There came and looked him in the face
An angel beautiful and bright;
And that he knew it was a Fiend,
This miserable Knight——
"A Toothless Mastiff Bitch."
Here is a description of one with teeth—a dog seldom seen now. It is taken from a German book on husbandry, translated by Barnaby Goodge, and is quoted in Animal Lore:
"First the mastie that keepeth the house: for this purpose you must provide you such a one, as hath a large and a mightie body, a great and a shrill voyce, that both with his barking he may discover, and with his sight dismay the theefe, yea, being not seene, with the horror of his voice put him to flight; his stature must neither be long nor short, but well set, his head great, his eyes sharpe, and fiery, ... his countenance like a lion, his brest great and shaghayrd, his shoulders broad, his legges bigge, his tayle short, his feet very great; his disposition must neither be too gentle, nor too curst, that he neither fawne upon a theefe, nor flee (fly) upon his friends; very waking, no gadder abroad, not lavish of his mouth, barking without cause. Neither maketh it any matter though he be not swift: for he is but to fight at home, and to give warning of the enemie." And his name is little Bingo!
[347]. "Once a fair and stately Palace."
The radiant palace of this poem is indeed far away—the other side of dream and night. Its monstrous word, Porphyrogene, means a prince, a child-Royal, one born in the chamber of some Eastern palace walled with rare porphyry.