THE MASTIFF FROM ELIZABETH S REIGX. 13! 



Sir Walter Scott in a note to one of his novels- mentions a 

 relic he possessed, namely a mastiff figured on a piece of iron 

 that formed part of a fire grate that belonged to Archbishop 

 Sharp, and as that worthy was murdered in 1679, it would 

 have been cast some time previous, and would furnish a very 

 fair idea of the type of the mastiff in Scotland at the time Sir 

 Robert Sibbald wrote. I endeavoured to trace this relic, 

 without success, as Sir C. Maxwell Scott wrote to me in 1876 

 on the subject, saying he was sorry that he was unable to 

 trace it for me. 



We see Sir Robert Sibbald terming the mastiff the molossus, 

 and Dryden, who translated Virgil's Georgics about 1666, 

 says : 



" Nor last forget thy faithful dogs ; belt feed 



" With fattening whey the mastiff's generous breed." 



In the original the word is molossus, translated by Dryden 

 into mastiff. 



In " The Gentlemen's Recreation," in four parts, viz: 

 Hunting, Hawking, Fowling, and Fishing, published London, 

 1686, is some mention of the mastiffs. It states, page 34, that 

 the English mastiff is an Indigena or native of England, and 

 in page 46 that "The King of Poland hath a great race of 

 English mastiffs, which in that country retain their generosity, 

 and are brought up to play upon greater beasts." In page 

 106 it mentions that the wolf will carry off a porker with ease, 

 unless stopped by mastiffs or horseman ; and page 107, " When 

 the wolf is hunted with hounds, he flieth not far before them, 

 and unless he be coursed with the greyhound or mastiffs, he 

 keepeth the covert ways," and again page 118, on Bear- 

 hunting ; it ' recommends mastiffs to be mingled with the 



