So?ne Poets Dogs. 329 



Th' audadoos felon : foot by foot he marks 

 His winding way, while all the list'ning crowd 

 Applaud his reas'nings. 



O'er the wat'ry flood. 

 Dry sandy heaths and stony barren hiUs 

 O'er beaten paths with men and beasts detained, 

 Uneiring he pursues, till at the cot 

 Arrived, and seizing by his guilty throat 

 The caitiff vile, redeems the captive prey : 

 So exquisitely delicate his sense." 



Davenant pays them the compliment of saying "Wise, 

 temperate limehounds that proclaim no scent, nor har- 

 b'ring will their mouths in boasting spend," and Spenser 

 and others of the older poets refer to the sleuth-hound with 

 respect Barry Cornwall's poem on the animal is an en- 

 thusiastic panegyric of '• the resolute fond bloodhound." 



The mastiflf, strangely enough, arrives at little honour in 

 the poets' company. " Sagacious of his prey," " with eye 

 of fire," says Falconer, and as the opponent of " the salvage 

 bull " it arrives at many compliments. In Chaucer they are 

 a noble figure — 



" About his car there went en white alanns, 

 Twenty and more, as great as any steer. 

 To hunten at the leon and the deer. 

 And followed him with muzzle fast yTjound." 



But it is "an ill-conditioned carl," "gaunt," and "gruff," 

 has to be taught manneis by being kicked in the mouth by 

 donkeys in Wordsworth, and, "growling at the gate," is 

 possessed with a horrible longing to eat beggars in Pope. 

 The sea when rough is, in Hurdis, a furious mastiff — 



" Lo ! as we speak, 

 The wolfish monster kindles into rage. 

 Enormous mastiff, how he gnaws his chain 

 And struggles to be free, fast bound by fate 

 And never to be let loose on man. 



