THE HARRIER. 295 



"With hounds of Sparta : never did I hear 

 Such gallant chiding : for, besides the groves. 

 The skies, the fountains, every region near 

 Seem'd all one mutual cry : I never heard 

 So musical a discord, such sweet thunder. 



The. — My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind. 

 So flew'd, so sanded ; and their heads are hung 

 With ears that sweep away the morning dew : 

 Crook 'need and dew-lapp'd like Thessalian bulls j 

 Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells. 

 Each under each, a cry more turrable 

 Was never holloa'd to, nor cheer'd with horn. 

 In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly. 



"This delineation is evidently taken from life, and the largeness 

 of the chaps and the dapples of the body, the ample sweep of 

 the slouching ears, and the large exuberance of the bagging 

 chest, the deforming crookedness of the knees, the sonorous 

 depth of note, the heavy slowness of the motion, are all such 

 clear and characteristic particulars as occur only in the Mancu- 

 nian breed. This breed was in all probability once known in 

 every part of the island. This breed was, near the close of the 

 last century, confined to one or two counties in the South- 

 western regions of the island, and to Manchester and its 

 vicinity in the North- Western. This breed is now utterly 

 extinct in the former, and survives only in the latter ; and the 

 great size and the present fewness of this remarkable race 

 pretty plainly proclaim them to be natives of this island, and 

 to be the last perishing remains of a British breed within it. 

 Once lost in the North, the dog was still continued in the 

 South, and had there the honour to be delineated by the just, 

 bold pencil of a Shakespeare. Once lost in the North, the dog 

 was first introduced into it again from the South, and bears, 

 therefore, at Manchester, the expressive appellation of the 

 Southern hound ; and being originally carried from Manchester 

 into many of the neighbouring districts, and even into some of 

 the southern counties, it there retains the note of its recenter 



