at), whereby they
become the more fierce and cruel unto strangers. The Caspians make so
much account sometimes of such great dogs that every able man would
nourish sundry of them in his house of set purpose, to the end they
should devour their carcases after their deaths thinking the dog's
bellies to be the most honourable sepulchres. The common people also
followed the same rate, and therefore there were tie dogs kept up by
public ordinance, to devour them after their deaths: by means whereof
these beasts became the more eager, and with great difficulty after a
while restrained from falling upon the living. But whither am I
digressed? In returning therefore to our own, I say that of mastiffs,
some bark only with fierce and open mouth but will not bite; but the
cruelest do either not bark at all or bite before they bark, and
therefore are more to be feared than any of the other. They take also
their name of the word "mase" and "thief" (or "master-thief" if you
will), because they often stound and put such persons to their shifts
in towns and villages, and are the principal causes of their
apprehension and taking. The force which is in them surmounteth all
belief, and the fast hold which they take with their teeth exceedeth
all credit: for three of them against a bear, four against a lion, are
sufficient to try mastries with them. King Henry the Seventh, as the
report goeth, commanded all such curs to be hanged, because they durst
presume to fight against the lion, who is their king and sovereign.
The like he did with an excellent falcon, as some say, because he
feared not hand-to-hand match with an eagle, willing his falconers in
his own presence to pluck off his head after he was taken down, saying
that it was not meet for any subject to offer such wrong unto his lord
and superior, wherein he had a further meaning. But if King Henry the
Seventh had lived in our time what would he have done to our English
mastiff, which alone and without any help at all pulled down first a
huge bear, then a pard, and last of all a lion, each after other
before the French king in one day, when the Lord Buckhurst was
ambassador unto him, and whereof if I should write the circumstances,
that is, how he took his advantage being let loose unto them, and
finally drave them into such exceeding fear, that they were all glad
to run away when he was taken from them, I should take much pains, and
yet reap but small credit: wherefore it shall suffic