THE MASTIFF TYPE. 2Q 



Greece, the land of classic song and ennobling art has never 

 possessed the breed, seemingly. Nothing remains of the work 

 of Praxiteles (except the Apollo Sauroctones) ; his dogs long 

 since have been lost, along with his famous Cupid and the 

 form of his Phryne as Venus, but as he worked the time 

 resisting bronze and lasting marble, perhaps in spite of Byron's 

 invective, it is left for some other Pictish Peer to draw down 

 another " Curse of Minerva " for his canny picking out some 

 model canine guardian of the "Lares." 



The Athsenian Phidias and his rival Alcamenes have left 

 us r.o examples of their talent, nor has Sicyonian Polycletus, 

 although reckoned the most skilful among the ancients. But 

 Myron, who so excelled in carving animals, that his famous 

 cow, the poets would have us believe imposed on the dewlapped 

 bulls of Thessaly, has handed down to posterity, one beautiful 

 piece of sculpture, showing plainly the type of the Grecian 

 molossus, which was in the possession of Lord Feversham, 

 at Buncombe Park, Yorkshire. 



Turning to the classic writers we enter upon a sea of 

 literature that requires a skilful pilot to steer clear of the 

 numerous rocks that are liable at every turn to assail us, and 

 the carelessness and ignorance of later writers on Natural 

 History have greatly added to the mist that hangs over classic 

 lore. 



The term for the mastiff among some naturalists, is the 

 molossus, originating with our early writers, who chose to 

 think that the classic writers meant a mastiff, in the sense we 

 now use the word, whereas the molossus was not in reality a 



* The Lares were placed on the hearth or beside the door in private 

 houses. Plutarch tells us the Lares were covered with dogskin, and the 

 image of a dog placed next to them. 



