quarrelling.
Moreover they bite very sore, and love candles exceedingly, as do the
men and women of their country; but I may say no more of them, because
they are not bred with us. Yet this will I make report of by the way,
for pastime's sake, that when a great man of those parts came of late
into one of our ships which went thither for fish, to see the form and
fashion of the same, his wife apparelled in fine sables, abiding on
the deck whilst her husband was under the hatches with the mariners,
espied a pound or two of candles hanging on the mast, and being loath
to stand there idle alone, she fell to and eat them up every one,
supposing herself to have been at a jolly banquet, and shewing very
pleasant gesture when her husband came up again unto her.

The last kind of toyish curs are named dancers, and those being of a
mongrel sort also, are taught and exercised to dance in measure at the
musical sound of an instrument, as at the just stroke of a drum, sweet
accent of the citharne, and pleasant harmony of the harp, shewing many
tricks by the gesture of their bodies: as to stand bolt upright, to
lie flat on the ground, to turn round as a ring holding their tails in
their teeth, to saw and beg for meat, to take a man's cap from his
head, and sundry such properties, which they learn of their idle
roguish masters, whose instruments they are to gather gain, as old
apes clothed in motley and coloured short-waisted jackets are for the
like vagabonds, who seek no better living than that which they may get
by fond pastime and idleness. I might here intreat of other dogs, as
of those which are bred between a bitch and a wolf, also between a
bitch and a fox, or a bear and a mastiff. But as we utterly want the
first sort, except they be brought unto us: so it happeneth sometimes
that the other two are engendered and seen at home amongst us. But all
the rest heretofore remembered in this chapter there is none more ugly
and odious in sight, cruel and fierce in deed, nor untractable in
hand, than that which is begotten between the bear and the bandog. For
whatsoever he catcheth hold of he taketh it so fast that a man may
sooner tear and rend his body in sunder than get open his mouth to
separate his chaps. Certes he regardeth neither wolf, bear, nor lion,
and therefore may well be compared with those two dogs which were sent
to Alexander out of India (and procreated as it is thought between a
mastiff and a male tiger, as be those