Seated near the toiling mastiff is a lady with two or three pet curs, and the large dog complains,—
“Were I a little whelp, to my lady how dear I should be; Of board and of bed I never the want should see.”[[183]]
Whitney, using the woodcut which adorns the editions of Sambucus both in 1564 and 1599, prefixes a loftier motto (p. 140),—Feriunt summos fulmina montes,—“Thunderbolts strike highest mountains;” and thus expatiates he,—
“The bandogge, fitte to matche the bull, or beare,
With burthens greate, is loden euery daye:
Or drawes the carte, and forc’d the yoke to weare:
Where littell dogges doe passe their time in playe:
And ofte, are bould to barke, and eeke to bite,
When as before, they trembled at his sighte.
Yet, when in bondes they see his thrauled state,