42 The Animal-Lore of ShaTcsjoeare’s Time. 
lias descended to them in consequence of certain passages 
in the Bible. In the Old Testament this animal is 
generally spoken of as being, what he still is in Oriental 
countries, a shy, greedy, mean-spirited creature, uncared 
for, and left to dwell among the refuse of the city. Had 
he been in any way the companion of man, the dog must 
have been more favourably mentioned. 
Ben Jonson is not much more complimentary to the 
dog than Shakspeare. In one play he writes :— 
“ 0, ’tis an open-throated, black-mouthed cur, 
That bites at all, but eats on those that feed him; 
A slave, that to your face will, serpent-like, 
Creep on the ground, as he would eat the dust, 
And to your back will turn the tail, and sting 
More deadly than a scorpion.” 
{Every Man out of his Humour , i. 1.) 
But in another play he makes some amends by reporting 
how, when Sabinus, by order of the tyrant, Sejanus, was 
thrown into the river Tiber,—- 
“ His faithful dog, upbraiding all us Romans, 
Never forsook the corpse, but seeing it thrown 
Into the stream, leaped in, and drowned with it.” 
(Sejanus, iv. 5.) 
The writer Churchyard thus classifies the dog :— 
“ A Turk, a Jew, a Pagan, and a dog.” 
Sir John Davies, in an epigram, ridicules the preva¬ 
lent fancy for making unmeaning comparisons between 
unpopular individuals and dogs, and shows a truer appre¬ 
ciation of the “ friend of man ” than his contemporaries. 
“ Thou dogged Cineas, hated like a dog, 
For still thou grumblest like a mastiff dog, 
Comparst thyself to nothing but a dog : 
Thou say’st thou art as weary as a dog, 
As angry, sick, and hungry as a dog, 
As dull, and melancholy as a dog, 
