THE MASTIFF FROM ELIZABETH'S REIGN. I2Q 



Greenhill, a talented portrait painter, is said td have made 

 several copies of Vandyck's picture of Killegrew and dog, and 

 to have copied it so accurately and like the original, that 

 good judges were frequently known to mistake the copy for 

 the original. :: ' I have some photos of the dog's head, taken 

 from a drawing made by Lieut. Col. J. Gamier, R.E. " The 

 breeder of Governor's sire," writing to the Field Newspaper, 

 fell into the error of regarding this dog painted by Vandyck 

 as the one that coped with the lion before James the First, 

 and J. G., who I take to be the same party, repeats this 

 historical jumble in writing to The Field of Dec. nth, 1875, 

 page 660. The incorrectness of this however is patent, and 

 displays great carelessness, as a period of over twenty years 

 must have separated the two dogs, and I am unaware that 

 there is any historical mention of the latter animal, and have 

 some doubt of its being really an English mastiff, thinking 

 it very probable to have been an importation, having too 

 much of the boarhound character about it for mastiff purity. 

 It is therefore very empirical assuming this dog to fre a 

 reliable representation of the type of the English mastiff at 

 that date. 



From the foregoing pictures we see it was the custom to 

 crop the ears and shorten the tail of the mastiff in- Charles 

 ist's day, which fashion remained up to 1835 at least ; Squire 

 Waterton's (the Naturalist) Tiger and Mr. Lukey's first 

 mastiff Countess being thus mutilated, and from the life-like 

 boarhounds of Sneyders we see it was also the Continental 

 custom. Sneyders dogs are very natural, and the Dutch 

 painters excelled in animals and scenes of everyday life, and 

 their pictures are painted with the idea that truthful represen- 

 tation will please. 



* I noticed a fine painting of Killegrew and dogs in the noble collection 

 of Lord Lecousfield, at Petworth House, Sussex, and the Duke of St. 

 Albaus has or had another, said also to be by Vandyck. 



