Part 73

—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.

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.

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.

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);

— — κύων—— Ἀρτέμιδος, ἥτιςτε θοῆς ὅτε παύσεται ἄγρης, ἵζει θηρήτειρα παρ’ ἴχνεσιν, οὔατα δ’ αὐτῆς ὀρθὰ μάλ’, αἰὲν ἑτοῖμα θεῆς ὑποδέχθαι ὁμοκλήν...

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.

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.

“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.

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,

Non sibi sed domino venatur Vertragus acer, Illæsum leporem qui tibi dente feret;

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—

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;

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.

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.

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.

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,

And even as when the greedy grewnde doth course the sillie hare, Amiddes the plaine and champion fielde without all covert bare.

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=. “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.

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 greyhund. 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!”

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.”

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.

“The Greihounde of King Cranthlynth’s dayes,” says Holinshed, “was not fetched so far as out of Grecia, but rather bred in Scotland.”