PRRKACE. 



information : and it is to be regretted that it is not rendered 

 more available to coursers by being committed to the press. 

 With copious general descriptions of our ancient field-sports, 

 and animals obnoxious to the chase, Cf)e JltilayjiitCC Of &m\t 

 unites specific dehneations of the shape of each variety of 

 canis venaticus, employed by British sportsmen of past days, 

 with occasional references to the chace practices of foreign 

 countries " by yonde the see." The chapter of grcpi^OUnDCjS 

 anti of \)tU nature, as cited hereafter in illustration of Arrian, 

 will be read with pleasure. Indeed the Duke's portrait of the 

 Celtic hound is even more minutely accurate and precise than 

 its Grecian prototype, and l^er manncrjjS as they are quaintly 

 termed, and briefly sketched in the royal Cynegeticus, establish 

 many of the remarks of the younger Xenophonwspj r^g yvwarig 



TWV KVVUiV. 



Still Dame Julyan's compilation being, at least, the first of 

 the kind that issued from the English press, and the type of our 

 modern works of Venery, may be viewed as the earliest attempt, 

 since the revival of letters, to certify by intelligible canons, the 

 corporeal characteristics of a good greyhound. With the tra- 

 ditionary dogmata of Sir Tristrem de Liones,^ who was the re- 

 puted '^ begynner of all the termes of huntynge and hawkynge," 

 it incorporates the accumulated knowledge of many centuries. 



1. The " Morte Arthur"' tells us, that " Tristrem laboured ever in bunting and Scott's Sir 



hawking, so that we never read of no gentleman more that so used himself therein," Instrem. 

 &c. and in the rich poetry of Spenser, the kniglit informs Sir Calldore, 



my most delight hath always been 

 To hunt the salvage chace, amongst my peers, 

 Of all that rangeth in the forest green. 

 Of which none is to me unknown, that ever yet was seen. 



