Some Poets Dogs. 317 



not with the stock-yard. I had rather, if sheep had the speed 

 and pluck of foxes, hunt a sheep than a fox. But the poets' 

 sympathy is with the villatic and the domesticated, not with 

 the independent and the wild. 



One poet at any rate — Soraerville — was sportsman first 

 and poet afterwards, and his rhymed instructions for the 

 breeding, rearing, and hunting of hounds is an admirable 

 instance of poetical ingenuity applied to an obstinately 

 technical subject. A notice of his poem in some detail 

 will cover all the others on the same subject, and may be 

 accepted, from the unswerving similarity of poetical " hunts," 

 as typical of all ; while by selecting Somerville as the spokes- 

 m.an I give the other poets the advantage of that knowledge 

 of the subject in which they are so conspicuously deficient. 



He commences by describing the origin of hunting, and 

 the rude manner of the first hunters — 



" When Nimrod bold, 

 That mighty hunter ! first made war on beasts 

 And stained the woodland green with purple dye, 

 New and unpolished was the huntsman's art ; " 



and goes on to state that at first the chase was only a means 

 towards sacrifice, but afterwards a necessity for food, the 

 Creator having added flesh to man's vegetable diet — 



" So just is Heaven 

 To give us in proportion to our wants." 



Then comes a gap from Cain to William the Conqueror, 

 bridged over by the poet only with a passing allusion to 

 "our painted ancestors being slow to learn." But the 

 Conquest arrives, and 



" Victorious William to more decent rules 

 Subdued our Saxon fathers, taught to speak 

 The proper dialect, with horn and voice 

 To cheer the busy hound, whose well-known cry 

 His listening peers approve with joint acclaim. 



