[Sidenote: Arriani de Venatione]
[Sidenote: c. +ix.+]
[Sidenote: c. +x.+]
[Sidenote: c. +xv.+]
Very few are the improvements, either in the discipline of the courser’s kennel, or his practice in the field, transmitted to us by these collective cynegetica; and modern ingenuity has added little to our knowledge in any department of coursing, as the reader of the Nicomedian’s Manual will readily acknowledge. His remarks on the physical indications of excellence in greyhounds, and of speed and good blood,—derived from external shape and character generally,—on the unimportance of colour,—on the indications afforded by temper, tractability in the field, mode of feeding, &c. are perfect as far as they go. Nor can we improve on his kennel management, in feeding, bedding, (εὐνὴ μαλθακὴ καὶ ἀλεεινὴ), rubbing down, (τρίψις τοῦ σώματος παντὸς,) exercising, alternated with confinement, &c. &c. As to slipping-law, and the number of hounds to be slipped at once, his injunctions μήτε ἐγγύθεν ἐπιλύειν τῷ λαγῷ, μήτε πλείους δυοῖν, are strictly complied with at present by all fair sportsmen.
The Celts, it appears, had four different ways of coursing, all of which are practised by modern amateurs, according to their several tastes, and the nature of the countries in which they follow their sport.
[Sidenote: c. +xix.+]
The superior class of Celtic gentlemen, ὅσοι μὲν πλουτοῦσιν αὐτῶν καὶ τρυφῶσιν, employed persons to look out for hares in their forms, early in the morning, and to inform them by a messenger what success they had met with, before they left home themselves.
[Sidenote: c. +xx.+]
[Sidenote: c. +xxi.+]
A second class, probably less opulent, and not able to afford the expense of hare-finders, mustered all their brother-amateurs, and beat the ground in regular array, abreast of each other. Both these parties were mounted on horseback; but a third class sallied forth on foot, and these, Arrian says, were really workmen at the sport, αὐτουργοὶ κυνηγεσίων: if any person accompanied the latter on horseback, he was ordered to keep up with the greyhounds. A fourth mode of coursing, sometimes adopted by them, was that of first loosing dogs of scent to find, and start the game, and then slipping the greyhounds, as soon as it came within sight.
Upon all of these different practices the father of the leash has entered most fully in his classical Manual: and if to these points we add his sensible remarks on the entering of puppies, on breeding, management after whelping, feeding and naming of young dogs, comparison of sexes, &c.; his merit will be allowed to be commensurate with his antiquity, and his enchiridion not only the earliest in the annals of the leash, but altogether the most abundant in valuable information.
[Sidenote: Countrey Contentments, B. +i.+ c. +i.+]
It is foreign to my purpose and inclination to enter into a prolix defence of the courser’s pursuit, against the objections of its adversaries in the field or closet. “I would not goe about,” in the words of Gervase Markham, “to elect and prescribe what recreation the husbandman should use, binding all men to one pleasure—God forbid! my purpose is merely contrary: for I know in men’s recreations, that nature taketh to herselfe an especiall prerogative, and what to one is most pleasant, to another is most offensive; some seeking to satisfie the mind, some the body, and some both in a joynt motion.”
We of the coursing fraternity prefer the “canis Gallicus,” and “arvum vacuum” of Ovid, as instrumental to our choicest diversion;
[Sidenote: Nemesian. Cyneg. vs. 48.]
camposque patentes Scrutamur, totisque citi discurrimus arvis; Et————cupimus facili cane sumere prædas: Nos timidos lepores——
but we do not forbid others
imbelles figere damas, Audacesve lupos, vulpem aut captare dolosam.
For the refined diversion of coursing may be as disagreeable to the fox-hunter, whose only joy is when
[Sidenote: Taming of the Shrew, Sc. +ii.+]
The hounds shall make the welkin answer them, And fetch shrill echoes from the hollow earth,
[Sidenote: Ellis’s Histor. Letters, 2nd Series, Vol. +iii.+ p. 199.]
[Sidenote: A Kinge’s Xtian Dutie towards God, B. +iii.+]
[Sidenote: =M. of G. fo. 64.=]
[Sidenote: B. +i.+ c. 17.]
as it is delightful to the genuine amateur, on account of its chaste, and temperate, and contemplative quiet. King James, in his Βασιλικὸν Δῶρον, (himself, according to Sir Theodore Mayerne, “violentissimis olim venationis exercitiis deditus,”) praises “the hunting with running houndes, as the most honourable and noblest sort thereof,” and is supported by the high authority of Edmund de Langley, Mayster of Game; adding “it is a thievish forme of hunting to shoote with gunnes and bowes, and greyhounde hunting is not so martiall a game.” But on the other hand, Sir Thomas Elyot, in “The Governour,” speaking of “those exercises apte to the furniture of a gentylman’s personage,” and “not utterly reproved of noble autours, if they be used with oportunitie and in measure,” calls “hunting of the hare with grehoundes a ryght good solace for men that be studiouse, or theim to whom nature hathe not geven personage, or courage apte for the warres; and also for gentilwomen, which feare nether sonne nor wynde for appayryng their beautie. And peradventure they shall be therat lesse idell, than they shold be at home in their chaumbers.”—And the author of “The Booke of Hunting,” annexed to Turbervile’s Falconrie, concludes his treatise with the following singular panegyric “concerning coursing with greyhoundes”—“the which is doubtlesse a noble pastime, and as meet for nobility and gentleman, as any of the other kinds of Venerie before declared: especially the course of the hare, which is a sport continually in sight, and made without any great travaile: so that recreation is therein to be found without unmeasurable toyle and payne:[14] whereas in hunting with hounds, although the pastime be great, yet many times the toyle and paine is also exceeding great: and then it may well be called, eyther a painfull pastime, or a pleasant payne.”
Coursing, more than the other laborious diversions of rural life, while it ministers to our moderate sensual enjoyment, admits also during the intervals of the actual pursuit of hound and hare, much rational reflection, opportunities of conversation with our brethren of the leash, and mental improvement. It tends, as Markham quaintly expresses himself, “to satisfie the mind and body in a joynt motion;” for in the beautiful poetry of a living patron of the Celtic dog, there is no interval of idleness with the well-read courser;
[Sidenote: Marmion, Introd. to Canto +ii.+]
Nor dull between each merry chase, Passes the intermitted space: For we have fair resource in store, In Classic and in Gothic lore.
[Sidenote: De Incert. et Vanit. &c. c. +lxxvii.+]
[Sidenote: The Anatomie of Abuses.]
But there are those who anathematize limiting and coursing, and other rural recreation, either as sinful,[15] or indicative of barbarism and mental degradation, in the ratio of the pursuit. Like Cornelius Agrippa, they view venation _in genere_ as the worst occupation of the worst of mankind; and say with Philip Stubbes, that “Esau was a great hunter, but a reprobat; Ismael, a great hunter, but a miscreant; Nemrode, a great hunter, but yet a reprobat, and a vessell of wrath;” and bid us, in the poetic badinage of the poet of Cyrene, leave off coursing:
[Sidenote: Callimachus, J. in Dian. vs. 154.]
ἔα πρόκας ἠδὲ λαγωοὺς οὔρεα βόσκεσθαι· τί δέ κεν πρόκες ἠδὲ λαγωοὶ ῥέξειαν;
swearing, with the melancholy Jaques,
[Sidenote: As You Like It. act +ii.+]
that we Are mere usurpers, tyrants, and what’s worse, To fright the animals, and to kill them up, In their assign’d and native dwelling-place.
[Sidenote: Cicero de Nat. Deor. L. +ii.+ c. 63.]
But if “some habites and customes of delight” are allowable and indispensable to the “contentment” of the human mind, and “men of exceeding strickt lives and severity of profession” have indulged in rural diversions, why need we regard the severe reflections of the sensitive Monsieur Paschal, or his more modern plagiarists? why think that wisdom loves not the courser’s sport? or that man is degraded before the tribunal of sound reason by estimating aright the instinct of any of the creatures around him? or made sinful in the eyes of his Creator by availing himself of the adapted powers of the lowliest of the brute race, for the subjugation of such wild animals as were originally designed by a bountiful Creator for the sustenance and recreation of man? “Canum verò tam incredibilis ad investigandum sagacitas narium, tanta alacritas in venando, quid significat aliud nisi se ad hominum commoditates esse generatos?”
[Sidenote: Manchester Memoirs V. +i.+]
The inference in regard to the chases and field sports generally is surely just, “that man, by co-operating with such animals, employs both his and their faculties on the purposes for which they were partially designed: tending thereby to complete the bounteous scheme of Providence, the happiness and well-being of all its creatures.”