A BATTLE C DOWGS. ^j 



or quadruped, approach : the empty porter-pots, in one of which a tobacco-pipe has 

 been placed ; the large and heavy top-boots ; the hat, the neckcloth, the bottle and 

 knife, all on the block ; the rope and oil-horn hanging up ;— all are as significant of a 

 "low" calling, though one perfectly honest and necessary, as is the animal himself 

 among the canine species. 



It must have been a dog of this fighting character that Professor Wilson, in his 

 "Recreations of Christopher North," refers to as engaged in a terrific encounter 

 with another — assumed to be, or perhaps really, his own, and which he calls " Fro : " 

 of this latter animal he says — 



"Never yet saw we a fighter like thee. Up on thy hind legs in a moment, like a growling 

 Polar monster, with thy fore-paws round thy foeman's neck— bull-dog, collie, mastiff, or 

 greyhound— and down with him in a moment, with as much ease as Cass,* in the wrestling- 

 ring at Carlisle, would throw a Bagman ; and then woe to the throat of the downfallen, for thy 

 jaws were shark-like as they opened and shut with their terrific tusks, grinding through skin 

 and sinew to the spine. 



" Once, and once only — bullied out of all endurance by a half-drunken carrier — did we 

 consent to let thee engage in a pitched battle with a mastiff victorious in fifty fights — a famous 

 shanker, and a throttler beyond all compare. It was indeed a bloody business : now errnwlinsr 

 along the glaurf of the road — a hairy hurricane ; now snorting in the suffocating ditch ; now 

 fair play on the clear and clean crown of the causey ; now rolling over and over through a 

 chance open white little gate, into a cottage garden ; now separated by choking them both 

 with a cord ; now brought out again with savage and fiery eyes to the scratch on a green plot 

 round the signboard-swinging tree in the middle of the village ; auld women in their mutches \ 

 crying out 'Shame! where's the minister?' young women, with combs in their pretty heads, 

 blinking with pale and almost weeping faces from low-lintelled doors ; children crowding for 

 sight and safety on the louping-on-stane ; § and loud cries ever and anon at each turn and 

 eddy of the fight of * Well done, Fro ! well done, Fro ! ' for Fro was the delight and glory of 

 the whole parish ; and the honour of all its inhabitants, male and female, was felt to be staked 

 on the issue," &c., &c. 



More to the point, perhaps, as regards Landseer's specimen of " Low Life," is the 

 same writer's description of a dog-fight in Edinburgh. It is found in Wilson's 

 •' Noctes Ambrosianae." 



"Shepherd. Down anither close, and a battle o' dowgs ! A buU-dowg and a mastiff! The 

 great big brown mastiff mouthin the buU-dowg by the verra hainches, as if to crunch his back, 

 and the wee white bull-dowg never seemin to fash his thoomb, but stickin by the regular set 

 teeth o' his underhung jaw to the throat o' the mastiff, close to the jugular, and no to be 

 drawn aff the grip by twa strong baker-boys pu'in at the tail o' the tane, and twa strong 

 butcher-boys pu'in at the tail o' the tither ; for the mastiff's maister begins to fear that the 

 veeper at his throat will kill him outrighf, and offers to pay a' betts {sic.) and confess his dowg 



* A famous Cumberland wrestler of that day. J Caps. 



t Mud. § A stone or step to aid in mounting on horseback. 



H 



