Man's First Friend 



naturally come more and more into requisi- 

 tion for purposes of sport, while his services 

 were in continuous demand as a guard of 

 life and property. 



Homer has drawn largely upon the canine 

 race to aid him in his picturesque imagery, 

 and scattered about Pope's translation we 

 find abundant allusions, such as 



Not fiercer rush along the gloomy wood 

 With rage insatiate, and with thirst of blood, 

 Voracious hounds, that many a length before 

 Their furious hunters drive the wounded boar ; 

 But if the savage turns his glaring eye, 

 They howl aloof, and round the forest fly. 



Old writers, greatly daring, have en- 

 deavoured to trace the descent of our 

 hounds of to-day from the Homeric era. 

 George Turberville, in his Noble Art of 

 Venerie or Hunting, published in 1576, tells 

 of a chronicle he saw in Brittany, written 

 by John of Monmouth, an Englishman, who 

 treats of the arrival into Italy of ^Eneas 

 with his son Ascanius after the fall of 



3 



