Part 1

The following version does not aim at pleasing the mere literary man. It was not undertaken with the ambitious expectation of being generally acceptable. It is addressed to the coursing public alone—to the amateurs of the leash; for whom the original was written, seventeen centuries ago, by their representative of old, a courser of Nicomedia in Asia Minor; and for whose amusement and instruction the same now assumes an English garb.

The general reader will find little in it to interest him. He will perhaps consider it altogether unworthy of his notice. The sportsman, fond of

the musical confusion Of hounds and echo in conjunction,

will read it with indifference, as treating of a branch of rural sport, not congenial to his taste; and wonder that an attempt should be made to bring under public notice so ancient a treatise on a subject of such partial interest. But the courser, it is humbly conceived, the active patron of the κύνες Κελτικαὶ proud of his greyhounds, that

are as swift As breathed stags, aye fleeter than the roe,

will peruse it con amore, and find in its pages much that is entertaining and practically useful, and that utility enhanced in the department of annotation.

The literary courser, whose attention it more particularly solicits, will reap the additional benefit of the light which is thrown on Arrian’s text by the ancient authors of Greece and Rome; and be ready to yield to the translator the humble merit of having collected in one point of view the classical elucidations of the Cynegeticus, and the pertinent observations of writers of a later period.

Pro captu lectoris habent sua fata libelli!

The original manual is conversant with coursing, as practised in the age of Hadrian and the Antonini, at which period the Celtic hound was well known, and highly prized: but the annotations of the translator have a more extensive range, being selected from various Cynegetica in print and manuscript, from the first institution of coursing to the present time.

[Sidenote: Gratii Falisci Cyneg. vs. 203.]

[Sidenote: Ovid. Metam. L. +i.+ vs. 533. et L. +vii.+ vs. 781.]

[Sidenote: Martial. L. +iii.+ Epig. 47. et L. +xiv.+ Epig. 200.]

[Sidenote: Polluc. Onomast. L. +v.+ Præf.]

[Sidenote: Oppian. Cyneg. L. +i.+ vs. 401.]

[Sidenote: Nemesian. Cyneg. vs. 106.]

[Sidenote: Ejusd. vs. 64.]

The imperfect poem of Gratius, the Faliscian, on hunting, and the often-cited simile of his contemporary Ovid, afford the earliest notice of the canis Gallicus—for he was unknown to ancient Greece. The description of a single-handed course by the poet of the Metamorphoses, as it is the first attempt of the kind by any classic author, so is it unrivalled in the accuracy of its technical phraseology, and the beauty of its poetry. Intermediate in point of time between the vivid Ovidian sketch, and the full and perfect picture of Arrian, are the faint outlines of the epigrammatist Martial: and subsequent to the Bithynian’s, the somewhat doubtful portrait of the philologist Julius Pollux, presented to the Emperor Commodus; and yet later, that of Oppian, the Greek poet of Anazarbus, of the reigns of Severus and Caracalla.—In these authors alone do we find any allusion to the courser’s hound, till towards the close of the third century, when he again appears in the Cynegeticon of Nemesian; who has cleverly struck out in a few lines the elegant symmetry of his shape, and added thereto some peculiar remarks on the selection, feeding, and entrance of puppies. With the scanty portraiture of the Carthaginian poet we are brought down to the reigns of Carus, his sons, “Divi fortissima pignora Cari,” and Diocletian: at which epoch, memorable alike in the annals of the world and its literature, the classical history of the leash may be said to terminate, and therewith all notice of the Celtic hound.

[Sidenote: Spelman. Gloss. pp. 113. et 551. Du Cange Gloss. in voce.]

[Sidenote: Spelman. in voce.]

We have no ancient records of the chase to succeed the Greek and Latin Cynegetica; for though it be true that the barbarian codes of law, the Salic, Burgundian, and German, extended their protection to our variety of Canis Venaticus, about the year 500, under the title of Veltris and its synonyms; and some of the Cynegetical writers appear to have been well known in the dark ages, and so highly valued in the eighth century, as to be read among the higher Greek and Roman classics, in the time of Charlemagne; and we believe coursing and other sports were as attractive in the field, as the writers upon such subjects were in the schools, (for the court of this prince had its Veltrarii, officers of the greyhound-kennel, “qui veltres custodiebant,”) still, instead of any formal treatise of this date upon the pastime of the leash, we find for several centuries, only incidental allusions to the greyhound, and his high repute, principally as distinctive of the gentility of his possessor, until the publication of “The Booke of Hawkyng, Huntyng, &c.” by Dame Juliana Berners, in the fifteenth century.

[Sidenote: Haslewood’s Prolegomena to Book of St. Albans.]

[Sidenote: Warton’s Hist. of Engl. Poetry, Vol. +ii.+ p. 172.]

[Sidenote: Book of St. Albans.]

The didactic discourse of hunting, contained in this volume, commonly known by its territorial appellation of “The Book of St. Albans,” may be an amplified versification of the prosaic “Venery of Mayster John Gyfford and Willm Twety, that were with Kyng Edward the Secunde;” or possibly a compilation and translation by the sister of Lord Berners, or the “one sumtyme schole mayster of Seynt Albons” from earlier Latin and French writers: but such authorities are as yet, I believe, unknown to Antiquaries. Excepting, therefore, the few lines, before alluded to, in the latest of the Latin Cynegetica, and the earlier portrait of Oppian, which I consider referable to the hound in question, it may be said that we do not possess in print any full description of “the propritees of a good Grehounde” ἐκ τῶν ποδῶν ἐς τὴν κεφαλὴν, from the time of the learned Courser of Nicomedia, till that of the sporting prioress of Sopewell.

[Sidenote: Ms. Cotton. Vesp. B. +xii.+ Brit. Mus.]

[Sidenote: Henry VI. pt. +ii.+ act +ii.+]

Not that I am ignorant of the curious early treatise of Gaston Phœbus, the celebrated Comte de Foix, written in the middle of the fourteenth century, entitled “Des Deduitz de la Chasse de Bestes Sauvaiges et des Oyseaux de Proye;” nor of a more rare work in manuscript, =The Mayster of Game=, composed by Edmund Duke of York, “Edmund Langley, Edward the Third’s fifth son,” in the latter part of the fourteenth century; and therefore, in point of date, claiming a priority to the book of St. Albans, as do, of course, the lucubrations of the Second Edward’s attendants before mentioned. But these enchiridia of field sports preceded the Sopewell collection only a few years; and in the Count de Foix’s manual, as given by Fouilloux under the title of “La Chasse du Roy Phebus,” there is nothing on our subject worth noticing.

[Sidenote: Ms. ut supra.]

In =The Crafte of Hontyng= by Gyfford and Twety, the greyhound is mentioned only once; and hare-coursing is not recorded at all.

[Sidenote: Hardyng’s Chronicle.]

The unpublished labours of the Duke of York, “Edmonde, hyght of Langley,” contain much original and valuable information: and it is to be regretted that it is not rendered more available to coursers by being committed to the press. With copious general descriptions of our ancient field-sports, and animals obnoxious to the chase, =The Mayster of Game= unites specific delineations of the shape of each variety of canis venaticus, employed by British sportsmen of past days, with occasional references to the chace practices of foreign countries “by yonde the see.” The chapter of =greyhoundes and of here nature=, as cited hereafter in illustration of Arrian, will be read with pleasure. Indeed the Duke’s portrait of the Celtic hound is even more minutely accurate and precise than its Grecian prototype, and =her manners= as they are quaintly termed, and briefly sketched in the royal Cynegeticus, establish many of the remarks of the younger Xenophon περὶ τῆς γνώμης τῶν κυνῶν.

[Sidenote: Script. illust. M. B. auct. I. Baleo Cent. 8. 611.]

[Sidenote: Oldys in Biograph. Britannica, in voce Caxton, note.]

Still Dame Julyan’s compilation being, at least, the first of the kind that issued from the English press, and the type of our modern works of Venery, may be viewed as the earliest attempt, since the revival of letters, to certify by intelligible canons, the corporeal characteristics of a good greyhound. With the traditionary dogmata of Sir Tristrem de Liones, who was the reputed “begynner of all the termes of huntynge and hawkynge,” it incorporates the accumulated knowledge of many centuries. And the Dame being no ordinary personage—“Illustris fœmina, corporis et animi dotibus abundans, ac formæ elegantiâ spectabilis—heroica mulier, ingeniosa virago”—“a second Minerva in her studies, and another Diana in her diversions”—her contemporaries would doubtless receive a cynegetical treatise from her cloister at Sopewell, with gratitude and admiration.

After the publication of the book of St. Albans, other cynegetica poetical and prosaic, in various languages, followed in rapid succession; of which the earliest in my possession are from the presses of Aldus and Feyerabendi; but collectively they afford very scanty instruction on the history and practice of the leash.

[Sidenote: Venat. Herculis Strozæ, &c. Francofort. 1582.]

[Sidenote: Adrian. Cardinal. Venat. Aldus, 1534.]

[Sidenote: Venat. et Aucup. per J. A. Lonicer. Francof. 1582.]

[Sidenote: P. Lotich. Secundi Solitariensis Poem. omnia. Burmanni Amstel. 1754.]

The Epicedium of the Florentine poet, Hercules Stroza, addressed to the Duchess of Ferrara; the hendecasyllables of Adrian Castellesi, and the quatrains of John Adam Lonicer, with their accompanying “icones artificiosissimæ ad vivum expressæ,” add nothing to our stock of information. And the same may be said of the chaste cynegetical eclogues, “Sarnis et Viburnus,” of Petrus Lotichius Secundus,

Qui citharâ primus, qui primus carminis arte Inter erat vates, Teutonis ora, tuos.

[Sidenote: Natal. Comes de Venatione Aldi fil. Venet. 1551.]

I have in vain examined the four books of “Natalis Comes de Venatione” for more than the name of the canis Celticus—probably to be interpreted of the war-dog of Gaul, rather than the Vertragus.

[Sidenote: Petri Angelii Bargæi Poemata omnia. Florent. 1568.]

The Cynegeticon of Peter Angelio, commonly called, from his Tuscan birth-place, Bargæus, is said to have been the labour of twenty years. It is a splendid specimen of modern Latinity, in beautiful Virgilian hexameters, to which the literary courser will award their merited meed of praise. The most approved shape of the “canis cursor” is correctly portrayed, with a reference to the fabulous tale of the Ovidian Lælaps. Nor has the poet disdained to enter on the minute and necessary details of breeding, and kenneling the pack. Indeed the whole of his fifth book is devoted to the “blanda canum soboles;” and the reader will find incorporated in the instructions therein given, nearly all the arcana of the Greek and Latin Cynegetica, excepting these of Arrian’s Manual, which do not appear to have been known to the poet of Barga. He employs the greyhound in coursing the fox, wolf, deer, and goat, but gives no description of hare-coursing in any of the six books of his Cynegeticon; nor in the eclogues entitled “Venatoria,” forming part of the fifth book of his “Carmina.” Had the manuscript of Arrian’s Cynegeticus been known to him, he would, doubtless, have entered as fully into hare-coursing, as he has into every other variety of chase.

[Sidenote: C. Heresbachii Compendium Therouticæ universæ.]

Of Conrad Heresbach’s compendium of fishing, fowling, and hunting, attached to his larger work “de Re Rusticâ,” I have in vain endeavoured to procure a copy. It is a prosaic work, treating more of animal history, as I am informed, than of venation: still as this abbreviator of the labours of his predecessors was a man of various acquirements, and extensive erudition, it would have been satisfactory to me to have examined his “Compendium Thereuticæ Universæ;” or at least the first part of it, devoted to the hunting of terrestrial animals.

[Sidenote: H. Fracastorii Alcon, seu de Curâ Canum.]

The Alcon of Fracastor is in every one’s hands; being annexed to the editions of the Poetæ Venatici by Johnson and Kempher. It contains nothing on the subject of coursing.

[Sidenote: M. A. Blondi de Canibus et Venat. libellus, Romæ 1544.]

[Sidenote: Joan. Darcii Venusini Canes Francof. 1582.]

To Michael Angelo Blondus or Biondi, we are indebted for the first hint on clothing greyhounds in the field, and for other matters connected with the discipline of the kennel and its inmates; and to Joannes Darcius, a truly classic poet of Venusium, not unworthy the natal town of Horace, for an elegant sketch of a hare-course, cited in the subsequent annotations.

It is singular that the greyhound, indigenous as we suppose him of Gallia Celtica, should have been so little noticed by his countrymen—that a variety of chase heretofore peculiar to Gaul should have been omitted in almost all the cynegetical works of Frenchmen of the olden time; and that the same omission should be chargeable on the moderns,—on the “Venerie Normande” of M. Le Verrier de la Conterie, the “Traité de Vénerie” of M. D’Yauville, and even, to a great extent, on the volume of the Encyclopédie Méthodique, which professes to be a “Dictionnaire de toutes les espèces de Chasses.”

[Sidenote: Album Dianæ, &c. Cadomi 1655.]

Savary of Caen published a Latin poem on hare-hunting in seven books, entitled “Album Dianæ Leporicidæ, sive Venationis Leporinæ leges,” of some rarity, but of little merit. He appears to have had an especial dislike to the canis Gallicus, anathematizing the ancient Celtic recreation in the very style of our own Somerville, who in many parts of “The Chase” seemingly had his eye on the poet of Caen:

[Sidenote: Alb. Dianæ &c. L. +i.+ p. 7.]

Nam neque defixi canis irretita coturnix Indicio, non insidiis oppressa Laconum Heu leporum virtus, brevis illa et avara voluptas, Et quorum nunquam cor est satiabile cædis Nobile venandi nomen meruére!

The courser will scarce recognize his favourite dog in the slanderous abstract misnomer of “Lacedæmonii pernix violentia monstri.”

[Sidenote: La Chasse du Loup. J. de Cl.]

[Sidenote: Turbervile’s B. of H. p. 246.]

[Sidenote: Countrey Contentments. Countrey Farme &c. &c.]

The celebrated works of Jaques du Fouilloux, and his contemporary Jean de Clamorgan, do not treat of the use of the greyhound, except merely “in setting back-sets, or receytes for deare, wolfe, foxe, or such like:” but in “the noble art of Venerie” by Turbervile and Gascoigne, in “the Jewell for Gentrie,” and the compilations of Gervase Markham, we find much illustration of the science and history of the leash in Great Britain.

[Sidenote: Wase’s Illustrations of Gratius p. 74.]

Turbervile, or whoever be the translator of Fouilloux, has appended an admirable breviary of coursing to “the booke of hunting:” and Wase notifies of Gervase Markham, that “he hath reported the fruits of his own experience, as in the whole cycle of husbandry accurately; so in Cynegetiques excellently.” His chapter on coursing with greyhounds is well worthy perusal; as is also the description of the “Leporarius” by Dr. Caius in his “Libellus de canibus Britannicis.”—Need I stop to remark the doubtful features of the “canis alter præpete cursu” of Vanière’s Prædium Rusticum?—Some few points belong apparently to the Celtic hound,

[Sidenote: J. Vanierii Præd. Rustic. Lib. +iv.+]

Pes illi gracilis, longa internodia crurum, Argutum caput, et levibus vis ignea plantis; Demissumque brevi pectus se colligit alvo.

but his latrancy (“insequitur claris lepores latratibus”) would rather assign him to a different kennel. Works of a later date are too well known to need particular notice.

[Sidenote: Arriani de Venatione]

[Sidenote: c. +ix.+]

[Sidenote: c. +x.+]

[Sidenote: c. +xv.+]

Very few are the improvements, either in the discipline of the courser’s kennel, or his practice in the field, transmitted to us by these collective cynegetica; and modern ingenuity has added little to our knowledge in any department of coursing, as the reader of the Nicomedian’s Manual will readily acknowledge. His remarks on the physical indications of excellence in greyhounds, and of speed and good blood,—derived from external shape and character generally,—on the unimportance of colour,—on the indications afforded by temper, tractability in the field, mode of feeding, &c. are perfect as far as they go. Nor can we improve on his kennel management, in feeding, bedding, (εὐνὴ μαλθακὴ καὶ ἀλεεινὴ), rubbing down, (τρίψις τοῦ σώματος παντὸς,) exercising, alternated with confinement, &c. &c. As to slipping-law, and the number of hounds to be slipped at once, his injunctions μήτε ἐγγύθεν ἐπιλύειν τῷ λαγῷ, μήτε πλείους δυοῖν, are strictly complied with at present by all fair sportsmen.

The Celts, it appears, had four different ways of coursing, all of which are practised by modern amateurs, according to their several tastes, and the nature of the countries in which they follow their sport.

[Sidenote: c. +xix.+]

The superior class of Celtic gentlemen, ὅσοι μὲν πλουτοῦσιν αὐτῶν καὶ τρυφῶσιν, employed persons to look out for hares in their forms, early in the morning, and to inform them by a messenger what success they had met with, before they left home themselves.

[Sidenote: c. +xx.+]

[Sidenote: c. +xxi.+]

A second class, probably less opulent, and not able to afford the expense of hare-finders, mustered all their brother-amateurs, and beat the ground in regular array, abreast of each other. Both these parties were mounted on horseback; but a third class sallied forth on foot, and these, Arrian says, were really workmen at the sport, αὐτουργοὶ κυνηγεσίων: if any person accompanied the latter on horseback, he was ordered to keep up with the greyhounds. A fourth mode of coursing, sometimes adopted by them, was that of first loosing dogs of scent to find, and start the game, and then slipping the greyhounds, as soon as it came within sight.

Upon all of these different practices the father of the leash has entered most fully in his classical Manual: and if to these points we add his sensible remarks on the entering of puppies, on breeding, management after whelping, feeding and naming of young dogs, comparison of sexes, &c.; his merit will be allowed to be commensurate with his antiquity, and his enchiridion not only the earliest in the annals of the leash, but altogether the most abundant in valuable information.

[Sidenote: Countrey Contentments, B. +i.+ c. +i.+]

It is foreign to my purpose and inclination to enter into a prolix defence of the courser’s pursuit, against the objections of its adversaries in the field or closet. “I would not goe about,” in the words of Gervase Markham, “to elect and prescribe what recreation the husbandman should use, binding all men to one pleasure—God forbid! my purpose is merely contrary: for I know in men’s recreations, that nature taketh to herselfe an especiall prerogative, and what to one is most pleasant, to another is most offensive; some seeking to satisfie the mind, some the body, and some both in a joynt motion.”

We of the coursing fraternity prefer the “canis Gallicus,” and “arvum vacuum” of Ovid, as instrumental to our choicest diversion;

[Sidenote: Nemesian. Cyneg. vs. 48.]

camposque patentes Scrutamur, totisque citi discurrimus arvis; Et————cupimus facili cane sumere prædas: Nos timidos lepores——

but we do not forbid others

imbelles figere damas, Audacesve lupos, vulpem aut captare dolosam.

For the refined diversion of coursing may be as disagreeable to the fox-hunter, whose only joy is when

[Sidenote: Taming of the Shrew, Sc. +ii.+]

The hounds shall make the welkin answer them, And fetch shrill echoes from the hollow earth,

[Sidenote: Ellis’s Histor. Letters, 2nd Series, Vol. +iii.+ p. 199.]

[Sidenote: A Kinge’s Xtian Dutie towards God, B. +iii.+]

[Sidenote: =M. of G. fo. 64.=]

[Sidenote: B. +i.+ c. 17.]

as it is delightful to the genuine amateur, on account of its chaste, and temperate, and contemplative quiet. King James, in his Βασιλικὸν Δῶρον, (himself, according to Sir Theodore Mayerne, “violentissimis olim venationis exercitiis deditus,”) praises “the hunting with running houndes, as the most honourable and noblest sort thereof,” and is supported by the high authority of Edmund de Langley, Mayster of Game; adding “it is a thievish forme of hunting to shoote with gunnes and bowes, and greyhounde hunting is not so martiall a game.” But on the other hand, Sir Thomas Elyot, in “The Governour,” speaking of “those exercises apte to the furniture of a gentylman’s personage,” and “not utterly reproved of noble autours, if they be used with oportunitie and in measure,” calls “hunting of the hare with grehoundes a ryght good solace for men that be studiouse, or theim to whom nature hathe not geven personage, or courage apte for the warres; and also for gentilwomen, which feare nether sonne nor wynde for appayryng their beautie. And peradventure they shall be therat lesse idell, than they shold be at home in their chaumbers.”—And the author of “The Booke of Hunting,” annexed to Turbervile’s Falconrie, concludes his treatise with the following singular panegyric “concerning coursing with greyhoundes”—“the which is doubtlesse a noble pastime, and as meet for nobility and gentleman, as any of the other kinds of Venerie before declared: especially the course of the hare, which is a sport continually in sight, and made without any great travaile: so that recreation is therein to be found without unmeasurable toyle and payne: whereas in hunting with hounds, although the pastime be great, yet many times the toyle and paine is also exceeding great: and then it may well be called, eyther a painfull pastime, or a pleasant payne.”