Nothing has been inserted of which the English 

 appears so old as to be a difficulty to the modern 

 brain and ear ; and for this reason a considerable 

 body of poetry from Chaucer onwards has been 

 discarded. 



I am unfortunate in having failed to get leave 

 to print Lord Tennyson's Owd Rod, Miss Christina 

 Rossetti's A Poor Old Dog, and Mr. Matthew 

 Arnold's Geisfs Grave, Kaiser Dead, and that part 

 of Poor Matthias which tells of his dogs. A 

 number of works, the names of which are given 

 below, are interesting, but hardly lend themselves 

 to quotation. 



The Cynegetica of Grattius (who has a special 



word for English Dogs) are perhaps too technical 



for general reading : there is a translation entitled 



Cynegeticon, A Poem on Hunting by Gratius 



the Faliscan, Englished by Christopher Wase in 



1654. Varro's methodical account of the dog 



presents the same difficulties. Arrian's treatise 



on hunting has no very modern or good English 



translation. The elaborate, yet practical, manual 



of Xenophon, his Cynegcticus, can be read with 



advantage in Mr. Dakyns's translation (Macmillan). 



Harrison's Description of England in Shakespere's 



Youth) edited from Holinshed's Chrotiic/e, is of 



interest. Among the more modern books which 



are not mere practical treatises I may mention 



George R. Jesse's History 0/ the British Dog, from 



ix 



