Note 154 — ARRIAN ON COURSING.
William Dansey translation
The joys of the hare-chase have been celebrated, in prose and verse, by the successors of the Athenian, in even higher strains than by himself:
Natalis Comes de Venat. L. ii.
Tantus amor lepores venandi, gaudia tanta! Hîc mens, hîc animus, hîc est et tota voluntas! Præponunt reliquis una hæc solatia cunctis!
Mayster of Game. fol. 17. 18.
“The hare is a good lityl beest and moch good sport and lyking is the huntyng of hur more than in eny othere beest that eny man knoweth, &c.” “the sechyns for the hare is a wel faire thing, and the enchasyng of the hare is a wel faire thing, and the sleyng of hym with strength is a faire thing,” &c.
The latter, it is singular, are the very sentiments of Xenophon, reprobated by Arrian; and the passage affords one of many proofs of De Langley’s acquaintance with the Grecian Cynegeticus. See Markham C. C. B. i. p. 33. and Somerville’s Chace.