The first limehound in the annals of sporting was Glympicus, tutored in the art of harbouring by the Bœotian Hagnon, a huntsman immortalized by Gratius:

We here see the limier’s style of harbouring portrayed to the life—falling on the trail—coming to a fault—recovering the scent—and following it up to the lair. The harbourer of more modern days is the inquisitor of Hist. Nat. L. viii. c. xl.Pliny’s short sketch; “Scrutatur vestigia atque persequitur, comitantem ad feram inquisitorem loro trahens: quâ visâ quàm silens et occulta, quàm significans demonstratio est!” But of all descriptions in the range of classical literature the most exquisitively beautiful is Ælian’s—no painter can surpass this graphic hunting-piece:De Naturâ Animalium L. viii. c. ii.—προηγεῖται τοῦ κυνηγέτου (ὁ κύων ὁ θηρατικὸς) ἱμάντι μακρῷ προσημμένος, καὶ ῥινηλατεῖ, τῆς φωνῆς ἔχων ἐγκρατῶς καἰ σιωπῶν, κ. τ. λ. The hound’s busy manner,—his steady search, even where there is no game,—his burst of silent joy at catching a scent,—his salutation of the harbourer as if sympathizing in his glee at being successful,—his drawing on up to the boar’s couch,—the start—and final pæan of exultation and victory, are all described in masterly style.

The Gelonian breed is very cursorily mentioned by Gratius, as timid and sagacious;

and is recommended to be crossed with the tigrine Hyrcanian; whence spiritless Gelonian bitches have derived that courage and pluck, of which they stood in need:

The Umbrian had much of the Gelonian character—timorous and soft—but remarkably keen of nose. Wishing to incorporate every good quality in the same mongrel breed, Gratius ejaculates—

Silius Italicus notes the sagacity of the Umber, and seems to indicate his closeness of mouth in the contrasted barking of the Spartan,

But his habits are most vividly sketched in an elegant simile of Seneca’s Thyestes, where Atreus, exulting in his artful entrapping of his brother, (as a wild beast enveloped in the hunter’s toils—plagis.....clusa dispositis fera,—) exclaims in a strain of ill-dissembled self-gratulation,

The Virgilian Umbrian, to which Æneas in pursuit of Turnus is likened in the last book of the Æneid, may be taken to signify any Canis venaticus, and not that of Umbria particularly:

The true Umbrian, I conceive, was mute—certainly so, until his game was on foot; as were all the other finders spoken of. But another reason against the dog of Maro being the native dog of Umbria is this—the poet would never have compared the brave and victorious Æneas to a notoriously timid animal, who “fugit adversos idem quos repperit hostes—” while the hero was dealing death and destruction on all sides of him;

If the character of the hounds of Umbria be such as stated, on the authority of the ancient Cynegetica, the epithet “audaces” bestowed on them by the Latin poet of Barga must be unmerited;

Barthius, erroneously in my opinion, identifies the Tuscan dogs of Nemesian with the fierce Molossian-like animals of Oppian’s first Cynegetic (vs. 413.). To the passage already cited under the Canes Bellicosi, the reader is referred, for the purpose of comparison with the following from the Carthaginian poet:

Oppian’s boar and lion-killers have very little resemblance to these indices of the form or seat of the timorous hare. The latter poet recommends the Tuscans (whom he is also supposed to designate under the title of Ausonians in his first kennel-roll) to be crossed with the Spartan race;

The Armenian bear-dog was a sort of lyemmer used by sportsmen of the East for tracking bears;⁠[388]

The poet concludes this part of his description with a singularly beautiful simile of a bare-footed little damsel in joyful search of mountain violets, (discovered by their grateful odour, and plucked for the decoration of her head,) with which she returns singing to the home of her peasant parents:

The δίκτυα and ἄρκυες, the δεῖμα πολύχροον of the feathered line, and the other instruments of the savage chase, combine to secure the ursine quarry. See Oppian. Cyneg. iv. vs. 354 ad vs. 424.

Having already noticed the wary employment of the mute finder to search out the lair of animals obnoxious to the chase, let us look at the subsequent proceedings.⁠[389] When the nets and snares were set, the game found, and started by the Canes ductores, the attendants, it seems, slipped the latrant pack, which were held in couples at hand. That this was the ordinary routine is proved by Xenophon, Lucan, Seneca, and others. The Greek sportsman of Scillus does not, indeed, say that the dog first slipped should be mute, but merely quick-scented. Lucan, however, particularly states his quality of closeness in the lines of his Pharsalia, where he likens the naval tactics of Octavius, “Illyricæ custos Octavius undæ,” to the wily stratagems of a huntsman preparing for the attack of his game;

—and Seneca implies the same,

Hitherto we have said nothing of the race of sagacious hunting-dogs, most commonly known by the name of hounds,⁠[391] the Petronius of Gratius,⁠[392] the Ἀγασσεὺς of Oppian, and the Segusian of Arrian.⁠[393] The Petronius belongs to the family of fleet sagacious hounds;

We here see the distinction between the harrier and greyhound, the former running on scent, the latter on sight.⁠[394] That the Petronii opened as soon as they hit upon the trail of their game, before it was roused, is much regretted by the poet—

Herein, however, they strikingly resemble their modern representatives; for, with Ducange, I readily grant that the Canes Petronii “ii sunt quos vulgò chiens courans appellamus.” Whoever has heard the din of the fox or hare-chase,

will grant that no Petronian pack could have been more noisy on the trail than their modern representatives.

The Britannus sagax, “the hound sagacious on the tainted green,” next claims our attention. Of the Britannus bellicosus we have already spoken under the first class. The earlier cynegetical writers are silent on the subject of British hounds: nor do they appear to have been known in Italy till towards the decline of the Roman empire; when, having been introduced into Celtic Gaul, their merits became gradually known in southern Europe. And here, in spite of the French Encyclopédie Méthodique: sur les Chasses, p. 138.encyclopedists, (the copyists of Messieurs D’Yauville and Le Verrier de la Conterie,) who gratuitously assume “qu’en général les chiens Anglois n’ont pas autant de noblesse que les beaux chiens François,”—and that where the breed is improved, as they allow it to be in some cases, the amelioration is attributable to Norman crosses,—we must, with our native poet, claim the palm for Britain;

By name, British hunting-dogs (as distinct from the pugnacious class) are mentioned by the poets of Carthage and Anazarbus alone; by the former, where singing the praises of different canine breeds, the merits of the blood of distant countries;

—by the latter, in the conclusion of his first cynegetic, vs. 467, hereafter cited. Of Nemesian’s “veloces,” probably not of the sagacious class, I shall, in the sequel, speak. In the absence of any assigned habitat for the Petronius, may we not consider him indigenous of Britain?⁠[396] Our happy isle has ever been famous for excellent breeds of hunting-dogs, for skilful sportsmen, and horses both fleet and patient of the chase. All the Celtic nations indeed, and our ancestors among the rest, were passionately addicted to the diversions of the field, considering the prosecution of such laborious callings a kind of apprenticeship and initiation for war. Thence the superiority of the Celtic breeds of sporting-dogs, and more especially of the Britannus sagax and Britannus bellicosus. With the latter, perhaps, the former may have been sent to Italy by the resident Procurator Cynegii, as worthy of admission into Roman kennels; for at this early period I believe there were only these two native varieties of the canine race in Britain. In the field of battle, in public spectacles, and in the wolf and boar-chases, the bellicosus, the rival of the truculent Epirote, stood pre-eminent: and in the ordinary hunting of timid and fugacious quarry, the hound “naribus utilis,” acquired an early name and character.⁠[397] For hideousness of aspect, and ugliness of shape, both were remarkable;

—a notification of Ovid’s contemporary, which may be interpreted of the sagacious with as much truth as of the pugnacious sorts.

Modern ingenuity has taught British hounds of chase to pursue many varieties of prey. J. Caii de Canibus Britan. Libellus.“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]

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;

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:

The Talbot, whose portrait is also sketched by the Latin poet of Barga,P. A. Bargæi Cyneg. v. 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 De Canibus et Venatione Libellus.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;

In no case does he fall an easy prey to the disturbers of his cunningly-wrought latibulum:

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;

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 Brodæus in Oppianum, p. 46.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 in Oppianum, p. 42.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]

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”—J. Caii de Can. Brit. Libellus.“Agasæum nostri abs re quòd intento sit in feram oculo vocant.”

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—Synopsis Animalium. Countrey Contentments, B. i. c. iv.“qui aspectu feras insequitur.”

From the following portrait, compared with that drawn by Markham, we may decide the identity of the Agassæus and Beagle:

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;

comparing his restlessness to that of a young woman in travail with her first child,

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:

He is also mentioned by Angelinus Gazæus—see the Lagographia Curiosa of Paullini. Of the Greek portrait of Arrian we shall presently speak, under the Segusian dog.

It is to Gervase Markham, our “English master of economical philosophy,” as Wase calls him, that we are indebted for the fullest description of “the little beagle, which may be carried in a man’s glove;”—“bred,” says Gervase, “for delight only, being of curious scents, and passing cunning in their hunting, for the most part tiring, but seldome killing the prey, except at some strange advantage.” Countrey Contentments, B. i. c. iv. 14.“Their musicke is very smalle, like reeds, and their pace like their body, onely for exercise, and not for slaughter.”

The Segusian dog mentioned by Arrian, in the third chapter of his Treatise on Coursing, as a sorry brute, quick-scented, with a pitiful and dolorous whine, instead of bark—rough and unsightly, and the more high-bred the more ugly—I believe to be identical with the last variety. The Bithynian has devoted an entire chapter of his entertaining and original manual to a description of the Ἑγουσίαι κύνες: whose name, he tells us, is derived from a Celtic people,⁠[406] amongst whom they were first bred, and held in repute for their nasal sagacity. For a full description of these smaller hounds of Gaul, the reader is referred to the cited chapter; and attached to my translation of the same, he will find a few illustrative notes. The remarks of Belin de Ballu, in his Animadversiones in Oppianum, show strange misapprehension of the ancient distinctions in the Celtic kennels. The Animadvers. in Oppian. Cyneg. i. 373.chiens courans of modern France are not the οὐέρτραγοι κύνες of the younger Xenophon; nor are the latter’s Ἑγουσίαι the “genus canum, quorum pili instar velleris ovium crispantur,” as incorrectly stated by this most learned editor of the Greek poet of the chase. The Segusians are rather the bigles of the present day—perhaps the bassets, a small variety of terrier-beagle, used in rabbit-hunting.⁠[407]