[Sidenote: Gratii Cyneg. vs. 177.]
Si non ad speciem, mentiturosque decores Protinùs: hæc una est catulis jactura Britannis:
—a notification of Ovid’s contemporary, which may be interpreted of the sagacious with as much truth as of the pugnacious sorts.
[Sidenote: J. Caii de Canibus Britan. Libellus.]
Modern ingenuity has taught British hounds of chase to pursue many varieties of prey. “Alius leporis, alius vulpis, alius cervi, alius platycerotis, alius taxi, alius lutræ, alius mustelæ, alius cuniculi tantùm odore gaudet.” The dog does not himself necessarily differ, for adaptation to different game; and possibly, the old English Talbot was the parent stock, whence all the sub-varieties, at present found in the kennels of Great Britain, originally sprung,[398] modified in shape and character by judicious breeding, and careful management as to quarry:[399]
[Sidenote: Somerville’s Chace, B. +i.+]
strong, heavy, slow, but sure, Whose ears down-hanging from his thick round head, Shall sweep the morning dew; whose clanging voice Awake the mountain echo in her cell, And shake the forest: the bold Talbot kind Of these the prime, &c.
The hounds of Theseus would be correctly placed, from the description of our great dramatic poet, under the old English breed. With it they have more points in common than with their fabled progenitors;
[Sidenote: Midsummer Night’s Dream.]
My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind, So flew’d, so sanded, and their heads are hung With ears that sweep away the morning dew; Crook-knee’d, and dew-lap’d, like Thessalian bulls; Slow in pursuit; but match’d in mouth like bells, Each under each. A cry more tuneable Was never halloo’d to, nor cheer’d with horn, In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly.
The vigorous and fleet Leverarius being a supposed representative of some ancient types, I cite the masterly picture of Somerville for the purpose of comparison with the classic poets of the Chase:
[Sidenote: Somerville’s Chace, B. +i.+]
See there with countenance blithe, And with a courtly grin, the fawning hound Salutes thee cowering; his wide opening nose Upwards he curls, and his large sloe-black eyes Melt in soft blandishments, and humble joy; His glossy skin, or yellow-pied, or blue, In lights or shades by nature’s pencil drawn, Reflects the various tints; his ears and legs Fleckt here and there, in gay enamell’d pride, Rival the speckled pard; his rush-grown tail O’er his broad back bends in an ample arch; On shoulders clean, upright and firm he stands; His round cat-foot, straight hams, and wide-spread thighs, And his low-dropping chest, confess his speed, His strength, his wind, or on the steepy hill, Or far-extended plain; in every part So well-proportion’d, that the nicer skill Of Phidias himself can’t blame thy choice.
[Sidenote: P. A. Bargæi Cyneg. +v.+]
[Sidenote: De Canibus et Venatione Libellus.]
The Talbot, whose portrait is also sketched by the Latin poet of Barga, as well as by the authors cited, is at present fallen into disrepute—his slowness of foot being scarce compensated by his keenness of scent. The fleeter Leverarius, whose consimilarity with the Gratian Petronius almost approaches to identity, was apparently unknown to M. A. Biondi; for he holds it quite impossible (like the elder Xenophon in regard to the fair capture of the hare with his ἀλωπεκίδες _at force_) that any hounds should have speed sufficient to run down a fox, without the aid of wily instruments of destruction.[400] But the largest varieties of Somerville’s last picture are found a match for the arch-felon, “vulpem captare dolosam,”—the only approach to the modern mode of pursuing whom, which the classics afford, is in the fourth book of Oppian’s Cynegetics, where the κύνες ἀολλέες are evidently _a pack_ of hounds, though we look in vain for the well-mounted hunters;
[Sidenote: Cyneg. +iv.+ vs. 448.]
κερδὼ δ’ οὔτε λόχοισιν ἁλώσιμος, οὔτε βρόχοισιν, οὔτε λίνοις· δεινὴ γὰρ ἐπιφροσύνῃσι νοῆσαι, δεινὴ δ’ αὖτε κάλωα ταμεῖν, ὑπὸ δ’ ἅμματα λῦσαι, καὶ πυκινοῖσι δόλοισιν ὀλισθῆσαι θανάτοιο· ἀλλὰ κύνες μιν ἄειραν ἀολλέες, οὐδ’ ἄρ’ ἐκεῖνοι καὶ κρατεροί περ ἐόντες ἀναιμωτεὶ δαμάσαντο.
In no case does he fall an easy prey to the disturbers of his cunningly-wrought _latibulum_:
[Sidenote: Cyneg. +iii.+ vs. 450.]
μάλ’ ἀρήϊος ἐν πραπίδεσσι, καὶ πινυτὴ ναίει πυμάτοις ἐνὶ φωλειοῖσιν, ἑπταπύλους οἴξασα δόμους, τρητάς τε καλιὰς τηλόθ’ ἀπ’ ἀλλήλων, μή μιν θηρήτορες ἄνδρες ἀμφὶ θύρῃ λοχόωντες ὑπὸ βροχίδεσσιν ἄγωνται· ἀργαλέη γενύεσσι καὶ ἀντία δηρίσασθαι θηρσί τ’ ἀρειοτέροισι, καὶ ἀγρευτῆρσι κύνεσσιν.[401]
Even when, with the din of huntsmen and hounds, driven into nets, the entangled felon, according to Martial, still fights it out, to the no little discomfiture and injury of his canine antagonists;
[Sidenote: Martial. Epigr. L. +x.+ Ep. 37.]
Hic olidam clamosus ages in retia vulpem, Mordebitque tuos sordida præda canes...[402]
[Sidenote: Brodæus in Oppianum, p. 46.]
[Sidenote: Rittershusius in Oppianum, p. 42.]
Identical with the least of the hound tribe of the British isles, the _Canis venaticus minor_ of Ray’s Synopsis, and Charleton’s Onomasticon, is the Oppianic Agassæus; the derivation of whose name has puzzled Broadæus and other classic commentators not a little.[403] With the hint that Ἀγασσεὺς may be connected with _Agassa_ of Macedonia, _Agasus_ a port of Apulia, the Thracian _Agessus_, and _Agathia_ a city of Phocis, no reason is alleged why a British dog should deduce his name from countries and places so remote. Of the existence of such a tiny hound of chase in this country, Rittershusius seems not to have been aware. British dogs, he remarks, are exceedingly keen-scented, but he cannot divine why called small, βαιὸν γένος, being, in his days at least, of great size. Brodæus, too, ignorant of any other than the Britannus of Claudian, cannot reconcile the “Anglici canes prodigiosæ staturæ” of this poet, and his own experience, with the portrait of the Oppianic Ἀγασσεύς.[404]
[Sidenote: J. Caii de Can. Brit. Libellus.]
It is scarce necessary to observe that the dog in question has no affinity with the Agasæus of Dr. Caius, who very absurdly borrows, for his gazehound, a name previously engaged by a totally different dog; as if to gratify his etymological mania by connecting the terms Agasæus, a gaze, a gazehound—“neque enim odoratu, sed prospectu attento et diligenti feram persequitur iste canis—(Agasæus, a gazehound)—etsi non sum nescius etiam apud Latinos Agasæi vocabulum inter canum nomina reperiri”—“Agasæum nostri abs re quòd intento sit in feram oculo vocant.”
[Sidenote: Synopsis Animalium. Countrey Contentments, B. +i.+ c. +iv.+]
Camden has fallen into the same error with Caius, and confounded the Agasseus of Oppian with the gazehound of Britain; and even Ray has made the gazehound a variety of the _Canis venaticus sagax_, distinguished from his supposed consimilars of the same family by running on sight of his game—“qui aspectu feras insequitur.”
From the following portrait, compared with that drawn by Markham, we may decide the identity of the Agassæus and Beagle:
[Sidenote: Oppian. Cyneg. L. +i.+ vs. 467.]
ἔστι δέ τι σκυλάκων γένος ἄλκιμον ἰχνευτήρων, βαιὸν, ἀτὰρ μεγάλης ἀντάξιον ἔμμεν’ ἀοιδῆς· τοὺς τράφεν ἄγρια φῦλα Βρετανῶν αἰολονώτων, αὐτὰρ ἐπικλήδην σφὰς Ἀγασσαίους ὀνόμῃναν· τῶν ἤτοι μέγεθος μὲν ὀμοίϊον οὐτιδανοῖσι λίχνοις οἰκιδίοισι τραπεζήεσσι κύνεσσι, γυρὸν, ἀσαρκότατον, λασιότριχον, ὄμμασι νωθές· ἀλλ’ ὀνύχεσσι πόδας κεκορυθμένον ἀργαλέοισι, καὶ θαμινοῖς κυνοδοῦσιν ἀκαχμένον ἰοφόροισι. ῥίνεσι δ’ αὖτε μάλιστα πανέξοχός ἐστιν Ἀγασσεὺς, καὶ στιβίῃ πανάριστος, ἐπεὶ κατὰ γαῖαν ἰόντων ἴχνιον εὑρέμεναι μέγα δὴ σοφὸς, ἀλλὰ καὶ αὐτὴν ἴδμων ἠερίην μάλα σημῄνασθαι ἀϋτμήν.
Let the reader compare these little pet-like, weakly, crooked, lank, wire-haired, dull-looking creatures, keen however, and excellent of nose, with his own experience of the beagle’s type and properties, and the representations of authors.[405]
The poet gives some amusing instructions for breaking in the puppy of the Agassæus;
[Sidenote: Ejusd. vs. 489.]
αὐτὰρ ὅγ’ αἶψα ὠρίνθη, φριμάα τε λαγωείης ὑπ’ ἀϋτμῆς, ἴχνια μαστεύει τε κατὰ χθονὸς, κ. τ. λ.
comparing his restlessness to that of a young woman in travail with her first child,
[Sidenote: Ejusd. vs. 493.]
ὡς δ’ ὅτε τις κούρη δέκατον περὶ μῆνα σελήνης πρωτοτόκος λοχίῃσιν ὑπ’ ὠδίνεσσι τυπεῖσα, κ. τ. λ.
[Sidenote: Lib. +ii.+ p. 18.]
The praises of the little beagle have been celebrated in Greek and Latin, verse and prose. Amongst the modern poets, he is found in the Album Dianæ Leporicidæ of Jac. Savary, under the title of “ululatorum ordo minorum”—“gens parvis devota feris;” and placed in the kennels of Britain—still sufficiently marked by her insular, geographical position, and the staunchness of her canine breed, but, unfortunately for the loyalty of Savary’s own countrymen, no longer _exclusively_ characterized by the traitorous, regicide spirit of her inhabitants: