DUVAL AND THE DUTCHESS OF PORTSMOUTH. 



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THE ITALIAN GREYHOUND. 



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WHETHER the ITALIAN GREYHOUND be indigenous to that part of Europe, or 

 imported thither from Greece or the Greek Isles, would be of small importance 

 could it be ascertained; it may suffice that, the animal is cherished and bred 

 to a considerable extent in Italy, and was probably first brought over to this 

 Country, in the reign of Charles the First, whose attachment to this species of the 

 Dog is well known. That it became a favourite of the ladies in the following 

 Reign, appears likely from the following Anecdote, to be found in an old Memoir 

 of Duval, a famous Highwayman, or Royal Scamp of those days, which we wonder 

 should have escaped the collecting assiduity of the learned Captain Smith, who 

 wrote con amore, the lives of two centuries of Highwaymen, Thieves and Pirates. 

 The Dutchess of Portsmouth, one of the mistresses of Charles the Second, driving 

 one evening unattended, to a residence which she possessed at a small distance from 

 the Metropolis, was stopped by Duval, who professionally demanded her money. 

 Her Grace affected great state, and talked highly, as she before had done on a 

 similar occasion, when she was robbed and treated with great insolence by Jacob 

 Halsey, perhaps the only Quaker who ever took to the road. To Duval she in- 

 sisted she had no money whatever, nor any valuables about her, in which she might 

 not improbably be correct, Charles's Mistresses often partaking of his poverty, as 

 well as of his occasional wealth 



' A merry Monarch, scandalous and poor/ 



The Highwayman perhaps, judging farther parley dangerous, was turning to 

 decamp, when he espied a beautiful and most delicate Italian Greyhound Bitch, 

 sitting upon the box with the Coachman. This he demanded as his prize, present- 

 ing his pistol to the Coachman, who declared he should lose his place and be 

 ruined if he parted with it, being the favourite not only of his mistress but of the 

 King. This intelligence, which subsequently gave rise to suspicion of the coach- 

 man, was an additional stimulus to Duval, who took the bitch under his arm and 

 rode off at full speed. The day following, notice was sent to the Dutchess, that for 

 one hundred pieces, and under certain conditions, which had regard to the safety 

 of the person concerned, the Greyhound should be restored ; which treaty was 

 faithfully executed on both sides, to the infinite joy of the Dutchess and her Royal 

 Paramour. To crown the joke, within a few days, a letter appeared in a public paper, 

 signed Duval, and actually written by him, dated from a coffee-house in the Strand, 



