The English Setter 107 
engravings from paintings of setters by different artists. The one by 
Reinagle shows a beautiful dog, much handsomer and of a great deal 
more quality than the same artist’s setter in the “Sportman’s Reposi- 
tory,” of twenty-five years later. The very extraordinary setter ac- 
companying the game-keeper is a painting by G. Stubbs, a very famous 
animal artist. 
We now take up the actual history of the making of the English setter, 
and we are not only indebted for all pertinent information on the subject to 
the late Edward Laverack, but above that we are most unquestionably in- 
debted to him for placing the setter in its proper position as a field dog and 
for the development of the type which was not only the standard of excel- 
lence in his day, but that upon which we have built the present-day setter. 
For some peculiar reason it has been the custom of a certain class of writers 
to belittle Mr. Laverack and what he accomplished, alleging that the incon- 
sistencies in his statements regarding the pedigrees of his dogs and some 
such small matters condemned the whole business. If Mr. Laverack had 
never given a single pedigree with any of his dogs, and had never told any 
person how they were bred, they would have been just as good workers, 
just as good looking and in every way as useful in building up the breed. 
As a strain they were unequalled in their day, and but for them Americans 
would have had poor material in the way of importations with which to 
improve the natives of inter-variety breeding. Strangest of all, most of those 
who attacked Mr. Laverack and his dogs were thick-and-thin supporters 
of what has been named the “Llewellyn” setter, a strain made up from 
dogs bought, not bred, by Mr. Purcell Llewellyn, one-half of the desired 
pedigree being Laverack blood. On this subject we will have more to say 
later. 
But for Mr. Laverack we should know nothing of the various strains 
kept by sporting gentlemen of prominence throughout England and Scot- 
land, and in his book, “The Setter,” is to be found all that later writers 
knew about the various strains and which they made use of without com- 
punction as original. Mr. Laverack’s book is now exceedingly scarce, 
almost, if not quite, as hard to secure as the first edition of “Stonehenge,” 
which many have thought did not exist. As Mr. Laverack’s text is con- 
densed it may be copied in full, so far as reference is made to the leading 
varieties of the English setter from the time his knowledge of them began, 
which we may set down as 1815-20. 
