ANTIQUITY OF THE GREYHOUND. 83 



THE GREYHOUND. 



THE GREYHOUND, as well as that which we style the Southern-hound, may 

 from its antiquity, be styled a primitive species. It was known to classical 

 antiquity, and we learn from Arrian, that the Gauls used Greyhounds for coursing 

 the Hare, their truly sportsmanlike mode of performing 1 which, and the law allowed 

 to the hare, have descended to us, and arc practised at this day, in England, on the 

 original principle. Greyhounds were known in this Country before the Conquest, 

 and in those early ages, were not confined as at present to coursing* the hare only, 

 but were used for hunting 1 the Deer, and also, in company with other hounds, the 

 Wolf and wild Boar. This species of the Hound was the chief favourite for ages, 

 amongst the ladies of high birth particularly. In the tenth and eleventh centuries, 

 the price of a Greyhound was greater than that of a man, and the killing a grey- 

 hound, or taking the nest of a Hawk, in those times of British slavery, and even 

 subsequently to the signing our famous A/agna Charia, were held, in the eye and 

 practice of those misnamed laws, equally criminal with the murder of a fellow man. 

 Greyhounds were frequently taken in payment as money, by the Kings, for the 

 renewal of grants, and in the satisfaction of fines and forfeitures. Their speed, 

 ferocious courag-e and fidelity, were celebrated in the heroic Romances of the time, 

 both upon the Continent and in Britain, and the scene to which the following 

 verses appertain, was laid in the Kingdom of Arragon. 



He took the Steward by the throat, 

 And asunder he it bote; 



But then he would not bide ; 

 For to the grave he ran. 

 Then followed him many a man, 



Some on horse and some beside. 

 And when he came where his Master was, 

 He laid him down upon the grass, 

 And barked at the men again. 



In the end, the legend states that, the hound having discovered the body of his 

 murdered master, expired on the tomb which was raised to his memory. The 

 spayed bitches held in such esteem in ancient times, for their fierceness, were gene- 

 rally greyhound. And the present writer recollects seeing in the Church of Tolles- 

 hunt Knights, Essex,' in 1762, close to the left hand wall, entering at the great 

 door, about the middle of the church, a tomb of soft stone, having upon it, recum- 



