Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/358

 Chap.IX. OF MANCHESTER. 327 Be tiling the greyhounds of the Britifti race, And tafte improved the pleafures of the chace. And Gratius has given us a ftrong commendation of their fwift- nefs and a good general defcription of their nature : Si — juvat compellere Dorcas, Aut verfuta fequi leporis veftigia parvi, Pi£am macula Vertraham dilige falsa. . Ocyor afFe&u mentis pennaque cucurrit ; Sed premit inventas, non inventura latentes. Would you chace the deer y Or urge the motions of the fmaller hare, Let the brifk greyhound of the Celtic name Bound o'er the glebe and (hew his painted frame. Swift as the wing that fails adown the wind, Swift as the wi(h that darts along the mind, The Celtic greyhound fweeps the level tea, Eyes as he ftrains, and flops the flying prey; But Ihould the game elude his watchful eyes> No nofe fagacious tells him where it lies^ There is a fourth breed of our dogs which equally appears t<? be the genuine production of the ifland. That is the race of ' our little terriers, fo ufeful as it now is, fo neceffary as it muft once have been, in the deftru&ion of the weezle the foulmart and the polecat of our woods.. Thefe and the kindred clafles of our woodland vermin muft without them have multiplied to an in- finite degree in the ifknd, and have proved an infinite annoyance to the poultry-yards and the hare-parks of the Britiih Ghieftains. The terrier therefore muft have been abfolutely neceflkry among us in the period of the prirr^aeval Britons. And the terrier ap- pears to be aftually a native of the ifland. It is very evidfently defcribed in the Poems of Oppian, whoSived in the days- of Severus,. and who prefents us with this circumstantial account of it 1
 * Ilia feras *