THE ENGLISH BLOOD-HOUND. 821 



breeding of hounds in England by the various 

 monarchs who have reigned over it. Henry II. 

 was perhaps the first who made himself conspicuous 

 in this department of the sportsman's occupation, 

 being, as one of his historians says of him, " parti- 

 cularly curious in his hounds, that they should be 

 fleet, well-tongued, and consonous.""* The last epi- 

 thet is in reference to a property not only little 

 regarded, but nearly lost now — namely, the deep 

 tongue of the old English blood-hound, which 

 Shakspeare alludes to in his celebrated description 

 of those " of the Spartan kind,'' — 



" So flewed, so sanded, and their heads are hung 

 AVith eai's that sweep away the morning dew. 

 Crook-knee'd and dewlapt, like Thessalian bulls ; 

 Slow in pursuit ; but vudcWd in mouth like bells, 

 Each under each ; " — 



which would now be considered a disgrace to any 

 man's kennel, and we believe no where to be found, 

 bearing the faintest resemblance to the picture 

 drawn of them by this master-hand. 



In Queen Elizabeth's time a classification was 

 made by Dr. Caius, physician to the Queen, in his 

 treatise De Canibus Britannicis^ of the different 

 kinds of dogs peculiar to Great Britain ; but many 

 of the names (the sleute or sluth-hound of the 

 Scotch, for example) having since become obsolete, 

 they were again classed by Mr. Daniel, in his 

 Rural Sports^ which work contains a full and satis- 

 factory historical account of their origin, different 

 crosses, &c., under the following genealogical heads : 

 — Shepherd's Dog, Iceland Dog, Lapland Dog, 



