He is very solicitous to have his dogs
well descended of worshipful families, and understands their pedigree as
learnedly as if he were a herald, and is as careful to match them
according to their rank and qualities as High-Germans are of their own
progenies. He is both cook and physician to his hounds, understands the
constitutions of their bodies, and what to administer in any infirmity
or disease, acute or chronic, that can befall them. Nor is he less
skilful in physiognomy, and from the aspects of their faces, shape of
their snouts, falling of their ears and lips, and make of their barrels
will give a shrewd guess at their inclinations, parts, and abilities,
and what parents they are lineally descended from; and by the tones of
their voices and statures of their persons easily discover what country
they are natives of. He believes no music in the world is comparable to
a chorus of their voices, and that when they are well matched they will
hunt their parts as true at first scent as the best singers of catches
that ever opened in a tavern; that they understand the scale as well as
the best scholar that ever learned to compose by the mathematics; and
that when he winds his horn to them 'tis the very same thing with a
cornet in a quire; that they will run down the hare with a fugue, and a
double do-sol-re-dog hunt a thorough-base to them all the while; that
when they are at a loss they do but rest, and then they know by turns
who are to continue a dialogue between two or three of them, of which he
is commonly one himself.
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