448 



CHAPTER L. 



THE MALTESE DOG. 



' . . . The little dogs and all, 

 Tray, Blanche, and Sweetheart." 



King Lear. 



N'O doubt has been cast upon tlie belief 

 that the small, white, silky Canis 

 Mclitcvus is the most ancient of 

 all the lap dogs of the Western world. It 

 was a favourite in the time of Phidias ; it 

 was an especial pet of the great ladies of 

 Imperial Rome. It appears to have come 

 originally from the Adriatic island of Melita 

 rather than from the Mediterranean IMalta, 

 although this supposition cannot be veri- 

 fied, as there were at least three islands to 

 which the name of ]\Ielita was anciently 

 applied, the third being adjacent to Sicily. 

 There is, however, no question that it is 

 of European origin, and that the breed, as 

 we know it to-day, has altered exceedingly 

 little in tvpe and size since it was alluded 

 to by Aristotle more than three hundred 

 years before the Christian era. One may 

 gather from various references in literature, 

 and from the e\'idence of art, that it was 

 highly \'alued in ancient times. " When 

 his favourite dog dies," wrote Theophrastus 

 in illustration of the vain man, " he deposits 

 the remains in a tomb, and erects a monu- 

 ment over the grave, with the inscription, 

 ' Offspring of the stock of .Malta.' " 



These are the little dogs upon whom, as 

 Ruskin tells us, Veronese and the other 

 Venetian painters were " so hard " ; exem- 

 plifying by their means the lowest forms of 

 Imman feeling, such as " conceit, gluttonv, 

 incl(jlence, petulance"; and the "little 

 curly, short-nosed, fringy-pawed things, 

 which all Venetian ladies petted " are in- 

 troduced, not complimentarily, by ^'eron- 

 ese in two of his greatest pictures — " The 

 Presentation of his own Family to tlie 

 Madonna" (at Dresden) and "The Queen 

 of Sheba before Solomon " (at Turin). 



The " offspring of the stock of Malta " 

 were probably first imported into Eng- 

 land during the reign of Henry VIII. 

 It is certain that thev were regarded as 

 " meet playfellows for mincing mistresses " 

 in the reign of Elizabeth, whose physician, 

 Dr. Caius, alluded to them as being dis- 

 tinct froni the Spaniel, "'gentle or com- 

 forter." 



" There is, besides those which wee have 

 already delivered," writes the Doctor, 

 " another sort of gentle dogges in this our 

 Englishe style, but e.xempted from the 

 order of the residue. The dogges of this 

 kinde doth Callimachus call Melitaers, of the 

 Iseland Melita, in the sea of Sicily (which 

 at this day is named IMalta, an iseland in 

 deede famous and renouned)." 



Earlv writers aver that it was customary 

 wlu-n Maltese puppies were born to press 

 or twist the nasal bone with the fingers 

 ■■ in order that tliey may seem more elegant 

 in the sight of men " — a circumstance 

 which goes to show that our forefathers 

 were not a\-erse to improving artificially the 

 points of their dogs. 



The snowy whiteness and soft, silky 

 te.xture of its coat must always cause the 

 Maltese dog to be admired ; but the variety 

 has ne\-er been connnonly kept in England 

 — a fact which is, no doubt, due to the 

 difficulty of breeding it and to the trouble 

 in keeping the dog's long jacket clean and 

 free from tangle. Thirty or forty years ago 

 it was more popular as a lap dog than in 

 has ever been since, and in the early days 

 of dog shows many beautiful specimens 

 were exhibited. This popularity was largely 

 due to the efforts of Mr. R. Mandeville, of 

 Southwark, who has been referred to as 



