And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?”
The Bandogs, which Sir Thomas More and Spenser describe, appear to have been different from those of Sambucus and Whitney, or, rather, they were employed for a different purpose. “We must,” writes the worthy Chancellor (p. 586), “haue bande dogges to dryue them (the swine) out of the corne with byting, and leade them out by the ears;” and Spenser, in Virgil’s Gnat (l. 539), speaks of—
“greedie Scilla, under whom there lay
Manie great bandogs, which her gird about.”
These dogs were mastiffs, and their banning was barking or braying; but the dogs entitled bandogs in Whitney, though also mastiffs, were fastened by a band to a small cart, and trained to draw it. A large species of dog may be seen at this day in the towns of Belgium performing the very same service to which their ancestors had been accustomed above three centuries ago. Sambucus heads his description of the bandog’s strength and labours with the sentence,—“ The dog complains that he is greatly wronged.”
Canis queritur nimium nocere.
Sambucus, 1584.