74 THE BANDOG OR MASTIFF. 



This mention of the bandog is of little value as actual 

 history, for the statements are plainly creations of the bard, 

 but it is of value, as indirectly it furnishes proof of the old 

 English name for the mastiff in the i5th and i6th centuries. 

 There is an old black letter copy of this ballad in the Pepysian 

 library, printed by H. Gosson about 1610, and as the ballads, 

 jests, and plays of which Robin Hood was the hero, are 

 considered by sucli authorities as Gough and others, as not 

 being much earlier than the date of printing, we may consider 

 the majority will not have been composed before 1400. 



Pope has given Jas Ralph, an American writer, a place in 

 his Dunciad, where he exclaims, " Silence ye wolves," while 

 Ban Ralph to Cynthia howls, and makes night hideous ; 

 answer him ye owls. This was written between 1725 and 

 1744. That polished little diamond Rogers, who reflashed 

 in prismatic shades the gems of others, evidently copied from 

 Shakespeare, the lines in his Pleasures of Memory, where he 

 says : 



" Imps, iii the bam with mousing owlet bred, 



" From rifled roost at nightly revel fed ; 



" When in the bree/e the distant watch-dog bayed/' 



N. Bailey, 1742, give band-dog a dog kept in bands or tied 

 up, a mastiff; and Littleton in the 1677 edition of his Latin 

 and English Dictionary, gives band-dog or ban-dog a molossus 

 vel canis catenarius, and under catenarius chained or linked, 

 and catenarius canis a band-dog or ty-dog. Thus we see in 

 the 1 7th and i8th century bandog was understood to mean 

 the mastiff. It was formerly the custom to keep the bandog 

 or mastiff tied up during the day, and to loose him at night, 

 as may be seen by old records. 



