100 THE MASTIFF DURING ELIZABETH'S REIGN. 



Flemming spells some of his Latin words very queerly, but 

 that may be pardoned after the transcriptive error that Mr. 

 V. Shaw made, or let pass in his Book of the Dog, Part i, 

 page 3, when quoting from Caiushe says : " Canis Villaticus 

 or Carbenarius. When first I read this, not having seen the 

 original, I judged this carbenarius might have some connec- 

 tion or reference to carbonarius of or belonging to coal, and 

 hence meaning a coal yard dog. I am amused and somewhat 

 surprised Mr. V. Shaw with his boastful B.A. Cantab should 

 have allowed such an error to pass. 



Camden, writing about 1600, throws some light where and 

 how the mastiffs were kept ; he says under London St. 

 Thomas's Hospital, " From thence along the river side 

 westwards, was a row of houses called stews, 

 so called from the ponds for fattening tench and pike ; among 

 these buildings is a place like a theatre for baiting bears and 

 bulls with dogs, and kennels of bandogs, which are so strong 

 and bite so hard, that three of them are enough to seize a 

 bear, and four a lion, etc. Camden states that the Irish 

 wolfdog was similar in shape to a greyhound, and bigger than 

 a mastiff, this shows that the mastiff was not so large as the 

 \\olfdog, an animal that probably averaged about 31 or 32 

 inches. 



After careful reading it would seem as though both Camden 

 and Shakespeare had read and quoted from Caius's work, and 

 other writers of about his date term the mastiff villaticus, 

 written by some vellaticus. According to Varro, R.R. i, 2, 

 countrymen often said vella for villa. 



Harry, the minstrel, or as he is more generally termed 

 Blind Harry, mentions the mastiff in his poem on the " Life 

 of Wallace," statin that hero's life was preserved by one of 

 these dogs. 



