The Smooth Sheep Dog 373 



In another poem of Drayton's on "Coursing" there is what seems to 

 be some "printers' errors": 



"She riseth from her seat, as though on earth she flew, 

 Forced by some yelping cute to give the greyhounds view, 

 Which are at length let slip, when gunning out they go, 

 As in respect of them the swiftest wind were slow." 



The word "cute" is meant for cur, or was probably written with the 

 final "e," as was then customary. "Gunning" must surely be "running," 

 for the word gun was then unknown, engine or fowling piece being the 

 name for a gun in Drayton's day. A comma after "running out" makes 

 sense of what is unintelligible. 



William Drummond, 1585-1649, wrote in "The Dog Star": 



"When her dear bosom clips 



That little cur, which fawns to touch her lips, 

 Or when it is his hap 

 To lie lapped in her lap." 



In a comedy by William Browne, 1591-1643, we have: 



"Philos of his dog doth brag 



For having many feats; 

 The while the cur undoes his bag, 

 And all his dinner eats." 



In the conversation to which those lines are the prelude we find: 



Willie. "Now Philos, see how mannerly your cur, 



Your well-taught dog, that hath so many tricks, 

 Devours your dinner." 



Philos. "I wish t'were a bur 



To choke the mongrel!" 



As a companion piece to Drummond's lady's pet, which he calls a cur, 

 there is this from Samuel Butler, 1612-1680: 



"Quoth Hudibras 



Agrippa kept a Stygian pug, Fth'garb and habit of a dog, 

 That was his tutor, and the cur 

 Read to the occult philosopher." 



The word becomes of much less frequent use by poets after 1650, 

 the meaning evidently changing. The contemporaneous poets, Jonathan 

 Swift (1667-1745) and Allan Ramsay (1686-1768), each supply a quota- 

 tion. The former in his skit upon the Pretender plot of 1772 mentions 

 two of the witnesses as "cur Plunkett, or whelp Skean," and Ramsay 

 showed the northward progression of two good English words in his "Lover's 

 Logic": 



