Script. illust. Baleo Cent. 8. 611. graph. Britannica, in voce Caxton, note. And the Dame1 being no ordinary personage-" Illustris fœmina, corporis et animi dotibus abundans, ac formæ elegantiâ Oldys in Bio- 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. Venat. Hercu lis Strozæ, &c. Francofort. 1582. 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. The Epicedium of the Florentine poet, Hercules Stroza, addressed to the Duchess of Ferrara; the hendecasyllables of Adrian. Cardi- Adrian Castellesi, and the quatrains of John Adam Lonicer, with their accompanying "icones artificiosissimæ ad vivum cup. per J. A. expressæ," add nothing to our stock of information. And the same may be said of the chaste cynegetical, eclogues, "Sarnis nal. Venat. Aldus, 1534. Venat. et Au Lonicer. Fran cof. 1582. P. Lotich. Se cundi Solitari- et Viburnus," of Petrus Lotichius Secundus, ensis Poem. omnia. Burman ni Amstel.1754. Qui citharâ primus, qui primus carminis arte Inter erat vates, Teutonis ora, tuos. Biograph. Brit. note, Caxton, p. 367. 1. The Biographia Britannica is amusingly severe in its strictures on the renowned Mrs. Barnes, and her incongruous occupations in the field and cloister. "There appears such a motley masquerade—such an indistinctness of petticoat and breeches, --such a problem and concorporation of sexes, according to the image that arises out of the several representations of this religious sportswoman or virago, that one can scarcely consider it, without thinking Sir Tristram, the old monkish forester, and Juliana, the matron of the nuns, had united to confirm John Cleveland's 'Canonical Hermaphrodite."" Venatione Aldi I have in vain examined the four books of "Natalis Comes Natal. Comes de de Venatione" for more than the name of the canis Celticus fil. Venet. 1551. probably to be interpreted of the war-dog of Gaul, rather than the Vertragus. 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 those 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 harecoursing, as he has into every other variety of chase. Petri Angelii Bargai Poemata omnia. Flo rent. 1568. Of Conrad Heresbach's compendium of fishing, fowling, C. Heresbachii Compendium and hunting,' attached to his larger work" de Re Rusticâ," I Thereuticæ uni 1. Should the reader meet with any extracts from the Compendium in the subsequent annotations, they are to be received on the authority of Conrad Gesner, from whose "Historia Quadrupedum" they are selected. The same learned work has B versæ. H. Fracastorii M. A. Blondi de Canibus et Romæ 1544. 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 Thereutica Universæ ; " or at least the first part of it, devoted to the hunting of terrestrial animals. 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. To Michael Angelo Blondus or Biondi, we are indebted for Venat. libellus, 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 Francof. 1582. Venusium, not unworthy the natal town of Horace, for an elegant sketch of a hare-course, cited in the subsequent Joan. Darcii Venusini Canes 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." afforded the few parallel passages adduced from Albertus Magnus, Belisarius, and Tardif. For all others the translator is himself answerable, having culled them from the original sources, and generally from the most approved editions. 1 &c. Cadomi Savary of Caen published a Latin poem on hare-hunting Album Dianæ, in seven books, entitled "Album Dianæ Leporicidæ, sive 1655. 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: Nam neque defixi canis irretita coturnix Heu leporum virtus, brevis illa et avara voluptas, Et quorum nunquam cor est satiabile cædis Nobile venandi nomen meruêre ! The courser will scarce recognize his favourite dog in the slanderous abstract misnomer of "Lacedæmonii pernix violentia monstri." Alb. Diana &c. La Chasse du 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 Turbervile's B. of H. p. 246. 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.2 Countrey Con- tentments. &c. &c. 1. Innuba, qui pariter cœlebs, duo numina cultu Alb. Dianæ &c. 2. The date of the greyhound's introduction into these islands is with difficulty Symmachi Eascertained. If the "septem Scoticorum canum oblatio" of Flavian, wherewith he pist. L. 11. Epist. 77. graced the Quæstor's spectacle of his brother Symmachus at Rome, be really coarse varieties of the Celtic type, as supposed by Christopher Wase, this bound must have tions of Gratius p. 74. Turbervile, or whoever be the translator of Fouilloux, has appended an admirable breviary of coursing to "the booke of Wase's Illustra 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, J. Vanierii Lib. IV. Pes illi gracilis, longa internodia crurum, but his latrancy ("insequitur claris lepores latratibus") would. 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 been found here as early as the reign of Theodosius. Indeed Hector Boethius and Holinshed place him amongst us at an earlier period: nor is it improbable that he See the Appen- originally accompanied the Scoto-Celts from the continent of Europe at their primary irruption into Ireland and Scotland. We have evidence of his being an inmate of the Anglo-Saxon kennels in the days of Elfric, Duke of Mercia; and manuscriptal paintings have descended to us of a Saxon chieftain and his huntsman, attended by a brace of greyhounds, of the date of the 9th century—the earliest representation which I have seen of this hound as connected with British field-sports. dix Class III. Cotton. Mss. Tiber. B. v. 1. Contained in his work entitled "Countrey Contentments." In addition to which, "The Countrey Farme," by the same author, a compilation from the French, will be read with amusement. |
