THE OLD-TIME HAREHOUND 69 



hound is worth recalling. The points are all excellent, 

 even at the present day : 



" See there with count'nance blithe, 

 And with a courtly grin, the fawning hound 

 Salutes thee cow'ring, his wide op'ning nose 

 Upward he curls, and his large sloe-black eyes 

 Melt in soft blandishments and humble joy ; 

 His glossy skin, or yellow-pied, or blue. 

 In lights or shades by Nature's pencil drawn. 

 Reflects the various tints ; his ears and legs, 

 Fleckt here and there, in gay enamel'd pride. 

 Rival the speckled pard ; his rush-grown tail 

 O'er his broad back bends in an ample arch ; 

 On shoulders clean, upright and firm he stands ; 

 His round cat-foot, straight hams, and wide-spread thighs. 

 And his low-dropping chest, confess his speed. 

 His strength, his wind, or on the steepy hill, 

 Or far extended plain ; in ev'ry part 

 So well proportion'd, that the nicer skill 

 Of Phidias himself can't blame thy choice." 



A beautiful portrait indeed ! The Warwickshire 

 squire exhorts his reader not to prefer the large hound, 

 which gets hung up and tugs painfully in every thorny 

 brake ; nor patronise pigmy hounds which swim in 

 every furrow and are speedily moiled in the clogging 

 clay, but to choose hounds of middle size, active and 

 strong. For otter he preferred the old-fashioned, 

 deep-voiced, deep-flewed hounds, with pendant ears, 

 thick, round head, strong, heavy, and slow, but sure. 

 Of these he seems to have preferred " the bold Talbot 

 kind, as white as Alpine snows." 



The eighteenth-century squires, then, who began 

 to require a somewhat less tedious chase than that 

 of the Southern hound, bethought themselves of 

 crossing this hound with the sharp and active fox- 

 beagle, and from that blend undoubtedly sprang the 

 old-fashioned English harrier of the last hundred and 



