CHAPTER XIII. 

 THE MASTIFF IN THE IQTH CENTURY. 



" He must lack the gentle grace 

 That marks the best of human race 

 Who cannot see a friendly face 

 In mastiff, hound, or setter.'' 



Eiiza Cook. 



O- 



CUVIER, writing about iSoo, rightly classes the English mat iff 

 among the Dogues, the chief features of which are he says 

 " shortness of top jaw, projection of the lower jaw beyond 

 the upper, causing the teeth to be undershot, height of 

 forehead, depth and breadth of stop, general width and 

 shortness, and massiveness of head, limbs short and stout, 

 and body robust." Cuvier rightly arranged the dog into 

 groups by the shape of the head, and length of the jaw. 



If people breeding dogs, or assuming to judge other people's 

 animals, would only avail themselves of the labours of 

 Naturalists like Cuvier, sooner than following their own 

 ignorant fancies, likes and dislikes, and the vulgar error and 

 partiality for overgrown specimens of gigantic stature, we should 

 see the true type more common and dogs better and more 

 uniformly judged. As it is usually some pig-headed old gen- 

 tleman, who may have happened to have bred a few dogs, 

 (when competition was nothing like so keen) in his younger 

 days, which he rightly fancies he never saw the like of since, 

 sets up for a judge, and at other people's expense, airs his 

 ignorance of natural history and canine type generally ; but 

 at the same time clearly exhibits his own stubborn self- 

 opinion, so often present with defective knowledge of the 

 subject in question 



