i8 



THE NEW BOOK OF THE DOG. 



it is too large a subject to be dealt with 

 here. 



As for the dog in art, it would occupy 

 the leisure of a lifetime adequately to treat 

 so immense a theme. Yet it is a study 

 which would yield great results. The 

 student who should visit the galleries of 

 Europe and take careful note of not only 

 the magnificent canvases of Titian and 

 Velasquez and Veronese, in which the 

 Bloodhound so frequently looks out, grand 

 as surly kings and admirals, but also the 

 paintings of all other masters from the 

 earliest times to our own Landseer and 

 Riviere, would confer an invaluable boon 

 upon all lovers of canine nature. Hitherto 

 this method of tracing the dog's history 

 and variations has only been done in con- 

 nection with one breed, by Mr. W. Arkwright, 

 whose monograph on the Pointer is a verit- 

 able monument of erudition and discernment. 



From the old flea-bitten Argus that first 

 recognised his disguised master in the 

 Odyssey down to Pope's Bounce, Byron's 

 Boatswain, Sir Walter Scott's Maida, to 

 Matthew Arnold's Geist and Kaiser, and 

 to Mrs. Browning's Flush, particular dogs 

 have been celebrated in the history of 

 letters. There is not much trace of a 

 real appreciation of the more generous 

 kinds, at least as friends and companions, 

 in the whole range of French literature. 

 On the other hand, there is scarcely one 

 great British poet, from Chaucer to Burns 

 and Moore and Tennyson, who does not, 

 more or less directly, impress us with the 

 conviction that he was a true lover of dogs. 



In prose literature it is the same. The 

 dog appears now and then in the novels of 

 Fielding and Smollett. Dr. Johnson was 

 a lover of dogs, and knew the points of a 

 Bulldog.* Scott was noted as a good 



* Johnson, after examining the animal atten- 

 tively : " No, sir, he is not well shaped, for there 

 is not the quick transition from the thickness of 

 the fore part to the tenuity the thin part behind, 

 which a Bulldog ought to have." Taylor said a 

 small Bulldog was as good as a large one. Johnson : 

 " No, sir ; for in proportion to his size he has 

 strength, and your argument would prove that a 

 good Bulldog may be as small as a mouse." 

 (BOSWELL, 1777.) 



.judge of all breeds. Perhaps the first 

 author to make a dog the hero and chief 

 character in a story was Captain Marryat, 

 in " Snarleyow," which was earlier than 

 Dr. John Brown's delightful " Rab and 

 His Friends." Ouida, who has done so 

 much towards promoting a greater kind- 

 ness to animals, infused with pathos her 

 admirable story of "A Dog of Flanders." 

 Nor should we forget Mr. Anstey's " Black 

 Poodle," or Mr. Robert Hichens' "Black 

 Spaniel," or Maurice Maeterlinck's beau- 

 tiful tribute to his dead Pelleas in " My 

 Dog." Mr. Ollivant's " Owd Bob," with 

 its thrilling descriptions of Sheepdog trials 

 in the dales of Kenmuir, is one of the best 

 of fictional dog books, comparable only 

 with Jack London's two deeply impressive 

 stories of the huskies of North- West Canada, 

 " The Call of the Wild," and " White Fang," 

 in which is embodied from two points of 

 view the argument of the close relation- 

 ship between the dog and the wolf ; Buck 

 being a respectable civilised dog who 

 answers to the " Call of the Wild," and joins 

 a pack of wolves, and White Fang being a 

 starved, wolfine hanger-on to a dog-sled 

 who gradually adopts the ways of trained 

 and intelligent dogs. 



Women have always played an important 

 part in our British love of the dog, and it 

 is interesting to note that the earliest 

 printed work in the English language 

 in which the various breeds then in 

 existence were scientifically classified was 

 the " Book of Field Sports," written by 

 Dame Juliana Berners, who was Prioress 

 of St. Alban's, about the middle of the 

 fifteenth century.* The catalogue of breeds 

 in her volume was not an extensive 

 one. " Thyse ben the names of houndes," 

 she wrote, " fyrste there is a Grehoun, a 

 Bastard, a Mengrell, a Mastif, a Lemor, 

 a Spanyel, Raches, Kenettys, Teroures, 

 Butchers' Houndes, Dunghyll dogges, Tryn- 

 deltaylles, and Pryckeryd currys, and smalle 

 ladyes poppees that bere awaye the flees." 



* Edward Plantagenet's "Master of Game," in 

 which sporting dogs are interestingly dealt with, 

 was written earlier, it is true, but it remained 

 for centuries in inaccessible manuscript. 



