THE BRITISH MASTIFF. 39 







While most translators have entirely overlooked 'the refer- 

 enc to the (mentitaros, chin or muzzle of animals) broad 

 blunt under jaw or chin, which we see was a marked 

 characteristic in the time of Gratius even. Virgil makes use 

 of the word mentum, to denote the chin or lower maxillary of 

 animals. 



The rickety Gallic boat or ponto was peculiarly a Gallic 

 vessel, and in imagination we can depict some young Roman 

 of the stamp of Gargilius mentioned in Horace (Epistles Lib. 

 i. Ep. vi. line 58) delighting only in horses and dogs, setting 

 out from the Roman capital with a sack of Roman money, 

 nick-nacks, small arms, and jewelry, on a voyage to Britain, 

 to procure a brace or two of good British mastiffs to cause a 

 sensation at the circus. Passing through Parma and thence 

 across the lofty Alps through Paris, thence to the Morinion 

 frontier, where hiring a rickety little boat manned by some 

 broad-set Belgian, he would have to undergo all the discomfort 

 of sea sickness, beside the hazard of crossing the Fretum 

 Gallicum, then rowing up father Thames, he would land at 

 Londinium, and there seek out some old Bill George of a 

 savage, living in a dirty little mud hut, surrounded with a 

 stoccaded yard, in which some ten or twenty savage British 

 mastiffs would be tied. 



Although gentle reader this is the fiction of imagination, 

 my excuse will be to remind you, that history repeats itself, 

 " Quid fuit fncrit /" But to return to Gratuis, he sa)*s of the 

 British dogs : That they have no pretentious to the deceitful 

 commendations of form, and his writings show plainly that 

 there were two classes of the British pugnaces, differing 

 principally in size, which is highly suggestive of the existence 



