exercises, and to content their corrupt concupiscences with vain disport—­a silly poor shift to shun their irksome idleness.  The Sybaritical puppies the smaller they be (and thereto if they have a hole in the fore parts of their heads) the better they are accepted, the more pleasure also they provoke, as meet playfellows for mincing mistresses to bear in their bosoms, to keep company withal in their chambers, to succour with sleep in bed, and nourish with meat at board, to lie in their laps, and lick their lips as they lie (like young Dianas) in their waggons and coaches.  And good reason it should be so, for coarseness with fineness hath no fellowship, but featness with neatness hath neighbourhood enough.  That plausible proverb therefore versified sometime upon a tyrant—­namely, that he loved his sow better than his son—­may well be applied to some of this kind of people, who delight more in their dogs, that are deprived of all possibility of reason, than they do in children that are capable of wisdom and judgment.  Yea, they oft feed them of the best where the poor man’s child at their doors can hardly come by the worst.  But the former abuse peradventure reigneth where there hath been long want of issue, else where barrenness is the best blossom of beauty:  or, finally, where poor men’s children for want of their own issue are not ready to be had.  It is thought of some that it is very wholesome for a weak stomach to bear such a dog in the bosom, as it is for him that hath the palsy to feel the daily smell and savour of a fox.  But how truly this is affirmed let the learned judge:  only it shall suffice for Doctor Caius to have said thus much of spaniels and dogs of the gentle kind.

Dogs of the homely kind are either shepherd’s curs or mastiffs.  The first are so common that it needeth me not to speak of them.  Their use also is so well known in keeping the herd together (either when they grass or go before the shepherd) that it should be but in vain to spend any time about them.  Wherefore I will leave this cur unto his own kind, and go in hand with the mastiff, tie dog, or band dog, so called because many of them are tied up in chains and strong bonds in the daytime, for doing hurt abroad, which is a huge dog, stubborn, ugly, eager, burthenous of body (and therefore of but little swiftness), terrible and fearful to behold, and oftentimes more fierce and fell than any Archadian or Corsican cur.  Our Englishmen, to the extent that these dogs may be more cruel and fierce, assist nature with some art, use, and custom.  For although this kind of dog be capable of courage, violent, valiant, stout, and bold:  yet will they increase these their stomachs by teaching them to bait the bear, the bull, the lion, and other such like cruel and bloody beasts (either brought over or kept up at home for the same purpose), without any collar to defend their throats, and oftentimes there too they train them up in fighting and wrestling with a man (having for