59 
The Bulldog. 
yards ; and the tinker’s cur, from his use in drawing trucks 
and barrows. Our word bulldog may come from the em¬ 
ployment of the mastiff in driving cattle, as well as from 
the pertinacity with which the bulldog attacks his bovine 
enemy. The first line of the following quotation suggests 
yet another etymology :— 
“ Than came one with two bolddogges at his tayle, 
And that was a bocher, without fayle, 
All be gored in red blode.” 
(Cocke Lorelles Bote , about 1520, Percy Society, 
vol. v. p. 2.) 
After the various uses enumerated by Caius, the many 
accounts of the misuse of this noble dog in baiting lions, 
bears, horses, and asses fail harshly on the ear. These 
sports have been so fully described by authors that there 
is no occasion to dwell on them. 
Thomas Fuller writes of mastiffs:— 
“ They are not (like apes) the fooles and jesters, but the useful 
servants in a family, viz. the porters thereof. Pliny observes, that 
Brittan breeds cowardly lions and courageous mastiffes, which seems 
to me no wonder; the former being whelped in prison, the latter at 
liberty. An English mastiff, anno 1602, did in effect worst a lion, on 
the same token that Prince Henry allowed a kind of pension for his 
maintenance, and gave strict orders, ‘ that he that had fought with the 
king of beasts should never after encounter any inferior creatures.’ ” 
( Worthies of England, ed. Nichols, 1811, vol. 2, p. 276.) 
The ban-dog, or tie-dog, was probably a small variety 
of the mastiff. 
“ Whose noise, as me-thinketh, I could best compare 
To a cry of hounds, following after the hare, 
Or a rabblement of bandogs barking at a bear.” 
(New Custom, an Interlude, 1573.) 
“ I know the villain is both rough and grim ; 
But as a tie-dog I will muzzle him. 
I’ll bring him up to fawn upon my friends, 
And worry dead my foes.” 
(H. Chettle, The Death of Robert Earl 
of Huntingdon .) 
