456 



GROUP OF CROPPED GRIFFONS, 



THE PROPERTY OF MADAME ALBERT MANS, OF BRUSSELS. 



CHAPTER LII. 

 THE BRUSSELS GRIFFON. 



BY MRS. H. HANDLEY SPICER. 



" Nobles, whom arms or arts adorn, 

 Wail for my infants yet unborn. 

 None but a peer of wit and grace 

 Can hope a puppy of my race : 

 And, oh, would Fate the bliss decree 

 To mine (a bliss too great for me) 

 That two my tallest sons might grace 



AWAY back in the 'seventies numbers 

 J-\ of miners in Yorkshire and the 

 Midlands are said to have possessed 

 little \viry-coated and \viry-dispositioned 

 red dogs, which accompanied their owners 

 to work, being stowed away in pockets of 

 overcoats until the dinner hour, when they 

 were brought out to share their masters' 

 meals, perchance chasing a casual rat in 

 between times. Old men of to-day who 

 remember these little " red tarriers " tell us 

 that they were the originals of the present- 

 day Brussels Griffons, and to the sporting 

 propensities of tin- aforesaid miners is attri- 

 buted the gameness which is such a charac- 



lulus' side, as erst Evander's, 



To keep off flatterers, spies, and panders ; 



To let no noble slave come near, 



And scare Lord Fannies from his 



ear : 



Then might a royal youth, and true, 

 Enjoy at least a friend or two." 



teristic of their latter-day representatives. 

 One seldom sees any dogs portrayed in the 

 pictures of the nineteenth century which 

 bear much resemblance to the breed as we 

 know it, unless we except such specimens 

 as the little dog in Landseer's well-known 

 picture of " Dignity and Impudence." But 

 this little dog might be claimed with equal 

 justice as- a bad Yorkshire or a mongrel 

 Skye Terrier. 



No one who is well acquainted with the 

 Brussels Griffon would claim that the breed 

 dates back, like the Greyhound, to hoary 

 antiquity, or, indeed, that it has any pre- 

 tensions to have " come over with the Con- 



