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CHAPTER L. 
THE MALTESE DOG. 
«|. The little dogs and alt, 
Tray, Blanche, and Sweetheart.” 
© doubt has been cast upon the belief 
N that the small, white, silky Canis 
Meliteus 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 Malta, 
although this supposition cannot be veri- 
fied, as there were at least three islands to 
which the name of Melita 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 type 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 evidence of art, that it was 
highly valued 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 
human feeling, such as “conceit, gluttony, 
indolence, petulance”; and the “little 
curly, short-nosed, fringy-pawed things, 
which all Venetian ladies petted” are in- 
troduced, not complimentarily, by Veron- 
ese in two of his greatest pictures—‘ The 
Presentation of his own Family to the 
Madonna” (at Dresden) and ‘The Queen 
of Sheba before Solomon ” (at Turin). 
Kine LEAR. 
The “offspring of the stock of Malta” 
were probably first imported into Eng- 
land during the reign of Henry VIII. 
It is certain that they were regarded as 
“meet playfellows for mincing mistresses ”’ 
in the reign of Elizabeth, whose physician, 
Dr. Caius, alluded to them as being dis- 
tinct from 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 exempted from the 
order of the residue. The dogges of this 
kinde doth Callimachus call Meliters, of the 
Iseland Melita, in the sea of Sicily (which 
at this day is named Malta, an iseland in 
deede famous and renouned).” 
Early writers aver that it was customary 
when Maltese puppies were born to press 
or twist the nasal bone with the fingers 
“in order that they may seem more elegant 
in the sight of men’—a _ circumstance 
which goes to show that our forefathers 
were not averse to improving artificially the 
points of their dogs. 
The snowy whiteness and soft, silky 
texture of its coat must always cause the 
Maltese dog to be admired ; but the variety 
has never been commonly 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 
