the whole town, all sexes and ages, promiscuously rush into the
inclosure, and with their loud shouts rear all the beasts within that
wood, which making forth, are intercepted in the nets. There small and
great beasts are together intangled, after the same manner as when
amongst us we draw a net over a pond, and after beating it all over
with poles, we bring out not only pike and carp, but lesser fry: so
they enclose at once, dear, and bores, and roe-bucks, and hares: for so
they order their nets, that the space of those meshes which are twisted
with greater cords, for the entangling of greater beasts—that space, I
say, is made up with smaller whip-cord, for the catching lesser prey.”
See Xenophon de Venatione, c. +vi.+, and pausanias in bœoticis, c.
+xxi.+ The latter author relates that the Celtic hunters surrounded
plains and mountain-thickets with their toils, so as to be certain of
catching all the animals within the circumference thereof.
[307]
[Sidenote: De Bell. Judaic. L. +vii.+ c. 27.]
Such were the σειραὶ of the Parthians, applied to the purposes of human
warfare: for it is evident from Josephus’s account of Tiridates’s
narrow escape from the Alan σειραφόρος—(βρόχον γὰρ αὐτῷ τὶς πόῤῥωθεν
περιβαλὼν ἔμελλεν ἐπισπάσειν, εἰ μὴ τῷ ξίφει θᾶττον ἐκεῖνος τὸν τόνον
κόψας, ἔφθη διαφυγεῖν,)—that the instrument employed against the king
was of the nature of a _laqueus_. And a farther illustration of the use
of the noose-rope in war we find in the lines of Valerius Flaccus,
[Sidenote: Argonaut. L. +vi.+ 133.]
Doctus et Auchates patulo vaga vincula gyro
Spargere, et extremas laqueis adducere turmas.
[308] Some idea of the _curraces laquei_, and hunting nets duly set,
may be formed from the engravings of Strada and Galle (1578.); or
those of the Venationes Ferarum &c. of Collært, Mallery, Theodore and
Cornelius Galle of later date. The spirited woodcuts of John Adam
Lonicer, of Francfort, attached to the Venatus et Aucupium of Sigismund
Feyerabendi (1582), are amusing, but far less illustrative than the
former.
[Sidenote: Preface to the Reader.]
To Père Montfaucon we are indebted for a few copies from the antique
of the larger varieties of nets for hunting, δίκτυα, _retia_; see
his plates of stag-hunting: but we have no representations of other
predatory instruments in the latter work. Wase confounds the _laquei
curraces_ with the _dentatæ pedicæ_, where he describes the former
as “a round hoop of yeughen wood made of boughs, which stood bent by
force, in fashion of a coronet, and all stuck with iron nayles, and
wooden pins,” &c. Peradventure, they may have been set together, the
gins in a shallow pit beneath the nooses, more superficially placed on
the ground. See Xenoph. de Venat. c. +ix.+ Polluc. Onom. L. +v.+ c.
+iv.+
[309] It is remarkable that this inventive genius is noticed by no
other writer; high as his character stands with the Faliscian,
[Sidenote: Gratii Cyneg. vs. 103.]
haud illo quisquam se justior egit,
Aut fuit in terris Divôm observantior alter:
[Sidenote: Excursus +ii.+ ad Gratii vs. 103.]
unless indeed he be the sly coadjutor of Alebion, who with a thief
cleped Dercylus (of a different caste seemingly from the Gratian hero)
despoiled Hercules of his bovine booty during its transit through
Iberia. See Natal. Comes, Mytholog. L. +vii.+ Perhaps we may with
Wernsdorf consider him the first writer on the science and mechanism
of the chase, rather than the actual inventor of its multifarious
furniture: or if we cannot thus dispose of his claim to manual
dexterity, may we not identify him with Aristæus, the Arcadian nephew
of Diana,
[Sidenote: Apollon. Argonaut. L. +ii.+ 508.]
ὃν καλέουσιν
ἀγρέα καὶ νόμιον,
a sort of legendary Sir Tristrem in ancient matters of venery, and
rural economy.
[310]
[Sidenote: The Governour.]
The decay of archery in England is feelingly deplored by Sir Thomas
Elyot, because “in shotyng is a double utilitee:” it is “the feate,
wherby Englyshmen have been moste dradde and had in estimation with
outwarde princes, as wel enemyes as alies,” &c.; and secondly in
“kyllynge of deere, wylde foule, and other game, there is both profyte
and pleasure above any other artyllery.”
[311] Superior expertness in the chase—“To bend the bow, and aim
unerring darts,”—was always attributed to the personal instructions of
Diana; so was Scamandrius taught, though his skill availed him nothing
before the fatal lance of Menelaus:
[Sidenote: Iliad. L. +v.+ 51.]
ἐσθλὸν θηρητῆρα· δίδαξε γὰρ Ἄρτεμις αὐτὴ
βάλλειν ἄγρια πάντα, τά τε τρέφει οὔρεσιν ὕλη.
ἀλλ’ οὔ οἱ τότε γε χραῖσμ’ Ἄρτεμις ἰοχέαιρα,
οὐδὲ ἑκηβολίαι, ᾗσιν τὸ πρίν γ’ ἐκέκαστο.
[312]
[Sidenote: Schol. ad Theocrit. Id. +iv.+]
The λαγωβόλον of Theocritus Idyll. +iv.+ 49. +vii.+ 128. epigr. +ii.+
3. (ξύλον, ᾧ διαφεύγοντες οἱ λαγωοὶ βάλλονται,) seems to be the type of
Bargæus’s weapon—the _lagobolion_ of Natalis Comes. De Venat. L. +i.+
[313] Additional evidence of the attendance of servants being usual at
hunting expeditions, is afforded by the tale of Cephalus,
[Sidenote: Ovid. Metam. L. +vii.+ 805.]
Venatum in silvis juveniliter ire solebam;
Nec mecum _famulos_, nec equos, nec naribus acres
Ire canes, nec lina sequi nodosa sinebam.
Tutus eram jaculo, &c.
[314]
[Sidenote: Preface to the Reader. Gratius Englished, &c. by C. Wase.]
The hunting of the ancient Hebrews appears not to have differed
materially from that of the Pagan world. “Canaan,” observes Wase, “was
hemmed in with deserts: there was the great Lebanon, and there was
Mizpeh, and Tabor, and other mountains which abounded with game; and
in the royall age, I beleeve, hunting itself was much frequented; for
though the sacred history do not _ex professo_ take care to deliver
us any thing concerning those lighter recreations, yet the frequent
representations made by it throughout the writters of that age, do
give some probability that it was a frequent object among them, and
taken from the common use. David’s persecutions are sometimes likened
to fowling, oftentimes to hunting: his enemies dig a pit for him, they
set a snare to catch his feet. No authors of human learning, whose
works yet survive, make so much mention of grins as the Psalmes have
made: his enemies bend their bow, and make their arrows ready upon the
string, to shoot at the righteous. This was Esau’s artillery. So that
according to that age, limiting was so instituted; for our author,
speaking of these two, intimates that they were courses of an elder
date, for Ginns saith he,
Nam _fuit_ et laqueis _aliquis_ curracibus usus:
Cervino _jussêre_ magis, &c.
He saith likewise for bows and arrows,
Magnum opus et celeres _quondam fecêre_ sagittæ.
[Sidenote: Psalm +cxl.+ 5.]
[Sidenote: Job c. +xviii.+]
[Sidenote: Isaiah c. +xxiv.+]
David’s enemies hide a net for him. ‘The proud have hid a snare for
me, and cords; they have spread a net by the way side; they have set
grins for me.’ Neither was it unknown to the Jewish huntsmen the way
of driving beasts, by an immission of fear, which is the _formido
et pinnatum_,” &c. The biblical scholar will remember the memorable
passage of the book of Job, “the steps of his strength shall be
straitened, (_Gr._ hunted,) and his own counsel shall cast him down.
For he is cast into a net by his own feet, and he walketh upon a snare.
The gin shall take him by the heel, and the robber shall prevail
against him (the entangling cord or noose holdeth him fast). The snare
is laid for him in the ground, and a trap for him in the way. Terrors
shall make him afraid on every side, and shall drive him to his feet.”
In the prophet Isaiah almost all the methods of capture given in the
Classic Cynegetica contribute their metaphorical signification. “Fear,
and the pit, and the snare, are upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth.
And it shall come to pass, that he who fleeth from the noise of the
fear shall fall into the pit; and he that cometh up out of the midst of
the pit shall be taken in the snare.” See also Jeremiah c. +xlviii.+
and Ezekiel c. +xix.+ the παγίδες θανάτου of the lxx. version of
proverbs +xxi.+ 1. may be compared to the “mortis laquei” of Horace, L.
+iii.+ od. +xxiv.+ vs. 8. and to the “leti plagæ” of Statius Silv. V.
+i.+ vs. 155.
[315]
[Sidenote: Bochart. Hierozoic. L. +ii.+ c. +lvi.+]
It is a curious fact, that in the Hebrew text of the Scriptures there
is no allusion whatever to hunting with dogs. Nimrod is called in the
Greek version γίγας κυνηγὸς, Genesis +x.+ 9., and Esau ἄνθρωπος εἰδὼς
κυνηγεῖν, genesis +xxv.+ 27.; but in the Hebrew, there is no reference
to the employment of the dog. The _canis lumbis tenuibus, quo ad
venationem utuntur venatores_, introduced by commentators, Proverbs
+xxx.+ 31., I believe to be a fanciful rabbinical creation. See a note
on the subject in the prefatory matter to my translation of Arrian.
[316] The exceptions to this geographical nomenclature are only four,
viz. the Vertragus, otherwise called the Celtic or Gallic hound; the
Metagon, a lime-hound; the Agassæus; and Petronius: the origin of
which two latter names is uncertain. The sub-varieties of the Cretan,
mentioned by Arrian and Julius Pollux, may also constitute exceptions
to the general rule; but these, with the Menelaides and Harmodii,
Castorii and Alopecides, must be considered as merging in the more
general titles of Crete and Lacedæmon: and so likewise the porter and
pastoral dogs, and others deriving their names from their vocations, in
the topical appellatives of their respective countries.
[317]
[Sidenote: Hesiod. Theog. vs. 308.]
ἡ δ’ ὑποκυσσαμένη, τέκετο κρατερόφρονα τέκνα.
Ὄρθρον μὲν πρῶτον κύνα γείνατο Γηρυονῆϊ·
δεύτερον αὖτις ἔτικτεν ἀμήχανον, οὔτι φατειὸν,
Κέρβερον ὠμηστὴν, ἀΐδεω κύνα χαλκεόφωνον,
πεντήκοντα κάρηνον, ἀναιδέα τε, κρατερόν τε.
[318]
[Sidenote: Lucian. Deor. Dial. Juno et Latona.]
With the aid of the poet I shall hereafter venture an opinion on
the breed of some of the pack of the stag-like huntsman—the most
celebrated of the trio—slain by command of Dian: ἐπεὶ ἔμαθε ὀφθεῖσα ὑπὸ
τοῦ Ἀκταίωνος, φοβηθεῖσα μὴ ὁ νεανίσκος ἐξαγορεύσῃ τὸ αἶσχος αὐτῆς,
ἐπαφῆκεν αὐτῷ τοὺς κύνας. See J. Sarisber. Policrat. L. +i.+ c. +iv.+
for the moral of this tale.
[319]
[Sidenote: Minshæi Emend. p. 242. Book of St. Alban’s.]
[Sidenote: Holinshed’s Description of Britaine. B. +iii.+ c. 13.]
The μελιταῖα κυνίδια were so called, “quia ad fœminarum delicias ex
Melito insulâ advehebantur:”—the “smalle ladyes popees that here awaye
the flees” of Juliana Berners—“Instruments of folly to play and dally
withal, in trifling away the treasure of time, to wythdrawe theyr
mindes from more commendable exercises, and to content theyr corrupt
concupiscences wyth vaine disport, a silly poore shift to shun theyr
irkesome ydlenesse.”
[320]
[Sidenote: Antiq. Sept. et Celt. Keysler. s. +ii.+ c. +ii.+ 6.]
A passage which Wase supposes to allude to the canis Gallicus of
Arrian; whose impetuosity of course, and entire want of scent, his
peculiar characteristics, resemble the heedless, rash, and head-strong
ardour of the Gallic character in general, (Ælian. V. H. L. +xii.+ c.
23.) and particularly of the Gallic soldiers of Lucan’s Pharsalia:
[Sidenote: Lucan. L. +i.+ p. 19. Ed. Farnab.]
quos ille timorum
Maximus haud urget lethi metus; inde ruendi
In ferrum mens prona viris, animæque capaces
Mortis: et ignavum redituræ parcere vitæ.
But an allusion to the war-dogs of Celtica, the “diversi Celtæ” of vs.
156. of the Cynegeticon, seems equally tenable. At the same time, it is
not impossible but that both passages may refer to greyhounds, under
the names of Galli and Celtæ.
[321] In the muster-roll of Actæon’s pack by Gratius’s contemporary,
amidst various sorts of hounds culled from various countries, the same
characteristic distinctions predominate: we have a
[Sidenote: Ovid. Met. L. +iii.+ 211.]
_trux_ cum Lælape Theron,
Et _pedibus_ Pterelas, et _naribus_ utilis Agre.
[322] The same threefold division runs through many of the modern
semi-classical Cynegetica—being founded, as of course it is, in the
essential qualities of the canine race:
[Sidenote: Joan. Darcii Venusini Canes.]
Nunc age quis villæ melior, gregibusque tuendis;
Quæ volucri soboles cursu, nasove sagaci
Sit potior; nec enim solers dedit omnibus unum
Natura ingenium.
[Sidenote: De Quad. Digit. Vivip. L. +iii.+]
Ulysses Aldrovandus, in the section of his elaborate work which treats
of the canine race, uses the very words of Seneca before cited, to mark
the “tres præcipuæ canibus venaticis proprietates—_sagacitas, cursus,
audacia_.”
[Sidenote: Vanierii Præd. Rust. L. +iv.+]
Sed non una canum species: pars nata domorum
Excubiis, gressum et mensam sectatur herilem:
Venandi studiosa feras pars alite cursu
Insequitur, vel nare sagax vestigat odorâ.
[323] Painter’s Palace of Pleasure amusingly works out the points of
resemblance in the field-array of an army and a hunt;—“... by the
pursuite of Beastes, sleyghts of warre bee observed: The Houndes be
the square battell, the Greyhoundes be the flanquarts and Wynges to
follow the enimy, the horseman semeth to gieve the Chase, when the Game
speedeth to covert, the Hornes be the Trumpets to sounde the Chase,
and Retire, and for incouragement of the Dogges to run. To be short,
it seemeth a very Campe in battayle, ordayned for the pleasure and
passetyme of noble youth.”
[324] This fragment, highly Gratian in its style and subject, but
long mis-appropriated to Ovid on the erroneous authority of Pliny,
(L. +xxxii.+ c. 2.) is now considered, on the strength of internal
evidence, by Vlitius and Wernsdorf to belong to Gratius.
[325] Spirited representations of the different chases are given
in Montfaucon’s Antiquities, Tom. +iii.+ Liv. +iii.+ from ancient
gems, the Sepulchre of the Nasoni, Arch of Constantine, &c. See also
the Venationes Ferarum of a later date by Strada and Galle, already
referred to.
[326] κύκλους, the _rings_ of Gervase Markham, Countrey Contentments,
Book I. +i.+ c. 1.
[327] For further particulars, see Xen. de V. c. +x.+ Oppian. Cyn.
+iii.+ vs. 379. Adrian. Venat. vs. 55. (Edit. Ald.) Natalis Comes de
Ven. L. +iii.+ v. 342. (Edit. Ald. F.) Cæsar. Borgiæ Ducis Epiced. per
H. Strozam. P. A. Bargæi Cyneg. +iv.+ p. 104. and Iac. Savary, Syothera
L. +i.+ A capital wood-cut of a boar bayed by ferocious hounds is given
by I. A. Lonicer in his Venatus et Aucupium, Tab. Aper. and others in
the Venationes Ferarum of Strada and Galle. See also the =Mayster of
Game; of the wylde boor=, c. +vii.+
[328] The reader will find descriptions of many of the different
chases, for which I have no room here, in the Latin Cynegetica of the
14th, 15th, and 16th centuries, cited under the boar-hunt of Calydon.
For “the chiefe huntyng of the valiaunt Grekes and noble Romaynes,” see
“The boke named The Governour, devised by Sir Thomas Elyot, Knyght.” B.
+i.+ c. +xviii.+
[329] The lines of this animated picture, which describe, in the
language of experience, the different degrees of restraint to be
imposed on the Limiers, the Molossians, the Cretans, and Spartans,
are here omitted: inasmuch as they will be more appropriately cited
by us, when we come to speak of the family of _limiers_, the _canes
inductores_ of classical antiquity.
[330] If the appropriation of the Oppianic portrait to the Vertragus
of Arrian alone be deemed too scrupulously exclusive,—inasmuch as it
leaves the Spartan hound of Xenophon undescribed by the Greek poet,—I
will allow that preference of the Celtic type to all others may have
influenced my decision; and am willing, with the reader’s approval,
to admit the hound of Lacedæmon into a participation of the honour
bestowed on the Vertragus.
[331]
[Sidenote: Venatio Novantiqua.]
In addition to this triple view, a farther distinction of the canine
race is founded by Oppian on purity and commixture of blood. The
mongrel or mixed breed is again divided into two varieties, the one
constituted of dogs of different countries crossed with each other;
the other of dogs crossed with various wild animals, θηρομιγῆ, as
tigers, lions, wolves, and foxes;—whence in the opinion of the ancient
cynegetical writers originated many varieties of hybrid races; which
later experiments have proved to be founded in fable; with the
exception of those produced between the wolf and dog, and the jackal
and dog. It is not improbable that the latter hybrid production
may have given rise to the fabled progeny of the dog and fox, the
ἀλωπεκίδες of Xenophon; as the Canis _aureus_ and common dog readily
breed together; but we have no very well authenticated case of a litter
from the Canis _vulpes_ and dog—to which assumed cross, the attention
of John Hunter, “magnus ille naturæ indagator,” had been directed
before his death, but not advanced to actual experiment, as in the
other crosses of the wolf and jackal with the domestic dog. Dr. Caius,
it is true, speaks of the vulpi-canine cross as an established one,
“quasi protritum aliquid,” says Vlitius, “quod ego rumore tantùm,”
continues the latter, “et vix ita compertum habeo,”—but of this, more
anon.
[332]
[Sidenote: Lucian. adversus Indoctum.]
Of these the most important are hereafter mentioned under the same or
different names: The Παίονες, are Pannonians—the Αὐσόνιοι probably
identical with the Tuscan—and those of the town of Tegea, (where
Lucian tells us, the inhabitants exhibited the hide of the Calydonian
boar—δείκνυσιν Τεγέαται τοῦ Καλυδωνίου τὸ δέρμα,) must of course be
considered Arcadian sub-varieties. The rest are of the Molossian
character. Instead of Ἐπειοὶ Bodin and Belin de Ballu read Ἀμοργοὶ; but
of the hounds of Amorgos, one of the Cyclades, I know nothing.
[333] Under the sanction of antiquity, and scarce inferior to the
purest poet of the Augustan age, Ioannes Darcius comprehends under the
terms Molossi and Lacones _all_ dogs of chase;
[Sidenote: J. Darcii Venusini Canes.]
Quæ generosa canum soboles, quis cultus alendo
Sit catulo, unde suos Epirus clara Molossos,
Audacesque sibi commendet Sparta Lacones,
Diva refer.
[334] Such was the Pard of Ercole Strozzi;
[Sidenote: Cæsar. Borgiæ Ducis Epiced. per H. Strozam.]
Pardus ad hæc genitrice Lacon, genitore Molossus,
Non extrema canum fama, et spes acris Opuntî.
[335]
[Sidenote: Bulletin Universel.]
M. Desmoulins is of opinion that the modern numerous races of
domestic dogs must be referred, each in its own country, to different
unreclaimed species; and if so, allowing somewhat for emigration with
man, and somewhat again for crosses among the varieties of each region,
we must suppose that those, which manifest remarkable distinctive
qualities, derived them originally from the wild _indigenæ_ of each
particular region. Exclusive of the jackal, he considers that there are
three wild species in Europe, and Western Asia, which have contributed
to produce the varieties of our domestic dog, at present known.
[336] We may suppose the muzzle in this class more or less truncated,
and the capacity of the cranium diminished. But the sketches of
physical structure are too superficial in the ancient cynegetica to
found a classification on the principle of M. F. Cuvier.
[337]
[Sidenote: De Quad. Dig. Vivip. L. +iii.+]
Aldrovandus explains color _helvus_ as “medius inter rufum et
album”—_fawn_.
[338] The epithet “diversos” may indicate remoteness of birth-place
as explained by Johnson; or difference of character as hinted by
Wase—Gallia being far distant from Media, and the Celtic dog being
sagacious as well as pugnacious, and therefore differing from the
“indocilis Medus,” whose character was that of mere truculency,
unredeemed by the least sagacity.
[339] Belin de Ballu appears to consider the Oppianic Κελτοὶ Segusian
hounds of scent, and not war-dogs. See his Animadversiones in Oppian.
L. +i.+ vs. 373. Did the poet include under the term Κελτοὶ all the
various sorts of hounds supposed indigenous of Celtica—the war-dogs,
the Vertragi, Segusii, and hybrids of Pliny? No country of antiquity
affords such numerous varieties of the canine species as Gaul; and as
the inhabitants are by the Greeks called Κελτοὶ, by the Romans Galli,
and sometimes synonymously with the latter, Celtæ; so may Oppian, an
eastern Greek, include under the term Κελτοὶ the various subdivisions
of the canine tribe, throughout the whole territory of Gaul, however
distinguished by earlier writers, either as indigenous of peculiar
localities, or characterized by dissimilar qualities.
[340]
[Sidenote: La Vénerie de Jaques du Fouilloux. c. +i.+]
The high antiquity of the Canes Venatici of Gaul, espoused by Jaques du
Fouilloux in the first chapter of his Vénerie—“De la race et antiquité
des chiens courans, et qui premièrement les amena en France,” will
amuse such of my readers as may think his work worth referring to.
Deducing the breed from the kennel of Brutus, (the son of Sylvius, the
son of Ascanius, the son of Æneas) under whose fostering care _les
chiens courans et lévriers_ were exported from the Trojan territory,
Fouilloux exhibits the very vessel of transportation, with its canine
cargo aboard.
[341]
[Sidenote: Venatio Novantiqua.]
It is a generally received opinion that the pugnacious and sagacious
dogs of Britain were constantly exported to Gaul; and Janus Vlitius
remarks that the same practice continued within his knowledge.
[342]
[Sidenote: Vulgar Errors, &c. B. +i.+]
“Wherein,” says Sir Thomas Brown very justly, “are contained many
things suspicious, not a few false, some impossible.”
[343] To this dog Priscian alludes in his Periegesis, vs. 706.:
[Sidenote: Poetæ Latini Minores. Tom. +v.+ p. +i.+ Wernsdorf.]
Hic sunt Albani bellaces marte feroci;
Unde canes nati superant genus omne ferarum.
Magnus Alexander missum sibi viderat inde
Victorem barrique canem, rapidique leonis:—
[Sidenote: De Nugis Curialium L. +i.+ c. +iv.+]
and John of Salisbury celebrates the race in his Policraticus; the
merits of the breed losing nothing of its lustre, but rather gaining,
in the prose narration;—“Albani quidem in Asiâ canes habent leonibus
fortiores: eos virtute canum, et suæ gentis artificio, quasi imbelles
bestiolas populantur. Canibus quidem illis nulla ferarum fortior,
nulla animosior est. Hos Hercules, tergemino Geryone victo, ab
Italiâ trajecit in Asiam, eis virtutem quâ leones sternerent, quasi
hereditariam derelinquens,” &c.
[344]
[Sidenote: Pind. Pyth. L. +ii.+ 85.]
Arcadia boasted not these as her only ferine crosses—φῦλα θηρομιγῆ—for
in the country of Lycaon, too, in all their glory, rode the στρατὸς
θαυμαστὸς of semi-human centaurs, lords of the chase, around mount
Pholoë,
[Sidenote: Oppian. Cyneg. L. +ii.+ 5.]
ἀμφὶ πόδας Φολόης ἀνεμώδεος ἄγρια φῦλα
θηρομιγῆ, μερόπων μὲν ἐπ’ ἰξύας, ἰξυόφιν δὲ
ἵππων ἡμιβρότων.
[345]
[Sidenote: Exercitat. 202.]
Scaliger denies the inference—“Possunt quidem lupi mitiores fieri, sed
nunquàm lupinam formam, et totalem feritatem exuent, quemadmodum et
plantæ novo cultu mitescunt.”
[346]
[Sidenote: H. C. Agrippa de Incert. et Van. o. s. et a.]
Both these hybrid productions are alluded to, in his wonted strain
of disgust, by the misanthropic Agrippa, in his 73rd chapter, de
Agriculturâ.
[347]
[Sidenote: La Chasse du Loup. c. +viii.+]
In the rare tract of Jean de Clamorgan, I find a practical remark
to the point: “Noterez que j’ay veu quelquefois que les levriers
font difficulté de prendre une loupe chaude, ains la veulent saillir
et covrir comme une chienne: mais s’il y a aux cours quelque bonne
levrière, elle la prendra par envie et jalousie.”
[348]
[Sidenote: Wase’s Illustrations, &c. of Gratius. p. 67.]
[Sidenote: Gratii Cyneg. vs. 167.]
Blondus, in his ‘Libellus de Canibus et Venatione,’ remarks on
the breed of demi-wolves, as they are called by Shakespeare, that
this cross was not had recourse to in his days, because it was not
_wanted_—“tantâ feritate et astutiâ non egemus:” but Wase bears
testimony to its historical notoriety. “From the experience of this
country,” says he, “that _semifera_ proles, or whelps, that come of the
commixture of a bitch with a dog-wolf, is verified, called anciently
_lyciscæ_; and this ill quality they find inherent to that sort of
dogs, that they can by no way of bringing up be restrained from preying
upon cattle—‘sed præceps virtus ipsâ venabitur aulâ’—by which they have
merited to be esteemed criminal before they be whelped; and there is a
law in that behalf, which straitly enjoins, that if any bitch be limed
with a wolf, either she must be hanged immediately, or her puppies must
be made away: this may serve to avouch somewhat, all that character
which Gratius gives of the semiferous mongrels, of his Hyrcanian and
the Tiger.”
[Sidenote: Parry’s 1st Voyage of Discovery. Appendix.]
By the occurrences which took place at Melville Island, recorded in
the Appendix of Capt. Parry’s 1st Voyage, we have clear proof that
even an undomesticated wolf, in its natural and wild state, will have
intercourse with a domestic dog.
[349] The contiguity of India to Hyrcania, and the latter abounding
with tigers, may be the cause of the same tale being told by Aristotle
and Pliny of the tigri-canine cross of India, as by Gratius of that of
Hyrcania. Both are of course purely fabulous. Whatever loss the fierce
dog of Irak may occasion to pastoral property, herds and flocks—he is
still to be cherished for his superior prowess in the savage hunt:—
[Sidenote: Gratii Cyneg. vs. 167.]
Sed præceps virtus ipsâ venabitur aulâ:
Ille tibi et pecudum multo cum sanguine crescet;
Pasce tamen, quæcunque domi tibi crimina fecit,
Excutiet silvâ magnus pugnator adeptâ.
[Sidenote: De curand. Græc. affect. Serm. +ix.+ De leg. p. 128.]
The people of Hyrcania fostered their savage race of dogs for the
express purpose, amongst others, of devouring the bodies of the dead—a
practice noticed by Theodoret as being discontinued by them and the
Caspians after their conversion to Christianity.
[350]
[Sidenote: Numismata Siciliæ et Magnæ Græciæ T. +xxvi.+ T. +xxxv.+]
The hare on the reverse of Locrian numismata cannot be considered as
proof of the pursuit of such quarry being the popular diversion of the
country, nor as militating against the Locrian hound’s introduction
here;—for the same impression occurs on other coins—on those of the
Falisci, a colony of Argos, and others—having reference to historical
or mythological subjects, unconnected with the field sports of the
country.
[351]
[Sidenote: De Nat. Anim. L. +vii.+ c. +xxxvii.+]
[Sidenote: Plin. L. +viii.+ c. 40.]
Οἱ Μαιάνδρῳ παροικοῦντες Μάγνητες. The same are mentioned by Ælian,
in his work de Naturâ Animalium, in conjunction with the Hyrcanians,
as being attended to battle by canine auxiliaries—καὶ ἦν καὶ τοῦτο
συμμαχικὸν ἀγαθὸν αὐτοῖς καὶ ἐπικουρικόν. And Pliny, speaking of the
Colophonii and Castabalenses, says they had “cohortes canum—fidissima
auxilia, nec stipendiorum indigna.”
[Sidenote: J. Darcii Venusini Canes.]
His Colophoniacæ (si vera est fama) phalanges
Auxiliis, hostem valido fregêre duello:
Infaustoque olim cecidissent Caspia marte
Agmina, ni tali defensa cohorte fuissent.
[352]
[Sidenote: De Naturâ Animalium L. +vii.+ c. +xxxviii.+]
Ælian tells us of a war-dog, perhaps an Epirote, συστρατιώτην κύνα—who
so distinguished himself with his Athenian lord at the battle of
Marathon, as to be honoured with an effigy on the same tablet with his
master.
[353] For a fine representation of the Canis Molossus Venaticus, see
De la Chausse, Museum Romanum, Tab. +lxiv.+ and Montfaucon Antiquité
expliquée, _Chasse au Sanglier_, Tom. +iii.+ pl. 179. Several hunters
are returning from the chase with the Magister Venationis, bearing in
his hand a shield;—a cart drawn by oxen conveys a dead boar, on which
lies a huge dog apparently killed in the fray, and by the side walks a
second hound of the type alluded to. See also the Venationes Ferarum of
Stradanus and Galle, plate +viii.+ and the Genii hunting, from Maffei,
at the beginning of this Appendix, where a Molossian-like hound is on
the point of seizing a wild boar.
[354] Lucan has “ora levis clamosa Molossi”—and Claudian “Molossi
latrantes”—and into the error of his poetical predecessors Cardinal
Adrian has fallen, in his Venatio ad Ascanium Cardinalem;—as if the
Molossi were _remarkably latrant_, whereas _closeness_ of mouth was
their more distinctive quality: unless indeed this Cardinal of St.
Chrysogonus refer to two different sorts of Molossi, the one latrant,
the other mute and sagacious:
[Sidenote: Poetæ Tres, p. 40. Ed. Ald. 1534.]
Deducunt alii canum phalanges.
Latrantes abeunt simul molossi
Mox indaginis unicæ sagaces:
for he subsequently slips some boar-hounds, “per invia lustra
_mussitantes_,” and others again are distributed about the covert
by the harbourers or huntsmen; the latter being denominated “feros
molossos.”
[355] Refer to Surflet’s translation of _Maison Rustique_, good reader,
if you have it, and smile at the portraiture of the watch-dog, the
joint execution of _my_ medical brethren, “Charles Stevens and John
Liebault, Doctors of Physicke.” C. 27. p. 168.
[356]
[Sidenote: Xenophon Memorab. L. +ii.+ c. +vii.+]
The answer of the Canis Pastoralis (ὅτε φωνήεντα ἦν τὰ ζῶα) to the
dissatisfied sheep is beautifully illustrative of his services in the
economy of pastoral life:—ἐγὼ γάρ εἰμι ὁ καὶ ὑμᾶς αὐτὰς σώζων, ὥστε
μήτε ὑπὲρ ἀνθρώπων κλέπτεσθαι, μήτε ὑπὸ λύκων ἁρπάζεσθαι· ἐπεὶ ὑμεῖς
γε, εἰ μὴ ἐγὼ προφυλάττοιμι ὑμᾶς, οὐδ’ ἂν νέμεσθαι δύναισθε, φοβούμεναι
μὴ ἀπόλησθε—thereby making good his claim to a share of his master’s
food.
[357] Statues and pictures of κύνες φρουροδόμοι were sometimes
exhibited on the entrance doors, or walls of vestibules—of which kind
were the dogs wrought of gold and silver by Vulcan for Alcinous,
Δῶμα φυλασσέμεναι μεγαλήτορος Ἀλκινόοιο—and the Canis Catenarius of
Petronius Arbiter—“ad sinistram intrantibus non longè ab ostiarii
cellâ, canis ingens catenâ vinctus in pariete erat pictus, superque
quadratâ literâ scriptum, _CAVE CAVE CANEM_.”—Even Mercury himself was
sometimes there exhibited—upon the principle, I suppose, of _setting a
thief to catch a thief_.
[358] Aristotle alludes to Porter dogs in his Nicomachean Ethics, L.
+vii.+ c. +vi.+ introducing them in a very pertinent illustration of
the difference between incontinency of anger, and incontinency as to
pleasure: anger seems to listen to reason, though it does not hear it
distinctly, &c.—καθάπερ οἱ κύνες, πρὶν σκέψασθαι εἰ φίλος, ἂν μόνον
ψοφήσῃ, ὑλακτοῦσιν· οὕτως ὁ θυμὸς, διὰ θερμότητα κ. τ. λ.
[359]
[Sidenote: Valerii Maximi L. +ix.+ c. 13.]
On which the indignant historian observes with warmth, “quò tam latè
patens imperium? quò tantus liberorum numerus? quò denique tam arctâ
benevolentiâ constricta Romana amicitia, si ad hæc tuenda nihil canino
latratu ac morsu valentius duxit?”
[360]
[Sidenote: Minshæi Emendat. p. 451.]
The duke considers alauntz primarily derived from Spain, not natives
of Britain; “As men clepyn greihoundes of England of Scotland and of
Bretayn right so the alauntez and the houndes for the hawke cometh out
of Spayn.” Minsheu deduces Alani “à regione quadam Epyri, quæ Albania
dicitur, undè primùm advecti creduntur hi canes.” But they probably
were bull-dogs in the common acceptation of the term.
The reader will remember the Alauntes of Chaucer, on which Dryden has
bestowed _rejuvenescence_ under the type of greyhounds, attendants of
“the surly king of Thrace:”
[Sidenote: Palamon and Arcite. B. 3.]
Ten brace, and more, of greyhounds, snowy fair,
And tall as stags, ran loose, and cours’d around his chair;
A match for pards in flight, in grappling for the bear.
[361]
[Sidenote: Cuvier Regn. Animal.]
[Sidenote: Description of Britaine. B. +iii.+ c. 13.]
It has been observed by an eminent living naturalist, that the cerebral
capacity of the bull-dog is sensibly smaller than of any other race:
and it is doubtless to the decrease of the encephalon that we must
attribute his inferiority to all others, in every thing relating to
intelligence. He is scarcely capable of any education, and is fitted
for nothing but ferocious combat. In the ancient translation of Caius’s
libellus by Holinshed, this savage brute is sketched to the life,
as “an huge dogge stubborne, ougly, eagre, burthenous of body (and
therefore but of little swiftnesse,) terrible and feareful to behold,
and more fearse and fell then any Archadien curre.” Nor is our estimate
of his might in conflict weakened by Raphael’s statement that “alone
and wythout anye help at al, he pulled downe first an huge beare, then
a parde, and last of al a lyon, each after other, before the Frenche
King in one day.”
[362]
[Sidenote: Pegge in Archæolog. vs. +x.+ p. 156.]
Amongst the coins of Cunobelin is a representation of a dog, probably
of this native variety, tall enough, according to Pegge, and of
sufficient strength “to carry a lady.” And in Thoresby’s Museum is a
British coin “exhibiting a dog under a man on horseback.” (p. 338.)
[Sidenote: =Mayster of Game.= c. +xviii.+ fol. 69.]
The mastiff is at present principally used in this country as a
watch-dog; and such appears to have been his vocation of old. “His
office is for to kepe his maistre’s beestis,” says Duke Edmund, “and
his maistre’s hous. and it is a good nature of houndis for thei kepen
and defenden at her power al her maister goodes. thei byn of cherlich
nater and of foule shap &c.”—“ther byn many good for men that hunten
for profit of housold as for to gete fflesh. Also of maystifs and of
alauntis ther byn many good for the wilde boor;”—but “it is of no greet
maistrie ne of grete redynes the huntyng that thei do for here nature
ys not tendre nosed in harde nor in sandy nor in dusty grounde.” For
the etymology of the term _mastiff_, the reader is referred to Dr.
Caius, Minsheu, Skinner, and Holinshed—and for that of _ban-dog_,
a variety of the same, to Skinner in voce. The _Mandatarius_,
_Sarcinarius_, _Defensor_, &c. of Caius, the _custos curtis_,
_pastoralis_, _porcaritius_, _ursaritius_, _catenatus_, &c. of Spelman
and others, are all probably Canes Mastivi.
[363] The existence of these noxious beasts of prey, in the sylvan
fastnesses of our islands, is too well authenticated by ancient records
to be doubted.
[Sidenote: Book of St. Alban’s.]
Foure manere bestis of Venere there are:
The fyrste of theym is the harte: the seconde is the hare.
The boore is one of tho: the wulfe and not one mo.
[Sidenote: The Governour. B. +i.+ c. +xviii.+]
On referring to Blount’s ancient tenures, we find many estates held
_per serjantiam_, whereby the possessor was compelled to furnish these
dogs for the destruction of wolves. See A. T. p. 15. p. 52. p. 60. p.
94. “But Almighty God be thanked,” in the ejaculatory language of Sir
Thomas Elyot, “in this realme be no such cruel beastes at present to be
pursued!”
See Wase’s Illustrations, c. +vi.+ “of the Styles of Hunting different
from the English, both Antique and Forreigne.”
[Sidenote: Memoirs of the Celts or Gauls. Note, p. 161.]
Mr. Ritson, in a posthumous work on the Celts, has left it on record
that “the Britons, in the last decade of the eighteenth century, made
use of Spanish dogs in a war with the Maroon negroes; having no longer
any of their own fit for the purpose.”
[364]
[Sidenote: Hist. Natur. L. +viii.+ c. +xl.+]
In Pliny’s animated description of the Indian or Albanian dog’s
assault, we observe the crafty wiles or _fraudes_ of the Illyrian and
Acarnanian breeds. “Horrentibus quippe per totum corpus villis, ingenti
primùm latratu intonuit: mox inruit assultans, contraque belluam
exurgens hinc et illinc artifici dimicatione quà maximè opus esset,
infestans atque evitans, donec assiduâ rotatum vertigine afflixit.”
Indeed all the _bellicosi_ thus attack their prey—but generally in
silence. The Indian was latrant, it seems, the Acarnanian mute.
Athamania, called also Illyricum, bordered on Thessaly and Acarnania.
[365]
[Sidenote: Geography of Gratius.]
_Acyrus_, says Wase, is “suspicious of corruption;” which Gronovius
proposes to amend by reading _Epirus_, Vlitius substitutes _Taygetus_,
and Heinsius _Argivus_.
[366]
[Sidenote: Apollon. Rhod. L. +i.+ vs. 50.]
Pheræ was situate between Demetrias and Pharsalus in Thessaly, near the
lake Bœbe—ὑπὸ σκοπιὴν ὄρεος Χαλκωδονίοιο. I am not aware of the dogs
of these several places being mentioned by any other author. Pheræ was
probably celebrated for its breed of game; for, being one of the many
haunts of Dian, it bestowed on the Goddess the local name of Pheræa:
[Sidenote: Callimach. H. in Dian. vs. 259.]
Πότνια, μουνυχίη, λιμενοσκόπε, χαίρε, Φεραίη.
[367] This class appears to answer to the second of M. F. Cuvier,
having the head and jaws shorter than those proper to our third class
of _pedibus celeres_, but not so much truncated as in the _canes
bellicosi_. The parietal bones, in such types as are supposed to
resemble those of antiquity, do not approach each other above the
temporal fossæ, but widen so as to enlarge the cerebral cavity of the
forehead.
[368] Perhaps Xenophon’s τὰ δὲ γένη τῶν κυνῶν ἐστὶ δισσὰ may not
have so confined an application as here stated. The Καστόριαι and
ἀλωπεκίδες may comprehend all the Canes Venatici of the Athenian’s day
collectively—at least all such as were used by him in hare-hunting at
Scillus.
[369] With some of the descendants of the κυνοσουρίδες, the latrant
sagacious Lacouni of the modern Votizza, Mr. Hobhouse reports that he
enjoyed the sport of coursing with his Grecian host in the Morea. See
Journey through Albania, Letter +xvii.+
[370]
[Sidenote: Xenophon de Venat. c. +x.+]
A limehound—ἡ δὲ κύων ἐπὶ τὸ πολὺ ἀφίξεται τόπον ὑλώδη
ἰχνεύουσα——...—ἐπειδὰν δ’ ἀφίκηται ἐπὶ τὴν εὐνὴν, ὑλακτεῖ, κ. τ. λ.
[371]
[Sidenote: Illustrations of Shakspeare. Vol. +i.+ p. 66.]
A term borrowed, according to Mr. Douce, from the Spaniards, who call
the wild cat _gato-montes_.
[372] Hagnon Astylides—as the Cretans used ἀγνεῖν, according to
Hesychius, for ἄγειν, ὁ ἀγνῶν may stand for ὁ κυνηγός. See Wernsdorf,
Excursus +iii.+ ad Gratii v. 215. Poetæ Latini Minores, Tom. +i.+ p.
242.
[373]
[Sidenote: J. Caii de Canibus Brit. Libell.]
Caius’s love of the marvellous in natural history surpasses
(considering the age in which he lived) that of Ælian and Albertus
Magnus. Under the heads of Urcanus and Lacæna, this credulous
correspondent of the acute Conrad Gesner notes, seemingly in good
earnest, that the former is the offspring of the Canis Catenarius and
bear, the latter of the dog and fox, “quos, licèt inimicos, pruriens
tamen libido sæpè ita hic conjungit, ut alibi solet.” The truth,
however, of the latter maybe doubted, after the impossibility of the
former.
[374]
[Sidenote: Gratii Cyneg. vs. 259.]
We may suppose the far-famed hound of Sparta, the foxite harrier,
“vulpinâ specie,” not very unlike the prick-eared, or at least
semi-pendulous-eared lurcher of modern days, employed by a poaching
shepherd to guard his flock, and too often to catch at force, κατὰ
πόδας, his master’s hares, or drive them into the wily laqueus or snare:
[Sidenote: Theocriti Idyll. +i.+ vs. 110.]
ἐπεὶ καὶ μᾶλα νομεύει,
καὶ πτῶκας βάλλει, καὶ θηρία τ’ ἄλλα διώκει.
[Sidenote: Cowper’s Task. B. +v.+]
Shaggy, and lean, and shrewd, with pointed ears,
And tail cropp’d short, half lurcher and half cur;
he is too well known by his depredations in the hare-warren to need a
fuller delineation.
Janus Vlitius considers the Spartan a long-eared hound, and proposes
to read ὦτα μακρὰ instead of μικρὰ in Xenophon’s minute description of
the type of excellence in this breed: but Horace’s “aure sublatâ” would
rather favour the notion that the ear was small and _pricked up_ in
pursuit of game, as we see in lurchers, and such-like poaching tikes:
[Sidenote: Hor. Od. L. +v.+ Ode +vi.+]
Nam qualis aut Molossus, aut fulvus Lacon,
Amica vis pastoribus,
Agam per altas aure _sublatâ_ nives
Quæcunque præcedet fera.
on which Dacier observes, “plus les chiens sont courageux, plus ils
dressent les oreilles en courant;” a quality for which a prick-eared
sharp-scented lurching cur might be praised—which is characteristic of
the Molossus, but odious in the genuine well-bred greyhound, with which
the “veloces catuli” and “fulvus Lacon” of the contemporary poets of
Rome have been ignorantly identified by monkish annotators.
[375] This quality Aristotle justly attributes to the length of the
nostrils of the Spartan hound, affording a more extensive surface for
the distribution of the minute branches of the olfactory nerves—ὅσων οἱ
μυκτῆρες μακροὶ, οἷον τῶν Λακωνικῶν, ὀσφραντικά.
[376] To Darcius of Venusium we owe the following description of the
ardour of the Spartan pack;
[Sidenote: J. Darcii Venusini Canes.]
Inde suos etenim Lacedæmon Achaica laudat,
Assueti quoniam sylvis, cupidique ferarum
Præcipiti fervore ruunt, perque invia lustra,
Convallesque cavas, et sentibus horrida duris
Arva, et vulnificis dumeta rigentia spinis
Dente rotant prædas, indefessique sequuntur
Quod semel emissum est. Illos non obvius amnis
Vicinos dirimens sinuoso gurgite colles,
Sistit, nec rapidos lato tenet obice cursus.
Et licet assiduo frangantur anhela boatu
Ora, trahantque ægros afflictis viribus artus,
Assequier tamen est animus, &c.
[377]
[Sidenote: Solini Polyhistor. c. +xi.+]
Solinus and Pliny, while they admit the religious adoration of Diana
by the natives of Crete, deny to the soil many of the common beasts
of chase. “Ager Creticus,” says the former naturalist, “sylvestrium
caprarum copiosus est, cervo eget. Lupos, vulpes, aliaque quadrupedum
noxia nusquam educat.”
[378]
[Sidenote: Gratii Cyneg. vs. 231.]
This canine name is not found in any other Cynegeticon. From the
construction put on the passage by Wernsdorf, it appears that he would
derive the Metagon from a Spartan and Cretan cross: but how, let me
ask, could the huntsman breed a _mute_ inductor, whose essential
attribute was _closeness_, “ne voce lacesseret hostem,” from the union
of two such latrant races?—A litter, so bred in Actæon’s pack, was any
thing but mute, “Labros, et Agriodos, et _acutæ vocis_ Hylactor,” as
above cited. Wase’s interpretation of the passage is more correct—see
his version, vs. 211. where the lines of Gratius are differently
rendered than in the chapter on the geography of the poem, p. 38.
[379] Claudian bestows the title Molossian on the entire pack, to
designate, it may be, their ferocity:
[Sidenote: In Rufinum L. +ii.+]
Sic mons Aonius rubuit, cum Penthea ferrent
Mænades; aut subito mutatum Actæona cornu
Traderet insanis Latonia visa Molossis.
[380]
[Sidenote: Dryden. Palamon and Arcite. B. +ii.+]
The stag Actæon in the stream had spied
The naked huntress, and, for seeing, died:
His hounds, unknowing of his change, pursue
The chase, and their mistaken master slew!
[381] The loud _latrancy_ of the tribe escaped not the notice of the
bard of Avon, who has cleverly appropriated much of the borrowed shape
and κλαγγὴ of a modern pack (Sir Thomas Lucy’s, perhaps, or other
Warwickshire squire’s) to our classic breed of the olden time:
[Sidenote: Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act +iv.+]
I was with Hercules and Cadmus once,
When in a wood of Crete they bay’d the bear
With hounds of Sparta: never did I hear
Such gallant chiding; for besides the groves,
The skies, the fountains, every region near
Seem’d all one mutual cry: I never heard
So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.
With Angelio’s description of the Cretan hounds, the more striking
features of which are drawn from passages already cited, I close their
portraiture.
[Sidenote: P. A. Bargæi Cyneg. L. +v.+]
Est eadem facies, et eidem proxima formæ
Corpora: membrorum sed non æquantia molem
Dictæis, animus tamen, et constantia pugnax,
Quandoquidem serus litem si fortè diremit
Vesper, et obtentis umbrantur rura tenebris;
Nusquam abeunt, nusquam vestigia pressa relinquunt,
Verùm hærent vigiles, &c.
[382]
[Sidenote: Ovid. Metam. L. +viii.+ vs. 272.]
The dog, which sits at the foot of the noble statue of Meleager, is,
probably, a representation of the animal which assisted the hero of
Calydon in his attack of the wild boar—(“infestæ famulus, vindexque
Dianæ”)—that had laid waste the domain of his father Œneus. (See F.
Perrier, Tab. 51. and 52. ex Ædibus Pichiniis, and Montfaucon Antiq.
Expliq. Tom. I.) He is apparently a boar-hound, and perhaps of the type
of Etolia or Calydon—the names being indifferently applied to the same
dog, from Calydon, (the rocky Calydon of the Homeric catalogue, Iliad
+ii.+ 640.) the capital of the state, over which the sons of Œneus once
reigned.
[383] Such a sire was most likely to correct the “vanæ linguæ vitium”
of the Calydonian breed; and from such parentage may have been
deduced the Glympicus of the son of Astylus. No dam could cross more
appropriately with a Molossian sire, contributing, on her part, the
important qualities of speed, sagacity, and unwearying ardour of
pursuit; and receiving, from the male side, courage, strength, and
closeness of mouth. The cited lines of Gratius, carefully perused in
connexion with those which follow in the text, will, I think, warrant
the parentage assigned to the hound in question; and such a view will
materially assist the general understanding of a somewhat obscure part
of the Cynegeticon.
[384] Without such auxiliaries all the hunter’s toil will be fruitless,
says Bargæus:
[Sidenote: P. A. Bargæi Cyneg. L. +i.+]
Ni tecum canis acer eat, qui naribus auras
Ducat odoratas, et nusquam impressa ferarum
Insistat cupidè vestigia: nec tamen ullos
Latratus, vocesque hilari de pectore mittat,
Cum latebræ non longè absunt, fidique recessus.
[385] See the mode of _breaking-in_ the limier, _chien de traict_, in
J. Savary’s rare work, Venationis Cervinæ Leges, L. +ii.+ sub initio.
[386] The Ascrean Poet’s hunting-picture on the shield of Hercules is
rather a chase at speed, than trailing after leporine game;
[Sidenote: Hesiod. Scut. Hercul. vs. 302.]
τοὶ δ’ ὠκύποδας λαγὸς ᾕρευν
ἄνδρες θηρευταὶ, καὶ καρχαρόδοντε κύνε προ
ἱέμενοι μαπέειν, οἱ δ’ ἱέμενοι ὑπαλύξαι.
[387] “Umber is here,” says Wase, “the _Bracco_ of Italy; and as their
dog is timorous, so their bore is not very courageous. Whence the
poet,—Thuscus aper generosior Umbro.”
[388] A close-mouthed hound, probably, with much of the pugnacious
disposition of our first class, added to his sagacity. Many of the
limehound tribe, at least those used in trailing after fierce prey,
must have had a strong dash of the same daring spirit—not so, however,
the uncrossed Umbrian and Gelonian.
[389]
[Sidenote: Wase’s Illustrations, &c. c. +vi.+ p. 61.]
“The hunting used by the ancients was much like that way which is at
present taken with the Raindeare which is seldome hunted at force, or
with hounds, but onely drawne after with a blood-hound, and forestall’d
with nets and engines. So did they with all beasts; and therefore a
dog is never commended by them for opening before hee hath by signes
discover’d where the beast lyeth in his layre, as by their drawing
stiffe our harbourers are brought to give right judgment. Therefore I
doe not finde that they were curious in the musique of their hounds, or
in a composition of their kennell and pack, either for deepenesse or
lowdnesse, or sweetnesse of cry like to us,” &c.
[390] The Canis _ductor_, or lime-hound of the middle ages, the
ἐμβιβαστὴς and μηνυτὴς of ancient glossaries, “qui odorisequâ nare
spelæa ferarum, et diverticula deprehendit,” was strongly allied to,
if not identical with, the _Sleut-hound_ of Scotland, the blood-hound,
_lyme-dog_, or _limer_ (from the _lyam_ or leash with which he was
led) of authors, employed in the pursuit of animals of chase, and the
discovery of murders and ambuscades. See the Glossaries of Spelman and
Ducange, in voce.
[Sidenote: Etymolog. Ling. Anglic.]
[Sidenote: De Canibus Britannicis Libellus.]
[Sidenote: Venationis Cervinæ Leges L. +ii.+]
Skinner defines the _Limmer_ “Hybris, i. e. canis vilior ex cane sagace
venatico cum Molosso copulato prognatus,”—and such probably was the
parent stock of this much-famed dog. The _Lorarius_ of Caius must have
been a more nimble animal than the Sleut-hound—“propter velocitatem et
gravius feram urget, et citiùs capit.” The _Lymer_ is fully treated
of in De Langley’s curious manuscript intitled =Mayster of Game=, c.
+xx.+ et seqq. Much also will be found relative to him in the Book of
St. Alban’s, Fouilloux, Turberville, and Blome: and he is particularly
described by the Latin poet of Caen, under the title of “Canis
armillaris.”
The following portrait by the poet of Barga is worthy of exhibition:
[Sidenote: P. A. Bargæi Cyneg. L. +v.+]
Ille quidem multâ virtute insignis, et usu
Venandi, saltum si quando ingressus apertum est,
Evinctus loro dominum trahit. Atque ubi signa
Invenit, aut auras acer persentit odoras,
Pergit iter, rostrum et pressâ vix tollit ab herbâ,
Huc illuc volvens oculos, et singula solers
Scrutatur: donec subter virgulta latentem
Conspexit leporem, et constrata cubilia fronde.
Tum vero gressum caudâ blanditus, et ore
Accelerat, montemque omnem latratibus implet.
He is the “Prævius it loro catulus devinctus” of Vanière’s Prædium
Rusticum, L. +xvi.+ Great, however, as was his celebrity in the
sporting field of the classic and middle ages, and even till a century
and a half ago,—
[Sidenote: G. Douglas’s Palace of Honour.]
syrchand to and fra,
To hunt the harte, the bare, the da, the ra,—
the _Limier_, in a state of pure blood, is considered almost extinct.
[391]
[Sidenote: Minshæi Emend. in voce.]
_Hound_ is sometimes applied to _all_ dogs, as if Minshew’s and
Junius’s derivation of the term were correct—à κυνίδιον dim. à κύων:
but in England the term most commonly signifies a hunting-dog, to which
sense the A. S. _huntian_, _hent-an_, to pursue, to search after,
affords a more probable root.
[392]
[Sidenote: Hist. Nat. L. +i.+ 255. Gloss. Arch. p. 114.]
[Sidenote: Ejusd. p. 7. Wase’s illustrations.]
The etymology of the term _Petronius_ is not of easy solution. By
critics it has been fancifully derived from the firmness, strength, and
hardness of the feet of this variety of dog; in consequence of which
he was enabled to run over rough and rocky ground without injury—κύων
εὔπους. Gesner mentions a tributary stream of the Tiber called
Petronia, “quòd per petras fluat.” Spelman, in his Glossary, gives
_Petrunculus_ as a synonym of _Petronius_, citing the above passage of
Gratius; and under _Acceptor_, explains _Petrunculus_ in a marginal
note by “_a brachet_.” The Spanish use _Perro_, says Wase, as their
common appellation of a dog.
[393]
[Sidenote: Arrian. de Ven. c. +iii.+ in not.]
Schneider substitutes Ἑγουσίαι for Ἐγουσίαι, (_spiritu mutato_)—the
Latin term being Segusii, as ἓξ, _sex_. Σεγουσίαι, Blancard.
[394]
[Sidenote: The Countrey Farme, by G. Markham. c. +xxii.+]
“Greyhounds are onely for the coursing of all sorts of wilde beasts by
main swiftnesse of foot; they doe not any thing more than their eies
govern them unto, being led by a natural instinct or hatred which they
beare to all sorts of wilde beasts.”—“Hounds are those which by vertue
of their scents, smells, or noses, do find out all manner of wilde
beasts,” &c.—See the distinctions of the two races admirably drawn by
G. Markham, p. 673. of Surflet’s version of La Maison Rustique.
[395] It is my opinion that these _veloces_ were greyhounds,—which
having been exported from Gaul, their native soil, into Britain, were
thence again sent to Italy;—and therefore I have nothing to say about
them here. The passage is not of easy application—some commentators
interpreting it as having reference to one variety of hound, and some
to another:—
[Sidenote: Ovid. Metam. L. +iii.+ vs. 255.]
pars invenit utraque causas.
See some further remarks under the Vertragus of Class III.
[396] Of what country were the Canes Petronii indigenous?—Vlitius
claims them, without proof, for Belgium—denies all knowledge of them
to Italy, beyond mere report—unceremoniously disallows the pretensions
of Gaul—and, for reasons equally inadequate, those of Britain. But the
latter, in my opinion, has as well-founded a claim to the breed as
Belgium.
[397]
[Sidenote: Synopsis Methodica Animalium Quadrupedum.]
Under the _Canis venaticus sagax, ferarum indagator et sectator_, the
primary definition of Ray, we may place the modern sub-varieties; the
_Sanguinarius seu furum deprehensor_ of Ray, the _Leverarius_ of Caius,
and _Venaticus minor_ of Ray.
The _Sanguinarius_, or blood-hound, is the _Canis Scoticus, ane
Sleuth-hound_, of Gesner’s Appendix; briefly therein described from
Hector Boethius; and answering to the _Inductor_ of the Classical ages
more nearly than to any other ancient type. He is beautifully described
by Somerville, and faithfully by Caius, and Holinshed; nor is Tickell’s
sketch, in his fragment on hunting, unworthy of perusal.
The second sub-variety of the British hound of chase, the _Leverarius_,
harrier or fox-hound, (“sunt ex his,” says Caius, “qui duos, ut vulpem
atque leporem, variatis vicibus sequi student,”) is the _Canis Scoticus
sagax, vulgò dictus ane Rache_ of Gesner’s Appendix; “the racche the
whiche that men clepen the Rennyng hounde” of the =Mayster of Game=, c.
+xiiii.+ fo. 62.
Of the third sub-variety I shall presently speak under the Agassæus.
[Sidenote: Countrey Contentments, Booke +i.+ c. +i.+ Glossar, in voce.]
For further particulars the reader is referred to Gervase Markham’s
clear, accurate, and entertaining portraits of “the slow,” “the
middle-sized,” and “nimble hounds,” copied by this laborious compiler
from the earlier work of Duke Edmund of York, above cited. He may also
consult Ducange’s Canis _latrabilis_.
[398]
[Sidenote: Etymolog. Ling. Anglic.]
I am happy to refer to the Historian of Manchester, in corroboration of
this opinion. Skinner derives the name of the Talbot from the position
of his tail—“Canis caudâ reflexâ præditus, credo ab A. S. _Tægl_, nobis
_Tail_, cauda, et _Butan_ extrà, ultrà, foràs!”
[399]
[Sidenote: Xenophon De Venat. c. +vi.+]
Ancient sportsmen were equally aware with their modern descendants
of the necessity of keeping hounds, when once entered, steady to
their particular game. Plutarch (περὶ πολυπραγμοσύνης) alludes to the
attention they paid to this point of field discipline: οἱ κυνηγοὶ τοὺς
σκύλακας οὐκ ἐῶσιν ἐκτρέπεσθαι καὶ διώκειν πᾶσαν ὀδμὴν, ἀλλὰ τοῖς
ῥυτῆρσιν ἕλκουσι καὶ ἀνακρούουσι, καθαρὸν αὐτῶν καὶ ἄκρατον φυλάττοντες
τὸ αἰσθήριον ἐπὶ τὸ οἰκεῖον ἔργον. Xenophon, passionately enamoured
of the hare-chase, would not allow his harriers to turn aside, and
run riot, after foxes—διαφθορὰ γὰρ μεγίστη, καὶ ἐν τῷ δεόντι οὔ ποτε
πάρεισιν—it is fatal to their steadiness.
[400]
[Sidenote: Hierozoicon L. +iii.+ c. +xiii.+]
[Sidenote: Ovid. Met. L. +vii.+ 763.]
The difficulty of capturing the fox is indicated, according to Bochart,
by mythologists, in the fable of the Teumesian fox, the “altera pestis”
of Bœotian Thebes, which, in the song of Sir Arthur Golding,
[Sidenote: Golding’s Ovid’s Metam. Booke seventh.]
—wrought the bane of many a wight. The countrie folke did feed
Him with their cattle and themselves, untill (as was agreed)
That all the youthfull gentlemen that dwelled thereabout
Assembling, pitcht their corded toyles the champion fields throughout,
But net, ne toyle was none so hie that could his wightnesse stop,
He mounted over at his ease the highest of the top.
Then every man let slip their grewnds, but he them all oustript
And even as nimbly as a bird in daliance from them whipt, &c.
[401]
[Sidenote: =Mayster of Game.= c. +viii.+ fo. 43.]
“Men taken hem withe houndes,” says De Langley, “withe greihoundes,
withe haies and withe pursnettis, but he kitteth hem withe his teethe
as the mascles of the wolf dooth but nat so sone.”
[402] Lonicer’s _ratio vulpinandi_ in his ‘venatus et aucupium’ shows
in its accompanying most spirited engraving the fox-chase of three
centuries ago:
[Sidenote: Venatus et Aucupium per J. A. Lonicer.]
Callida versuto capitur stratagemate vulpes:
Novit enim dubias mille dolosa vias, &c.
For the merits of the fox-chase, and its “commoditie of exercise,”
see Sir Thomas Elyot’s ‘The Governour,’ Book +i.+ c. +xviii.+ and for
“the flying of this chase,” see a Short Treatise of Hunting, compyled
for the Delight of Noblemen and Gentlemen, by Sir Thomas Cockaine,
Knight—wherein he states “that the author hereof hath killed a foxe
distant from the covert where hee was found foureteene miles aloft the
ground with hounds,”—a run that would be deemed pretty good, I suppose,
even by the modern descendants of any Nimrod knight.
[403]
[Sidenote: Skinner, Etymolog. Anglican.]
Nor is the etymology of the English term Beagle of more easy solution.
Skinner derives it from the French _bugler_, mugire; and Menage
thinks, as the hounds were sent from Britain into Gaul, the name may
be of British origin. A second derivation is proposed by the former
philologist, founded on the diminutive stature of the dogs—_cani
piccoli_—Ital. Canes minores. May not a third possible source of the
name be found in the barbarous root _bigla_, vigilia, excubiæ, from
the Greek Βίγλα, à Latino vigilia—? The watchful tricks of some of our
terrier-beagles in a rabbit-warren, and Oppian’s graphic sketch of the
Ἀγασσεὺς, his wiles, &c. favour the notion.
[404]
[Sidenote: Venatio Novantiqua.]
Janus Vlitius, who, as Wase remarks, “owns England to have been the
school from which he took the dictates of his learned commentaries,”
relates the following anecdote of the tiny beagles of his day: “Sunt
enim agassæi illi adeò aliquandò exiles, et parvi, ut tres simul
leporem in cubili suo invadentes viderim invitos à prædâ suâ, cui
mordicùs inhærebant, nihilominùs eluctante relinqui. Et ipse binos
nutrivi adeò delicatos et tenellos, ut manu unâ totos circumambirem.
Sed hi commensales potiùs, et lusui magis, quàm ad venatum idonei
habentur.”
[405] A clever representation of a pack of small, long-eared, beagle
terriers at their wonted sport of rabbit-catching is given by J.
Stradanus, in his 38th plate, with an explanatory quatrain by K.
Dufflæus:
[Sidenote: Venationes Ferarum.]
Callidus effossis latitare cuniculus antris
Et generare solet. Verum persæpè catelli
Anglorum celeres fallunt pecus: ore prehendunt
Illusum: prædam venatorique ministrant.
[406]
[Sidenote: Cæsar de B. G. L. +i.+ 10.]
[Sidenote: See H. Stephan. Schediasm. +iv.+ 2.]
[Sidenote: Du Cange Glossar. in voce.]
Cæsar places the Segusiani in Gallia Celtica—“Hi sunt extra provinciam
trans Rhodanum primi.” Why, then, may we not suppose these hounds
correctly denominated by Arrian?—why may not their title be of local
origin, as _affirmed_ by him, rather than connected with their
sagacious qualities, as _supposed_ by Vlitius? who would view them
as Canes _Segusii_ vel _Secutii_—the latter term being applied to
the Canes Inductores—“quia hominem sequentem ducit Inductor,” with
which the Dutch annotator holds the Segusian to be identical. Spelman
enumerates the synonyms of _segutius_, as _seusis_, _sensius_, &c.
&c.—See Gloss. Arch. p. 114. and derives them à _sequendo_. Eccard more
correctly, I think, refers to the German _suchen_, or rather Saxon
_seuken_ investigare, whence _sucher_, _seuker_ investigator, and with
a Latin termination, _suchius_, _seucius_, _seusius_, _secusius_,
_segusius_, &c. The Spaniards, according to Wase, “have a blood-hound
which is called _un podenco_,” of small stature, with which they “prick
through the woods, or follow any chase.” Possibly Vlitius may have
had this hound in his eye when he interpreted the Canes Segusii as
Inductores.
[407]
[Sidenote: A preface to the Reader.]
There is no variety of sagacious dog, no style of hunting, to which
the prefatory encomiums of Wase are more strictly applicable, (however
quaint the language in which they are conveyed,) than the beagle tribe,
and their various chases. “It is admirable,” says this friend of Edmund
Waller, “to observe the naturall instinct of enmity and cunning,
whereby one beast being, as it were, confederate with man, by whom he
is maintained, serves him in his designes upon others. A curious mind
is exceedingly satisfy’d to see the game fly before him, and after that
hath withdrawn itselfe from his sight, to see the whole line where it
hath pass’d over with all the doublings and cross-works, which the
amazed beast hath made, recover’d again, and all that maze wrought out
by the intelligence which he holds with dogs: this is most pleasant,
and, as it were, a master-piece of natural magique,” &c. See also
Gervase Markham’s Countrey Contentments, B. +i.+ c. +iv.+
[408] The swift-footed dogs of our third class are included, we may
suppose, in M. F. Cuvier’s first division; having the head much
elongated, the parietal bones insensibly approaching each other, and
the condyles of the lower jaw placed in a horizontal line with the
upper cheek teeth.
[409]
[Sidenote: Thereutices Compendium, p. 743.]
Having had an opportunity of consulting Conrad Heresbach’s “Thereutice”
since the earlier part of this work was printed off, I may here
subjoin the learned epitomizer’s description of the greyhound
type:—“aliud genus Venaticorum, quos leporarios et emissarios vocant ac
vertagos;—hos quærimus, qui sint corpore procero, agili et expedito,
cruribus prioribus excelsioribus, capite longiusculo, neque carnoso
sed levi, cruribus brevibus atque erectis, oculis micantibus, pectore
toroso, cæteris expeditis membris, nisi quòd clunes latiusculos
habentes magis probantur, et caudâ longâ et levi, non hirsutâ. Vidimus
tamen è Norwegiâ et insulâ Thulæ adductos pernicitate non vulgari, qui
et caudâ et corpore toto villosi erant. Verùm hi non ad sagacitatem
sed ad velocitatem usurpantur. Ejus generis sunt Britannici, simul
et pernicitate et robore valentes, nisi quod corpore vasto, cervis
persequendis magis idonei.” The latter are doubtless Caledonian deer
greyhounds.
[410] This property, I allow, is impaired in certain modern individuals
of the Celtic family, hereafter mentioned, in whom the admixture of
nasal sagacity indicates impurity of blood, and degeneracy from the
parent stock. The lines of Gratius, descriptive of the greyhound’s
speed, and keenness of vision, have been already cited under the
Sagacious class: _Englished_ by Wase, (_totidem versibus_, the good
man’s only poetical merit) they run thus:
[Sidenote: A Poem of Hunting, &c. Englished by C. Wase, Gent. 1654.]
—chuse the grayhound py’d with black and white,
He runs more swift then thought or winged flight;
But courseth yet in view, not hunts in traile,
In which the quick Petronians never faile.
[411] Xenophon’s foxite has small ears, (unless with Vlitius we
read ὦτα μακρὰ,) and Arrian’s Celt large, down-falling ears, as if
broken—small and stiff ones being deemed a blemish in the greyhound.
But in other respects the ears of the Oppianic hound closely resemble
Arrian’s type, and also Nemesian’s—both confessedly Celtic. See Arrian
de Venat. c. v. 7. and Nemesian. Cyneg. vs. 112.
[412] For a beautiful image of the Celtic greyhound the reader is
referred to Père Montfaucon, L’Antiquité expliquée. Tom. +iii.+ Liv.
+iv.+ pl. 176. A medallion from the arch of Constantine exhibits
the Emperor Trajan with his huntsmen, accompanied by a type of this
dog, the most elegant which antiquity has transmitted to us. It
has been copied on stone for the preceding work by Messrs. Day and
Haghe; who have added to our embellishments Chrysis and Aura from
an ancient gem—Lælaps from Tempesta—and some spirited outlines from
the antique. But I have most pleasure in referring my readers to the
genuine Celtic exemplars—the veloces catuli—of the Townley collection
of the British Museum, faithfully lithographed by the same artists.
This beautiful group of greyhound puppies, in white marble, was found
by Mr. Gavin Hamilton in the year 1774, at Monte Cagnolo, part of
the villa of Antoninus Pius, near the ancient Lanuvium, beyond the
“lucus et ara Dianæ,” of the Via Appia. A second, nearly similar,
was discovered at the same place, and purchased by Visconti for
the Vatican Museum. Of an earlier date, however, than these most
interesting groupes, is the medallion selected as the frontispiece
of the present work. For although the triumphal arch, whence it was
originally copied, was not erected till about A. D. 300. that arch was
a piece of architectural patch-work, made up of the spoils of earlier
structures—its medallions and principal ornaments being derived from
one 200 years older, commemorative of Trajan’s victories over the
Dacians and Parthians,—amongst the former of whom, on the authority of
Arrian, deer-coursing was an established sport in the beginning of the
second century. About the latter period, or at the very close of the
first century, the medallion of the frontispiece was probably wrought;
whereas the Monte Cagnolo groupes, if executed expressly for the
decoration of Antoninus’s villa, were half a century later.
[Sidenote: Morell. T. +xv.+ 20. 21. &c.]
I know of few other authentic representations of the οὐέρτραγος
κύων,—unless the varying type of Dian’s canine attendant, on antique
gems, lamps, coins, relievos, &c. (the most beautiful of which is on
the Sicilian coins of Augustus Cæsar);
[Sidenote: Callimach. H. in Delum. vs. 228.]
— — κύων——
Ἀρτέμιδος, ἥτιςτε θοῆς ὅτε παύσεται ἄγρης,
ἵζει θηρήτειρα παρ’ ἴχνεσιν, οὔατα δ’ αὐτῆς
ὀρθὰ μάλ’, αἰὲν ἑτοῖμα θεῆς ὑποδέχθαι ὁμοκλήν...
[Sidenote: Museo Chiaramonti. T. +xvii.+ T. +xviii.+]
approach, in any instance, near enough to the courser’s hound to be
deemed a likeness—sometimes a beagle, sometimes a foxite, at other
times a greyhound, let the reader compare the outlines of Beger and La
Chausse, seemingly of the Celtic type, with the lop-eared harrier of
Visconti and Guattani, (_Diana ed Ecate combattono coi Giganti_,) and
the prick-eared lurcher of the same authors, (_Diana ed Apollo_,) and
then decide on the admissibility of the effigy in this place.
[Sidenote: Goltzii Numismata Græciæ. T. +xviii.+ f. 7. 8. 9. 10.]
To the medallion of Vaillant, of small dimensions, but of singular
beauty, exhibiting a brace of greyhounds in the act of seizing a
deer—copied here in outline as a vignette—may be added four impressions
of the same hound, in four different attitudes, most elegant and
characteristic, on coins or medals of the isle of Cythnus, one of the
Cyclades; and a stag pursued by a greyhound, in Recueil d’Antiquités,
Tom. +i.+ p. 219.
[413]
[Sidenote: History of Four-footed Beasts, compiled from Gesner and
others, p. 115.]
“The first greyhound,” says Topsel, (translating what Pollux had
related of the Molossian,) “was that of Cephalus, fashioned by Vulcan
in Monesian brass, and when he liked his proportion, he also quickened
him with a soul, and gave him to Jupiter for a gift, who gave him away
again to Europa, she also to Minos, Minos to Procris, and Procris to
Cephalus, &c.
[414]
[Sidenote: H. Stephani Schediasm. L. +iv.+ 1.]
The etymology of this harsh-sounding term is more readily elucidated by
tracing it in the Celtic, than in the Latin language; from the latter
of which Henry Stephens, on the authority of Turnebus, attempts a
fanciful derivation. “_Vertragus_—_Fertragus_—_Fertrahus_—ex eo nimirùm
quòd _feram trahat_ ad dominum, literâ _g_ locum literæ _h_ accipiente,
sicut _tragulam_ nomen à _trahendo_ habere grammatici affirmant.” He
does not, however, attach much faith to the derivation, though favoured
by Martial’s Epigram,
[Sidenote: Martial. Epig. L. +xiv.+ Ep. 200.]
Non sibi sed domino venatur Vertragus acer,
Illæsum leporem qui tibi dente feret;
[Sidenote: Adr. Turnebi Adversar. L. +xviii.+ c. +i.+]
and Turnebus himself, when proposing it, says “Scio ego jocularem
istam visum iri audaciam, et risus excitaturam.” Ridiculous enough
assuredly it is! The greyhound very rarely brings the hare to his
keeper, often devours it—besides, the bearing of his game to his master
is not peculiar to this dog, Oppian mentioning the same quality in the
Ἀγασσεύς—
[Sidenote: Cyneg. L. +i.+ vs. 524.]
καὶ γενύεσσιν ἑλὼν φόρτον μέγαν ἀντιάσειεν,
ὦκα φέροι μογέων τε, βαρυνόμενος τε πελάζοι.
Seeing that this derivation could not be upheld, young Gerard
Vossius endeavours to adapt his etymology to the little light which
Arrian himself throws upon the name, deriving it from _veertigh_ or
_veerdigh_, nimble. But we shall approach nearer to the true root by
referring to the passage of Gratius, in which the same dog is mentioned
under the title of _Vertraha_;
[Sidenote: Gratii Cyneg. vs. 199.]
At te leve si quà
Tangit opus, pavidosque juvat compellere dorcas,
Aut versuta sequi leporis vestigia parvi:
Petronios, scit fama, canes, volucresque Sicambros,
Et pictam maculâ _Vertraham_ delige falsâ.
Ocyor affectu mentis pinnâque cucurrit,
Sed premit inventas, non inventura latentes
Illa feras.
Spelman, citing this passage, reads _Veltrahum_, and gives many
synonyms of the same in the column of his Gloss. Arch. ‘de Canibus
Veterum’—but all more or less corrupt. The correct term would be
_Veltracha_, which has been changed to _Veltrachus_, _Vertrachus_,
_Vertragus_, in which last form it is found in our readings of
Arrian—Οὐέρτραγος. Du Cange suggests _Velt-jaghere_, campestris
Venator, ex _velt_ campus, and _jaghere_ venator, as another probable
source of _Veltragus_ or _Vertragus_. See his Glossary, in voce.
The reader need not be informed, that in the term Οὐέρτραγος Arrian
employs the Greek οὐ, as the nearest approach to the initial V—whether
using the digamma (the V of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, the F of Dr.
Marsh) as his prefixture, I leave to others to determine.
[415]
[Sidenote: Spelman Gloss. Arch.]
[Sidenote: Ancient Tenures. pp. 9 and 35.]
From the term _Veltris_ or _Veltrahus_ is derived the class of huntsmen
denominated _Veltrarii_ of the court of Charles the Great, “qui
_veltres_ custodiebant:” of which class, at a later period, were the
masters of the leash whom the lords of the manor of Setene, in Kent,
furnished as the condition of their tenure to Edward I. and II. to lead
three greyhounds when the king went into Gascony; “so long as a pair
of shoes of four-pence price should last”—“donec perusus fuit pari
solutarum pretii iiij d.” Neither Blount nor Strutt appear to have been
aware of the origin of the term _Veltrarius_.
[416]
[Sidenote: Prophesia Thomæ de Erseldoun.]
The Saxons used _racha_, and our oldest writers _rache_ and _brache_.
Thomas the Rhymer, the earliest of Scottish poets, has _raches_ in
the retinue of his elfin queen—“and _raches_ cowpled by her ran”—and
again in Sir Tristrem (Fytte 3rd.). “_Raches_ with hem thai lede.” See
Scott’s Glossary, in loco.
The old metrical charter, granted by the Confessor to Cholmer and
Dancing in Essex, reads—
Four greyhounds, and six _braches_
For hare, fox, and wild cattes.
And the words _rache_ and _brache_ are of frequent occurrence in the
=Mayster of Game=, the Book of St. Alban’s, and our early poets. See
Blount’s Ancient Tenures, pp. 2. 26. and 104.
[417]
[Sidenote: Book of St. Alban’s.]
[Sidenote: The Prologue. vs. 190.]
The term _greyhound_ has confounded English etymologists as much as
that of Vertragus has puzzled Latin commentators. It is variously
spelt by our old English writers: as _grehounde_ by Juliana Berners,
“a _grehounde_ sholde be heeded lyke a snake”—_greihounde_ by Chaucer,
“_greihoundes_ he hadde as swift as foul of flight.” Lord Berners
writes “_grayhounde_;” Junius, “_graihound_;” Gesner, “_grewhownd_;”
Harrington, “_grewnd_;” and the latter contraction is of frequent
occurrence in Golding’s translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses,
[Sidenote: Booke +i.+]
And even as when the greedy _grewnde_ doth course the sillie hare,
Amiddes the plaine and champion fielde without all covert bare.
[Sidenote: De Canibus Britannicis Libellus.]
[Sidenote: M. S. Cotton. Faustina, B. +iii.+ fol. 194.]
[Sidenote: Lyndsay’s Poems, by Chalmers.]
Dr. Caius’s derivation of the term, as spelt by R. Brunne, and the
Sopewell Prioress, is fanciful enough:—“à _gre_ quoque _grehound_ apud
nostros invenit nomen, quòd præcipui gradûs inter canes sit, et primæ
generositatis. _Gre_ enim apud nostros gradum denotat.” Whence also
_grebyche_ of the =Chronicon Vilodunense. §. 222=.[418] “Hym thought
that his _grebyche_ lay hym besyde.” The _gre-hound_ and _gre-hound
bitch_ being first in degree, or rank, among dogs; and no one under
the dignity of a gentleman being allowed by the forest laws of Canute
to keep such titled hounds. In support of the Doctor’s notion, it may
be stated that Gawin Douglas uses _gre_ for degree in his translation
of the Æneid, and so also the prophet of Ercildoun, and the author of
the metrical romance of Morte Arthur. In the complaynt of Bagsche by
Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount, a satirical poem of the ‘Lion King,’ on
court favouritism, we have a farther example peculiarly apposite;—for
the hounds, specified by name as “doggis of the hyest _gre_,” were
probably highland deer greyhounds. Whimsical therefore as Caius’s
tracing of the term may be, we cannot view it as utterly untenable.
[Sidenote: Etymolog. Anglican.]
[Sidenote: Dictionar. Island.]
[Sidenote: Etymolog. Anglican.]
[Sidenote: Brodæus in Oppian. p. 123.]
By Skinner, ‘greyhound’ is derived from the Anglo-Saxon _grighund_; and
he farther remarks “Minsevus dictum putat quasi Græcus canis, quia sc.
Græci omnium primi hoc genus canum ad venatum adhibebant, quod facilè
crediderim si authorem laudâsset.” I know of no authority for so bold
an assertion, except the doubtful tales of Hector Boethius, Fordun,
and Holinshed, and therefore discredit the fact. Dr. Hickes says:
“_Grey_ canis, extat in nostro _grey_hund. Comp. ex _grey_ et _hunta_,
venator.” q. d. a hunting dog. And Junius notes “quòd Islandis _grey_
est canis.” Skinner, on the contrary, hints that the dog may be a
badger-hunter, “à _grey_ taxus et _hund_ canis, q. d. taxi insectator.”
Thus Hickes and Junius bestow on him double dogship, and Skinner
degrades him to a badger-hound. Well may we exclaim with Brodæus, “Vide
quò procedat etymologiarum licentia!—ô joculares ineptias!”
[Sidenote: The Monarchie.]
[Sidenote: F. Junii Etymolog. Anglican.]
[Sidenote: Etymolog. Anglican.]
[Sidenote: Venatio Novantiqua.]
The terms _grewhound_, _grewnd_, _graihound_, _grayhound_, _Canis
Græcus_, and _Graius_, all indicate a supposed connexion with Greece.
_Grew_ is often used for _Greek_ by Douglas and Lyndsay—(see the
Bishop’s Preface to his Virgil, and the Knight’s apology for “The
Maternal Language.”) Still I cannot believe the genuine Celtic hound
to have been known to ancient Greece. I would, therefore, rather
seek the origin of the English name in the predominant colour of the
dog;—_Grey_, _gray_, _grai_, _grei_, cæsius, leucophæus, canus, A. S.
_græg_; which last, says Junius, might be referred “ad colorem Græcis
γεράνειον gruinum dictum; proptereà quod Threiciam gruem simulet vel
imitetur, ut loquitur Ovidius,” &c.—“Quid si deflecterem _gray_,” says
Skinner, “à nom. _Græcus_, q. d. _color Græcus_, ut color Bæticus ab
Hispaniâ Bæticâ, &c. Teut. _Graw_.”—The varieties of the grey colour,
of which Werner’s nomenclature of colours gives us between twenty and
thirty shades suited to our purpose, predominate in the greyhound
tribe, and more especially the bluish-grey and blackish-grey, (almost
peculiar to this race and the great Danish dog of Buffon,) and all the
dingy tints which under the epithet _dun_ are found to prevail. Indeed
it has been suggested that the line of Gratius, “Et pictam _maculâ_
Vertraham delige _falsâ_,” may allude to the doubtful tint of colour,
denominated _grey_, (compounded of two colours variously commixed in
the Vertraha).—“Videntur Angli canes hos grayhounds vocare,” says
Vlitius, “id est subfuscos, vel nigro et albo mixtos quod nos _graw_
dicimus.”
[418] A curious remnant of antiquity in the British Museum, lately
committed to the press, (for private distribution, to the extent of one
hundred copies,) by that liberal and enlightened promoter of classical
and British antiquarian research, both with his pen and purse, Sir
Richard Colt Hoare, Bart., aided in the editorial department by Mr.
William Henry Black;—to whom also the present writer is indebted for an
accurate transcript of the =Mayster of Game=, copied and collated in
the same national repository.
[419]
[Sidenote: Description of Irelande, p. 8.]
“The Greihounde of King Cranthlynth’s dayes,” says Holinshed, “was not
fetched so far as out of Grecia, but rather bred in Scotland.”
From Hector Boethius it is clear that the Canes Scotici (qu. Canes
Celtici) were superior to the native dogs of the isle: “Ut Picti suos
canes Scoticis, pulchritudine, velocitate, laboris patientià, simul
atque audaciâ longè inferiores animadvertissent: hujusmodi generis
canum cupidi, ut penès se essent, è quibus nascerentur, quosdam
utriusque sexûs à Scotis nobilibus dono accepêre: alios finito venatu,
rege abeunte in Atholiam, à custodibus clàm abstraxêre, et inter eos
venaticum quendam candore nivali, eximiâ pernicitate, formâ eleganti,
audentiâque suprà communem canum facultatem, quem Crathlintus habuit
in deliciis, insignem,” &c. See also Fordun. Scotichron. L. +ii.+ c.
+xlii.+ (Regnante Diocletiano).
[420]
[Sidenote: De bello Gallico L. +iv.+]
[Sidenote: Geogr. L. +ii.+]
[Sidenote: Taciti Agricola.]
Julius Cæsar says of Britain, “Maritima pars ab iis incolitur qui prædæ
ac belli inferendi causâ ex Belgis transierant.” Ptolemy and Tacitus
confirm the supposed connexion of the Britons and Gauls; “Proximi
Gallis et similes sunt,” says the latter, “seu durante originis vi;
seu procurrentibus in diversa terris, positio cœli corporibus habitum
dedit. In universum tamen æstimanti, Gallos vicinum solum occupâsse
credibile est.” And Juvenal tells us, in Hadrian’s reign, that British
lawyers learned Greek and Roman eloquence of their Gallic neighbours—
[Sidenote: Sat. +xv.+ vs. 111.]
Gallia causidicos docuit facunda Britannos.
[Sidenote: De Venatione C. +xxxiii.+]
[Sidenote: See Note 12. of the Translation, C. +xxxiii.+]
[Sidenote: Description of Britaine, c. 3.]
Indeed, from the coast of Kent to the extremity of Caithness and
Ulster, the memory of a Celtic origin was for centuries distinctly
preserved in the perpetual resemblance of language, religious rites,
and domestic customs and manners. As an example of similarity of habits
in the insular and continental Celtæ, it may be noted that Arrian
records the marked adoration paid by the latter to Diana Agrotera; and
Holinshed, on the authority of earlier historians, observes, “Amongst
other the Goddes also, whiche the Scottishmen had in most reverence,
Diana was chiefe, whom they accompted as their peculiar patronesse, for
that she was taken to be the Goddesse of hunting, wherein consisted
their chiefest exercise, pastime and delite.” Not being able to fix
with accuracy the date of their irruption into Britain in the dark ages
of our early annals, this laborious chronicler is inclined to consider
the Celtic Scoti “such as by obscure invasion have nestled in this
islande;” but subsequently, in his “Historie of Irelande,” he suggests
a date later than the birth of Christ for the inhabitancy of the Scoti
on British soil (circiter A. D. 300.), though previously in occupation
of Ireland and the Hebrides.
[421]
[Sidenote: Poetæ Latini Minores. Tom. +i.+ p. 107.]
Wernsdorf, who does not in general attempt to apply his poet’s
instructions to any particular variety of hound, admits the _Canis
tiro_, entered to the hare, vs. 186. seqq., to be of the _Vertragus_
type.
[422] It is worthy of notice that, whereas the earlier Greek and
Latin Cynegetica recommend heterogeneous commixture in breeding for
the chase—crossing the canine families of different countries with
each other, under the hope of improving the pure _indigenæ_—Nemesian
contends for parity of sort, and purity of blood, to supply the
greyhound kennel, (“huic parilem submitte parem,” &c.); as if aware,
with the modern courser, that the essential attributes of the Celtic
type would necessarily be impaired, if not annihilated, by the
admixture of alien blood. Arrian’s silence too, on the subject of
omnifarious copulation, indicates a conviction of its inapplicability
to breeding for the leash.
[423] There are some curious remarks on the colour of hunting-dogs “fit
for to course withall,” in chasing of the stag, in The Countrie Farme,
B. +vii.+ c. 22. p. 837. edit. 1600,—the reference to which is omitted
in my annotations on Arrian.
[424]
[Sidenote: Encyclopédie Méthodique: Les Chasses. p. 290.]
Under the title of _le lévrier d’attache_, the French Encyclopedia
unites the Irish and Scotch varieties. “C’est le plus robuste et le
plus courageux des lévriers; en Scythie on l’emploie à garder le
bétail, qui n’est jamais enfermé. On en trouve en Ecosse, en Irlande,
en Tartarie, et chez presque tous les peuples du Nord: il poursuit le
loup, le sanglier, quelquefois même le buffle et le taureau sauvage.”
The common English greyhound is _le lévrier de plaine_ of France. The
former sorts are the _Lyciscæ_ of Savary,
[Sidenote: Venatio Lupina.]
Enormesque, animis pedis et levitate _Lyciscæ_
Præstantes, apris certare lupisque paratæ, &c.
[425]
[Sidenote: Historia Animalium ex Boethio.]
[Sidenote: Spencer’s Beth Gélert, or The Grave of the Greyhound.]
Gesner has introduced into his Appendix a representation of the “Canis
Scoticus Venaticus, quem Scoti vocant _ane grewhownd_, id est canem
Græcum:” and calls it “genus venaticum cum celerrimum tum audacissimum:
nec modò in feras, sed in hostes etiam latronesque præsertim si dominum
ductoremve injuriâ affici cernat, aut in eos concitetur.” See “the
Complaynt of _Bagsche_, the Kingis auld hound,” by Lyndsay, for a
quaint description of some of the qualities of the highland breed. Poor
Cilhart, too, the luckless wolf-hound of the precipitate Llewellyn,
will furnish an early example of the mountain sort. Nor should the
Ossianic Maida—καλὸς μὲν δέμας ἐστὶν—by Landseer, be overlooked, as a
splendid type of the race on canvass; though not _quite_ Celtic in his
blood.
A breed of Sagaci-celeres is at present preserved in Scotland, between
the English greyhound and Leicestershire fox-hound: the first cross of
which is represented to be remarkably handsome, fleet, and courageous.
This race is employed for the deer-chase in the forest of Athol and
elsewhere.
[426]
[Sidenote: De Venatione c. +v.+]
[Sidenote: De Venatione c. +xxxii.+]
The hound described in the Linnean Society’s Transactions is stated to
have been only 61 inches in length—a size surpassed by an example of
the Canis _Graius_ of the purest blood and greatest speed, (“facilis
cui plurima palma,”) 62 inches long, now in my possession—ἔτι γάρ μοι
ἦν, as Arrian says of his much-loved Hormé, ὁπότε ταῦτα ἔγραφον. But
it is probable that the beautifully-majestic animal, which assisted in
extirpating the wolf from the sylvan fastnesses of our islands, was
heretofore of far greater size than the writer’s ἄῤῥην κύων τῇ ἀληθείᾳ
γενναῖος—of whom he might farther say in the words of Ovid,
[Sidenote: Ovid. Metam. L. +x.+ 562.]
non dicere posses
Laude pedum formæne bono præstantior esset.
[Sidenote: Raii Synopsis Animal.]
Indeed Mr. Ray’s definition of the Canis _Graius Hibernicus_ makes
him of the greatest size of the whole canine race; “Canis omnium quos
hactenùs vidimus _maximus_, Molossum ipsum magnitudine superans—quod ad
formam corporis et mores attinet, cani Græco vulgari per omnia similis.
Horum usus est ad lupos capiendos.”
If the reader be interested in the arcana of wolf-catching, he
will find illustrations, and anecdotes thereof, in Oppian. Cyneg.
+iv.+ vs. 212.—in the Venationes Ferarum of Strada and Galle (pl.
49.)—Lupos Venandi Ratio of J. A. Lonicer—La Chasse du Loup of Jean
de Clamorgan—=Mayster of Game=, c. +vii.+ fo. 40.—Turbervile’s Art of
Venerie, p. 208.—Venationis Lupinæ Leges of Savary, &c. The latter
author turns out his whole kennel and armoury for the annihilation of
this “fera bellua”—even the anathematized _lévrier_ is now admitted:
[Sidenote: Jac. Savary Venatio Lupina.]
Non hanc, quæ lepori, nec quæ indulgentia cervo
Debetur, meruêre lupi: fera bellua nullo
Non sternenda modo: non illam sexus et ætas,
Nullaque tempestas violento à funere servet.
Non hîc Spartani canis interdicitur usu;
Lina placent, catapulta juvat, venabula, cippus,
Decipulæ, foveæ, atque podostraba, pardalianches,
Et concurrentis vaga vociferatio plebis.
Derived from the Irish greyhound, and not very far removed from the
original stock, was the gazehound of past days:
[Sidenote: Tickell’s Miscellanies.]
Seest thou the gazehound, how with glance severe
From the close herd he marks the destined deer;
How every nerve the greyhound’s stretch displays,
The hare preventing in her airy maze, &c.
[Sidenote: De Canibus Brit. Libel.]
By Dr. Caius, he is supposed to be faithfully portrayed in the
following extract: “Quod visu lacessit, nare nihil agit, sed oculo:
oculo vulpem leporemque persequitur, oculo seligit medio de grege
feram, et eam non nisi bene saginatam et opimam: oculo insequitur:
oculo perditam requirit: oculo, si quando in gregem redeat, secernit,
cæteris relictis omnibus, secretamque cursu denuò fatigat ad mortem.
_Agasæum_ nostri abs re quod intento sit in feram oculo, vocant,” &c.
To this portrait I can assimilate no dog at present known in this
country, (though, it is probable, such might be produced between the
Irish greyhound and blood-hound,) nor do the classic ages afford any
counterpart to it.
Hor. Od. +i.+ L. +i.+ 27.
For Dacier’s explanation of the “catuli fideles” of Horace—“seu visa
est catulis cerva fidelibus”—as _des chiens qui suivent bien la bête,
qui ne prennent jamais le change_, so readily acceded to by the Delphin
annotator, as portraying the English _gazehound_, is far too fanciful
to establish a race of these “_chasseurs à vue_” in ancient Italy.
Horace merely gives sagacity and steadiness to deer-hounds, or possibly
the negative quality of not _opening_ in pursuit of their game.
[427] To this definition Ray subjoins, “nonnullis Scoticus,” as if he
considered the Scotch greyhound of the same type—that there was, in
short, only one variety—the English and Scotch being identical. The
additional words would of course include the supplementary hound of
Gesner’s Appendix, and probably were added with that intent.
Arrian’s work was unknown to the great German naturalist—not having
been discovered in the Vatican library, when he compiled his celebrated
Historia Animalium, nor indeed till a century later. That Ray, too, was
unacquainted with the Greek Manual, seems equally clear. Thence the
strong points of resemblance in the ancient and modern descriptions of
a dog, hypothetically the same, impart the more interest, and obtain
the more credence, from the impossibility of a collusive adaptation
of the one to the other, and from both portraits corresponding with
the images of the Celtic hound, which have come down to us on ancient
monuments, the Arch of Constantine, gems, numismata, &c. &c.
[428] See Arrian. de Venatione, c. +xviii.+ εὖγε ὦ Κιῤῥὰ, εὖγε ὦ
Βόννα, καλῶς γε ὦ Ὁρμή. These we may suppose to have been some of the
names of the favourite archetypes of the Celtic kennel; but of the
particular scene of their exertions we have no evidence to adduce. Born
at Nicomedia, and occupied for the most part with civil and military
engagements in the East, at a distance from Celtica, properly so
called, (within the boundaries of the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Rhine,
and the Ocean,) we know not when or where Arrian became acquainted
with the Vertragus. Was the hound existing in Asia Minor in the second
century, seeing that he is noticed at a later period by the Greek poet
of Cilicia, and the Platonic philosopher of Paphlagonia? The Celts
themselves are found there, as colonists, at an early date—even in
the very district of which Nicomedia was the metropolis. Stephanus of
Byzantium mentions the Tolistoboii—ἔθνος Γαλατῶν ἑσπερίων μετοικησάντων
ἐκ τῆς Κελτογαλατίας ἐς Βιθυνίαν. (See also Strabo Geogr. L. +iv.+)
And other colonies are recorded by Strabo among the Thracians and
Illyrians, Κελτοὺς τοὺς ἀναμεμιγμένους τοῖς τε Θρᾳξὶ καὶ τοῖς
Ἰλλυριοῖς—the descendants of whom are perhaps the deer-coursers of
Arrian’s 23rd chapter, whom I have there called Celto-Scythians: note
4. sub fine.
[429]
[Sidenote: Gratii Cyneg. vs. 204.]
[Sidenote: De Venatione c. +xxiii.+]
Although it is clear, almost to demonstration, that the greyhound was
utterly unknown to ancient Greece in the days of the elder Xenophon, I
readily allow that Greece may have been Arrian’s coursing-field, with
the hound of Celtica, at a later period—an opinion supported by Janus
Vlitius;—for into the south of Europe the dog had been introduced as a
prodigy of speed—“ocyor affectu mentis pinnâque”—probably direct from
the country of which he was indigenous, viz. Transalpine Gaul, τῆς
Κελτικῆς Γαλατίας of Stephanus, (the Gallia Celtica of my annotations,
without reference to Cæsar’s more limited appropriation of the term
Celtica,) about the commencement of the Christian æra.
[430] Τὰς κύνας τὰς γενναίας,—possibly the coarser and fiercer
varieties of the Celtic hound—for Arrian seems to distinguish these
noble-spirited dogs from the κύνα ἀγαθὴν, who, he says, may be
destroyed by a stag.
[431] The Celtæ with their colonies overran almost all Europe. We trace
them from the pillars of Hercules to the extreme wilds of Scythia; the
colonists of the latter territory alone being, correctly speaking,
Celto-Scythæ;—but in consequence of the ignorance of the ancient Greek
geographers as to the exact limits of either Celtica or Scythia,
(as already remarked in my annotations on the second chapter of the
Cynegeticus,) the term Celto-Scythians has been indefinitely applied to
all the inhabitants of mid-Europe, from Celtica to Scythia.
[432]
[Sidenote: Arrian. de Venat. c. +i.+]
It was Xenophon’s want of acquaintance with these African barbs, along
with the Scythian galloways, and Celtic greyhounds, which led to the
omission of them all, in his Cynegeticus: and to the lacunæ, thereby
occasioned, in the older hunting-treatise, is to be attributed the
supplementary one, written by the younger Athenian. But it is quite
problematical whether hounds were employed at all in the Celto-Scythian
and Libyan chases—indeed, it is my opinion, they were not:—for, though
it be true, that Arrian recommends picked dogs, of high courage, for
the stag-course, at the commencement of chapter 23, we hear nothing of
hounds in the stag-chase, immediately following, on the πεδία εὐήλατα
of Mœsia, Dacia, Scythia, &c.; where long-winded, and scrubby nags
supply their place. And again, in the onager-chase of the Nomadic
tribes of Libya, barbs alone are the pursuers, with boys upon their
naked backs, continuing at full speed till the game be run down. So
that οὕτω τοι θηρῶσιν, ὅσοις κύνες τε ἀγαθαὶ καὶ ἵπποι, κ. τ. λ.
with which the author commences the period immediately following the
description of the vanquished onager, must in part have a more remote
reference than to the hunters spoken of in the same and preceding
chapters—ὅσοις κύνες τε ἀγαθαὶ referring to the Celts of Western
Europe, perhaps, and ἵπποι to the equestrians just before mentioned—the
former class of sportsmen using swift-footed hounds, the latter horses
alone. This interpretation harmonizes with Oppian’s description of
the horses and hunters of Libya and Mauritania, and their chases, as
already cited c. +xxiv.+ note 8.
[Sidenote: Oppian. Cyneg. L. +iv.+ 51.]
τοὔνεκεν ἱππελάται κείνων ἐπιβήτορες ἵππων
ἠδὲ κύνας λείπουσι φίλους, πίσυνοί τ’ ἐλόωσιν
ἵπποις, ἠελίου τε βολῇ, καὶ νόσφιν ἀρωγῶν.
[433] The Cynegeticus is contained in the third volume of this uncommon
edition; which the writer regrets not to have seen till his translation
was printed off. Its principal attraction is the novel annexation of
some Greek Scholia by the editor, ingenious and explanatory. Those of
the Cynegeticus, in a few instances, give a different interpretation
of the text to what is given by the translator; but these are not very
important.
Transcriber’s Notes:
• Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
• Text enclosed by pluses is in small caps (+small caps+).
• Text enclosed by equals is in Antiqua (=Antiqua=).
• Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.
• Errata on page 314 have been applied.
• A near copy of the "greyhound puppies" statue on page 66 (actually
Italian Greyhounds) from the same villa is in the Houston Museum
of Fine Arts.