Friday, August the 20th, 2004
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The Mimick is a type of dog which is thought by some ‘to be conceived by an Ape; for in wit and disposition it resembleth an Ape’. The Mimick is able ‘to imitate all things it seeth’. Plutarch reported that he saw a public spectacle before the emperor in Rome, wherein a Mimick enacted an entire dramatic production containing ‘many persons parts', including a death scene, during which ‘he began to reel and stagger to and fro like a drunken man’. That's what Edward Topsell said,anyway, in his History Of Four-Footed Beasts of 1607, or to give it its full title, The History Of Four-footed Beasts And Serpents : Describing at Large Their True and Lively Figure, their Several Natures, Conditions, Kinds, Virtues (both Natural and Medicinal) Countries of their Breed, their Love and Hatred to Mankind, and the wonderful work of God in their Creation, Prefection, and Destruction, Interwoven with curious variety of Historical Narrations out of Scriptures, Papers, Philosophers, Physicians and Poets. Here is the Mimick:
Many more of Topsell's beasts can be seen at an excellent site by Tim Gadd, which you can visit by clicking on the picture.