Part 30

premit inventas, non inventura latentes Illa feras.

and therefore the Belgian—Canis occultos agitat cum Belgicus apros—must be banished from hence to the sagacious class: amongst the inductores of which division, I have already placed him as a lime-hound.

The best description of the type of the present class will be found in the copious Manual of Arrian, c. +iv.+ +v.+ and +vi.+—introduced by the memorable summary at the conclusion of c. +iii.+—τὴν δὲ ἰδέαν, καλόν τι χρῆμά εἰσι, κατά τε τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς αἱ γενναιόταται αὐτῶν καὶ κατὰ τὸ σῶμα ἅπαν καὶ τὴν τρίχα καὶ τὴν χρόαν· οὕτω ταῖς τε ποικίλαις ἐπανθεῖ τὸ ποικίλον, καὶ ὅσαις ἁπλῆ ἡ χρόα ἐστὶν ἀποστίλβει καὶ αὕτη, καί ἐστιν ἥδιστον θέαμα ἀνδρὶ θηρευτικῷ. And the following of Nemesian, who may be designated the poet of the pedibus celeres, as Gratius of the bellicosi, is correct as far as it goes;

Elige tunc cursu facilem, facilemque recursu, Non humili de gente canem. Sit cruribus altis, Sit rigidis, multamque gerat sub pectore lato Costarum sub fine decenter prona carinam, Quæ sensim rursùs siccâ se colligat alvo, Renibus ampla satis vadis, diductaque coxas, Cuique nimis molles fluitent in cursibus aures.

Nor must I omit the beautiful and minutely faithful portrait of the Greek poet of Anazarbus, though aware that it has been appropriated to a variety of the nare sagaces, and that Rittershusius does not allude to any supposed resemblance to the Celtic dog in his commentary on Oppian. Bearing in mind, however, that this erudite scholar had only the writings of Xenophon and Pollux, and the scanty lines of the Faliscian and African poets, to aid his attempt to give name and place to a doubtful animal;—had no authorities to consult, particularly dedicated to the pedibus celeres in opposition to the nare sagaces, to whose cause, and that of the bellicosi, the Greek Cynegetica were exclusively, and the Latin principally confined, (for the treatise of Arrian was at that period undiscovered in the Vatican,)—and therefore could not assimilate the Oppianic hound to the Celtic type;—I am not at all surprised that he has left this resemblance unnoticed. Subsequent commentators following in his footsteps, the Celtic dog has been as entirely disregarded on Oppian’s page, as if he had been never admitted on his muster-roll. The courser, I am confident, will recognize many of the features, as well as the wonted quarry, of his favourite hound, in the following extract;—which, if it cannot be exclusively appropriated to the Vertragus of Celtica, will assuredly admit only the swiftest of the sagacious class to a participation of its type:

μηκεδανὸν κρατερὸν δέμας, ἄρκιον ἠδὲ κάρηνον, κοῦφον ἐΰγληνον, κυαναὶ στίλβοιεν ὀπωπαί· κάρχαρον, ἐκτάδιον τελέθοι στόμα, βαιὰ δ’ ὕπερθεν οὔατα λεπταλέοισι περιστέλλοινθ’ ὑμένεσσι· δειρὴ μηκεδανὴ, καὶ στήθεα νέρθε κραταιὰ, εὐρέα· τὼ πρόσθεν δέ τ’ ὀλιζοτέρω πόδε ἔστων, ὀρθοτενεῖς κώλων ταναοὶ δολιχήρεες ἱστοὶ, εὐρέες ὠμοπλάται, πλευρῶν ἐπικάρσια ταρσὰ, ὀσφύες εὔσαρκοι, μὴ πίονες· αὐτὰρ ὄπισθε στριφνή τ’ ἐκτάδιός τε πέλοι δολιχόσκιος οὐρή. τοῖοι μὲν ταναοῖσιν ἐφοπλίζοιντο δρόμοισι δόρκοις, ἠδ’ ἐλάφοισιν, ἀελλόποδί τε λαγωῷ.

The advocate of the Celtic hound may allege, in support of his interpretation, that such ancient dogs as ran on scent were more or less long-eared,—being so represented on the monuments of antiquity;—and may ask how the small ears of Oppian’s dog, if interpreted of the sagacious class, are to be reconciled with the representations of Tempesta, Montfaucon, and others, and the down-hanging ears of modern Canes Venatici of the keen-nosed class? Again—as the Cilician was a perfect adept at versifying with the materials furnished by his predecessors, and certainly made the best use of their labours, is it not improbable that he should have altogether omitted the Celtic greyhound, so faithfully portrayed by the younger Xenophon, (with whose description that of the poet in no essential point differs,) and have mentioned two varieties of sagaces and one of bellicosi, to the entire neglect of the Vertragus type?

The deficiencies, if any, of his classical predecessors have been judiciously and tastefully supplied by the elaborate pen of Bargæus:

Sin autem tete oblectant, qui præmia cursu Certa petunt, celerique fugâ lata æquora verrunt: Elige quos vultus tristes, demissaque cervix Ornat, et argutum supra stant lumina rostrum Nigra quidem, sed quæ multo splendore coruscant. Ollis os ingens ad tempora penè dehiscit, Lataque frons tenues consurgere suspicit aures. Ac veluti coluber frigus perpessus in altis Terrarum latebris hyemes effugit aquosas, Moxque adeò sub vere novo jam sole calente Exiit, et multo se suscitat improbus æstu, Ac si fortè aliquem propiùs persensit euntem, Explicat immensos orbes, atque arduus effert Cervicem, et rigido summum capite aëra findit. Vergat humi propior stomachus, latèque patescat Pectus: et haud longis insistant cruribus armi Sublimes: tum prona suis extantia costis Et latera, et lumbis quà jungitur alvus obesis, Pressa animis calidum ostendant, et viribus acrem. Præcipuè clunes inter si stricta supremos Ilia demittant caudam, quæ currat ad imum Tenuis, ubi extremâ vix tandem in parte residat: Et parvum sese sinuans deflectat in orbem. At verò tereti pronat vestigia plantâ, Quæ spatiis digitos nusquam discludat apertis, Et multùm solidos paulatim curvet in ungues. Lælapis haud aliam formam mirata vetustas Esse refert, &c.

Let the κύων Κελτικὸς of Arrian be the classic prototype of the modern greyhound—the Canis Gallicus of Ovid—whose style of coursing is sketched to the life in the well-known, and often-cited simile;

Ut canis in vacuo leporem cum Gallicus arvo Vidit; et hic prædam pedibus petit, ille salutem: Alter inhæsuro similis, jam jamque tenere Sperat, et extento stringit vestigia rostro; Alter in ambiguo est, an sit deprensus, et ipsis Morsibus eripitur; tangentiaque ora relinquit.

As when th’ impatient greyhound, slipp’d from far, Bounds o’er the glebe to course the fearful hare, She in her speed does all her safety lay, And be with double speed pursues the prey; O’erruns her at the sitting turn, and licks His chaps in vain, and blows upon the flix: She ’scapes, and for the neighbouring covert strives, And gaining shelter, doubts if yet she lives.

And again, in the fable of Lælaps, the far-famed “grewnd” of Bœotia;

Tollor eo capioque novi spectacula cursûs: Quà modò deprendi, modò se subducere ab ipso Vulnere visa fera est: nec limite callida recto, In spatiumque fugit; sed decipit ora sequentis, Et redit in gyrum, ne sit suus impetus hosti. Imminet hic, sequiturque parem: similisque tenenti Non tenet, et vacuos exercet in aëra morsus.

I gat me to the knap Of this same hill, and there beheld of this strange course the hap, In which the beaste seemes one while caught, and ere a man would thinke, Doth quickely give the grewnd the slip, and from his biting shrinke, And like a wilie foxe he runs not forth directly out, Nor makes a winlas over all the champion fields about, But doubling and indenting still avoydes his enmies lips, And turning short, as swift about as spinning wheele he wips, To disappoint the snatch. The grewnd pursuing at a inch Doth cote him, never loosing ground; but likely still to pinch, Is at the sudden shifted off: continually he snatches In vaine: for nothing in his mouth save onely aire he catches.

Nor will the reader of modern Cynegetica forget the vivid sketch of Pterelas’s course by the Latin poet of Venusium:

Ocyùs insequitur Pterelas, cursuque citato Intervalla facit lati decrescere campi. Jam propior propiorque micat, jam captat hianti Summa pedum rostro, jam terga fugacia stringit. Ille pavet, flexoque obliquat tramite cursus, Et dubiâ trepidans formidine, jamque teneri Se putat, et rursùm tangentis ab ore recedit, Fataque momento sibi prorogat, æmula donec Rostra levis mergat miserando in corpore victor, Fulmineus victor, gemino cui tramite lumbos Spina subit graciles, &c.

The many portraits of these classical and semi-classical Cynegetica will be fitly closed with the following elegiac verses on a Canis Venatrix, whose characteristic attributes, pathetically written on a monumental stone by an unknown hand, but at once applied by us to the Celtic type, exemplify in the entombed a few of the anecdotes of Arrian’s Hormé:

Epitaphium Canis Venatricis.

Gallia me genuit, nomen mihi divitis undæ Concha dedit, formæ nominis aptus honos. Docta per incertas audax discurrere silvas, Collibus hirsutas atque agitare feras. Non gravibus vinclis unquam consueta teneri, Verbera nec niveo corpore sæva pati. Molli namque sinu domini dominæque jacebam, Et noram in strato lassa cubare toro. Et plus, quam licuit muto, canis ore loquebar, Nulli latratus pertimuere meos. Et jam fata subî, partu jactata sinistro, Quam nunc sub parvo marmore terra teget.

The early history of the greyhound is confounded with the Epirote, as if they had a common lineage—a mistake which has arisen from their being considered equally of Grecian origin—whereas the greyhound has no connexion with ancient Greece. Fable, however, assigns them a common descent from the Lælaps of Bœotia,—from whom also sprung other dogs of classic fame. The history of this celebrated hound, and the lineage and geographical distribution of his descendants, are particularized in the Cynegeticon of Bargæus:

Illum autem specie, præstantem animisque superbum Cynthia dilectæ dederat pro munere Nymphæ: Ipsaque mox juveni Æolidæ: genialia postquam Fulcra tori, et dulceis iterùm conjunxit amores, Jucundumque sinu fovit complexa maritum. Cujus ope innumeras sylvis prædatus, et agris Ille feras, ne tanta olim sublata periret Aut morte, aut sterili mox accedente senectâ, Et caderet simul extincto cum Lælape virtus: Subjecitque canem, sobolemque è matre recepit Optatam, Cretæque ultro concessit habendam. Inde autem vobis auctâ jam prole nepotes Allatos Graiæ primùm accepistis Amyclæ, Tempore quo gemini fidissima pectora fratres Nunc lepores canibus, cursu nunc dorcadas acreis, Et nunc Tænario cervas in littore agebant; Æripedes cervas, quibus haud velocior unquam Evolat Æoliis aquilo dimissus ab antris. Nec fuit ipsa diu tam magni muneris expers Epirus. Miscere genus monstravit: at ollis Ingentes animi, solersque industria crevit.

Arrian, from whose Manual of Coursing I purposely abstain to quote at length, because the reader can refer to my translation with little trouble, calls the greyhound by the barbarous title of οὐέρτραγος κύων, expressly stating that he is so denominated in the Celtic tongue, not from any particular people, like the Cretan, Carian, and Spartan hounds, but from his quality of speed, as some of the Cretans are distinguished by certain peculiarities of character. Here, however, our author’s ignorance of the Celtic language has led him into an error. Being unable, probably, to explain a term which had reached him in a corrupt form, he falsely derived it from the dog’s most characteristic property, ἀπὸ τῆς ὠκύτητος: whereas in truth it is compounded of Velt, a plain or open country, the “arvum vacuum” of Ovid, and racha, a hound of chase; and consequently signifies a champaign-dog, un lévrier de plaine, a hound adapted for coursing over an open country.

The Vertagus, or Tumbler, (“quòd se, dum prædatur, vertat,” &c.) I scarce need observe, has no affinity whatever with the οὐέρτραγος κύων of Arrian. By Dr. Caius, in his Libellus de Canibus Britannicis, he is fully described; nor are his tricks forgotten by the Latin poet of Caen;

Seque volutantes, ludisque cuniculum amicis Fallentes, prædæ colludentesque futuræ, Informat catulos Angli solertia nanos.

The files of classical antiquity afford no counterpart to the British Tumbler, unless it be in the Vertagus of Martial—a dog already allotted to the Celtic family, as, in some copies of the epigrammatist, written Vertragus.

It remains for me to mention the distinctions which have been made by naturalists in the greyhound type of our own islands, and to endeavour to trace its connexion with Gallia Celtica. The modern sub-varieties of our systematic writers on natural history are named from the countries in which the respective sorts most abound, English, Scotch, and Irish greyhounds. Spelman, whose authority is entitled to weight, in his remarks “De Canibus Veterum,” speaking of the “Leporarius levipes, qui ex visu prædam appetit arripitque, a greyhound, Ovidio Canis Gallicus,” subjoins, “sed propriè magìs Britannicus;” as if he deemed him of British origin, a native of our isle, like the inhabitants of the interior mentioned by Cæsar, “quos natos in insulâ ipsâ, memoriâ proditum dicunt;”—but he cites no testimony in support of his opinion. I do not believe either of the three sub-varieties of the dog in question indigenous of Great Britain; but rather that all our insular sorts originally sprang from the Celtic Vertragus:—the probability of which is supported by the history of the distribution of the Celts themselves, and the name under which the dogs were sent by Flavian to his brother Symmachus at Rome. The Scots, a Celtic tribe, previously inhabiting some part of Western Europe, emigrated into Ireland during the third century, and gave to that, isle, pro tempore, the name of Scotland. Thence they spread over the Western islands, and took possession of the neighbouring district of Argyle, the land of the Gael or Gaul—giving eventually their name to the Northern part of Britain generally. May we not suppose the Irish and Scotch greyhounds to have been primevally derived from the same Celtic stock, accompanying these emigrants of Celtic Europe to Ireland, and thence to Scotland; in one or other of which territories they received the name of Canes Scotici, from the Scotish emigrants of Celtica, who accompanied them? and may not the English greyhound, improved in speed by careful management and judicious breeding, as his master increased in civilization and became more reclaimed, be derived, through such intermediate links, from the same parent source? The coarser varieties of the North, and of the sister Isle, are rarely seen in South Britain; and though at first closely connected with the Celt, and amongst his earliest descendants, are now considered farther removed from the genuine type of Celtica, the οὐέρτραγος κύων of the Greek manual, in consequence of commixture with the canes bellicosi and sagaces.

The strongest evidence we possess of the greyhound’s existence in Britain, in the reigns of Carus, his sons, and Diocletian, is afforded by the Cynegeticon of the African poet. For although I deny that this hound can be entitled to the local epithet Britannicus, bestowed on him by Spelman, to the superseding his usual titles, I readily grant, at the same time, that the exported veloces of Britain, of the Cynegeticon alluded to, were greyhounds. Nemesian must be considered almost entirely the poet of the pedibus celeres;—at least, in that portion of his hunting-poem which has survived the ravages of time. But the usual terms by which the greyhound is designated in Ovid, Gratius, Martial, and Arrian, are no where found in the poet of Carthage; in place of which invariably occur the terms catuli veloces. That by these terms the latter author intends hounds of the Celtic type, I have, on a careful re-perusal of his work, not the least doubt; though, when writing the note to the Preface, p. 11, I was inclined to view the veloces, particularly specified by Nemesian as of British export, as nimble harriers, rather than genuine greyhounds; and did not in consequence adduce the passage alluded to, when there endeavouring to fix the period of the latter’s introduction into Britain. Indeed, J. Vlitius, himself sceptical at first as to the nature of these swift-footed hounds, (see his remarks on Nemesian vs. 124.,) comes round to my conclusion in the progress of his annotations, (see his notes on vs. 233.). Nearly the whole of Nemesian’s instructions have reference to canes cursores, beginning with their exportation from our own island—where, doubtless, they had been previously imported from Gaul—