34 TH MAstiFP TYPE. 



and translators should be very guarded how they render 

 molossus as a mastiff, for the true molossian was an erect - 

 eared (altas aure) slate coloured (glauci) or fawn (fulvus) 

 sw r ift footed wolfish-looking dog, identical or almost so, with 

 the modern Suliot boarhound. A fine sculpture of the true 

 molossus was found at Pompeii, w r ith the inscription, " Cave 

 Canem," which I would have translators remember. 



Horace has well described the breed in his Epodes, ode. vi. 

 lines 5 to 8, and in his Satires, Lib. ii. Sat. vi. 



It will be seen throughout this work that I have constantly 

 extracted the history of the mastiff from the writings of the 

 poets, and I may say, poetry is a great instructor of the past, 

 an honest, an enduring historian, a truthful exponent of every 

 day life of the time it w T as written. The noble sculptures of 

 the past decay, the efforts of skill and art of the older empires 

 and past times leave only crumbling remains, indistinct 

 through age ; to prove their existence, and nothing, the work 

 of man's hand has outlasted the creation of man's mind. The 

 productions of the poets still live, may still be studied with 

 advantage and drawn from, like a never-failing \vell. Rightly 

 were the poets crowned with evergreen, Homer still speaks 

 fresh and vigorous as in the days of the Calydon boar-hunt, 

 or Actseons tragical fate in pursuit of the stag. So with our 

 later poets. The world grows older, man does but " Fret and 

 strut his hour upon the stage, and then is seen no more." 

 But they endure, live and reveal truthful information if wo 

 only consult their oracular mediums. The dusky daughters 

 of Cadmus, The lettered page. 



