THE HOUND. 293 
"My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind, 
So flewed, so sanded; and their heads are hung. 
With ears that sweep away the morning dew ; 
Crook-kneed and dewlapped like Thessalian bulls, 
Slow in pursuit, but matched in mouth like bells, 
Each under each, a cry more tunable 
Was never hallo’ed to, nor cheered with horn, 
In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly.” 
It is not worth the while to inquire whether the La- 
conian and Thessalian hounds, so often alluded to by 
Horace, Ovid and other classical writers, were in truth of 
the bloodhound type, or if they were not rather of the 
large, shaggy, half mastiff, half sheep-dog type, peculiar 
still to Albania and Epirus, and adapted to the hunting of 
the bear or boar, for which purpose they seem to have 
been principally used. 
The first improvement in this old stock was, it would 
seem, the old improved foxhound of Somerville’s and 
Beckford’s stamp, and admirably described by the latter 
writer in the following passage. 
“ Let his legs be straight as arrows, his feet round and 
not too large; his shoulders back; his breast rather wide 
than narrow; his chest deep; his back broad; his head 
small; his neck thin; his tail thick and bushy—if he carry 
it well, so much the better; . . a small head, however, as 
relative to beauty only, for as to goodness, I believe large- 
headed hounds are in no wise inferior.” 
This is the stamp of dog after which our forefathers used 
to ride from the daysof Queen Anne to the latter half of 
the reign of George the Third ; and not very different were 
