amongst the dogs at Clifton. She always carried a pocketful of biscuit
to feed them; and she had a canine friend who for years was in the daily
habit of waiting at her door to accompany her morning walk, after which
he received his little portion of biscuit, and returned to his home.
Timid as Mrs Schimmelpenninck was by nature and by habit, she had no
idea of personal fear of animals, and especially of dogs. I have seen
her go up without hesitation to some splendid specimen of the race, of
which everybody else was afraid, to stroke him, or offer food; when the
noble creature, with that fine perception often so remarkably manifested
by dogs and children, would look up in her face, and then return her
caress, and crouch down at her feet in love and confidence. Her own two
beautiful little spaniels were her constant companions in her walks;
their happy gambols were always a source of pleasure."[94]
* * * * *
Sir Walter Scott loved dogs dearly. In his novels and poetical works his
knowledge of them and his regard often appear. He loved them, from the
stately deerhound to the wiry terrier. He was quite up to the ways of
their education. Dandie Dinmont, in "Guy Mannering," speaking of his
terriers, says, "I had them a' regularly entered, first wi' rottens,
then wi' stots and weasels, and then wi' the tods and brocks, and now
they fear naething that ever comes wi' a hairy skin on't." Then, again,
read Washington Irving's description of his visit to Abbotsford, and
how, on Scott taking him out for a walk, a host of his dogs attended,
evidently as a matter of course. He often spoke to them during the walk.
The American author was struck with the stately gravity of the noble
staghound Maida, while the younger dogs gambolled about him, and tried
to get him to gambol. Maida would occasionally turn round suddenly, and
give one of the playful creatures a tumble, and look at Scott and
Irving, as much as to say, "You see, gentlemen, I cannot help giving way
to this nonsense;" when on he would go as grave as ever. "I make no
doubt," said Scott to his companion, "when Maida is alone with these
young dogs, he throws gravity aside, and plays the boy as much as any of
them; but he is ashamed to do so in our company, and seems to say, "Ha'
done with your nonsense, youngsters; what will the laird and that other
gentleman think of me if I give way to such foolery?" A little volume
might almost be made on Sir Walter Scott and his dogs. Wilkie, Allan,
and especially Sir Edwin Landseer, have handed down to us the portraits
of many of them. His works, and biography by Lockhart, and the writings
of his many visitors, would afford many an interesting extract.
SHERIDAN ON THE DOG-TAX.
In 1796, a tax, which caused great discontent and ridicule, was laid for
the first time upon dogs. Mr Wright, in his "England under the House of
Hanover," says--"The debates on this tax in the House of Commons appear
to have been extremely amusing. In opposing the motion to go into
committee, Sheridan objected that the bill was most curiously worded, as
it was, in the first instance, entitled, 'A bill for the protection of
his Majesty's subjects against dogs.' 'From these words,' he said, 'one
would imagine that dogs had been guilty of burglary, though he believed
they were a better protection to their masters' property than watchmen.'
After having entertained the House with some stories about mad dogs, and
giving a discourse upon dogs in general, he asked, 'Since there was an
exception in favour of puppies, at what age they were to be taxed, and
how the exact age was to be ascertained?' The Secretary at War, who
spoke against the bill, said, 'It would be wrong to destroy in the poor
that _virtuous feeling_ which they had for their dog.' In committee, Mr
Lechmere called the attention of the House to ladies' 'lap-dogs.' He
knew a lady who had _sixteen_ lap-dogs, and who allowed them a roast
shoulder of veal every day for dinner, while many poor persons were
starving; was it not, therefore, right to tax lap-dogs very high? He
knew another lady who kept one favourite dog, when well, on Savoy
biscuits soaked in Burgundy, and when ailing (by the advice of a doctor)
on minced chicken and sweetbread! Among the caricatures on this subject,
one by Gillray (of which there were imitations) represented Fox and his
friends, hanged upon a gallows, as 'dogs not worth a tax;' while the
supporters of Government, among whom is Burke, with 'G. R.' on his
collar, are ranged as well-fed dogs 'paid for.'"[95]
SYDNEY SMITH DISLIKES DOGS.
AN INGENIOUS WAY OF GETTING RID OF THEM.
Lady Holland tells us[96] that her father, the witty canon of St Paul's,
disliked dogs. "During one of his visits to London, at a dinner at
Spencer House, the conversation turned upon dogs. 'Oh,' said my father,
'one of the greatest difficulties I have had with my parishioners has
been on the subject of dogs.'--'How so?' said Lord Spencer.--'Why, when
I first went down into Yorkshire, there had not been a resident
clergyman in my parish for a hundred and fifty years. Each farmer kept a
huge mastiff dog ranging at large, and ready to make his morning meal on
clergy or laity, as best suited his particular taste. I never could
approach a cottage in pursuit of my calling but I rushed into the jaws
of one of these shaggy monsters. I scolded, preached, and prayed without
avail; so I determined to try what fear for their pockets might do.
Forthwith appeared in the county papers a minute account of the trial of
a farmer, at the Northampton Sessions, for keeping dogs unconfined;
where said farmer was not only fined five pounds and reprimanded by the
magistrates, but sentenced to three months' imprisonment. The effect was
wonderful, and the reign of Cerberus ceased in the land.'--'That
accounts,' said Lord Spencer, 'for what has puzzled me and Althorp for
many years. We never failed to attend the sessions at Northampton, and
we never could find out how we had missed this remarkable dog case.'"
SYDNEY SMITH ON DOGS.[97]
"No, I don't like dogs; I always expect them to go mad. A lady asked me
once for a motto for her dog Spot. I proposed, 'Out, damned Spot!' But
she did not think it sentimental enough. You remember the story of the
French marquise, who, when her pet lap-dog bit a piece out of her
footman's leg, exclaimed, 'Ah, poor little beast! I hope it won't make
him sick.' I called one day on Mrs ----, and her lap-dog flew at my leg
and bit it. After pitying her dog, like the French marquise, she did all
she could to comfort me by assuring me the dog was a Dissenter, and
hated the Church, and was brought up in a Tory family. But whether the
bite came from madness or Dissent, I knew myself too well to neglect it,
and went on the instant to a surgeon, and had it cut out, making a mem.
on the way to enter that house no more."
SYDNEY SMITH'S "NEWFOUNDLAND DOG THAT BREAKFASTED ON PARISH BOYS."
The Rev. Sydney Smith used to be much amused when he observed the utter
want of perception of a joke in some minds. One instance we may cite
from his "Memoirs:"[98] "Miss ----, the other day, walking round the
grounds at Combe Florey, exclaimed, 'Oh, why do you chain up that fine
Newfoundland dog, Mr Smith?'--'Because it has a passion for breakfasting
on parish boys.'--'Parish boys!' she exclaimed; 'does he really eat
boys, Mr Smith?'--'Yes, he devours them, buttons and all.' Her face of
horror made me die of laughing."
SOUTHEY ON DOGS.
Southey was likewise not a little attached to the memory at least of
dogs, as may be inferred by the following passage in a letter to Mr
Bedford, Jan. 27, 1823. Snivel was a dog belonging to Mr B. in early
days. "We had an adventure this morning, which, if poor Snivel had been
living, would have set up her bristles in great style. A foumart was
caught in the back kitchen; you may perhaps know it better by the name
of polecat. It is the first I ever saw or smelt; and certainly it was in
high odour. Poor Snivel! I still have the hairs which we cut from her
tail thirty years ago; and if it were the fashion for men to wear
lockets, in a locket they should be worn, for I never had a greater
respect for any creature upon four legs than for poor Sni. See how
naturally men fall into relic worship; when I have preserved the
memorials of that momentary whim so many years, and through so many
removals."[99]
DOG, A GOOD JUDGE OF ELOCUTION.
When Dr Leifchild, of Craven Chapel, London, was a student at Hoxton
Academy, there was a good lecturer on elocution there of the name of
True. In the Memoir, published in 1863, are some pleasing reminiscences
by Dr Leifchild of this excellent teacher, who seems to have taken great
pains with the students, and to have awakened in their breasts a desire
to become proficients in the art of speaking. The doctor himself was an
admirable example of the proficiency thus attained under good Mr True.
He records[100] a ludicrous circumstance which occurred one day. "In
reciting Satan's address to the evil spirits from 'Paradise Lost,' a
stout student was enjoined to pronounce the three words, 'Princes,
potentates, warriors,' in successively louder tones, and to speak out
boldly. He hardly needed this advice, for the first word came out like
distant thunder, the second like approaching thunder, and the third like
a terribly near and loud clap. At this last the large housedog,
Pompey, who had been asleep under the teacher's chair, started up and
jumped out of the window into the garden. 'The dog is a good judge,
sir,' mildly remarked Mr True."
COWPER'S DOG BEAU AND THE WATER-LILY.
ILLUSTRATED BY THE STORY OF AS INTELLIGENT A DOG.
In _Blackwood's Magazine_ for 1818 there is an address, in blank verse,
by Mr Patrick Fraser Tytler, "To my Dog." Mr Tytler's brother-in-law, Mr
Hog,[101] recorded the fact on which this address was founded in his
diary at the time. "Peter tells a delightful anecdote of Cossack, an
Isle of Skye terrier, which belonged originally to his brother at
Aldourie. It was amazingly fond of his children, one of which, having
fallen on the gravel and hurt itself, began to cry out. Cossack tried in
vain to comfort it by leaping upon it and licking its face. Finding all
his efforts to pacify the child fruitless, he ran off to a mountain-ash
tree, and leaping up, pulled a branch of red _rowan_ berries and carried
it in his mouth to the child."
HORACE WALPOLE'S PET DOG ROSETTE.
Horace Walpole, writing to Lord Nuneham in November 1773,[102]
says:--"The rest of my time has been employed in nursing Rosette--alas!
to no purpose. After suffering dreadfully for a fortnight from the time
she was seized at Nuneham, she has only languished till about ten days
ago. As I have nothing to fill my letter, I will send you her epitaph;
it has no merit, for it is an imitation, but in coming from the heart if
ever epitaph did, and therefore your dogmanity will not dislike it--
'Sweetest roses of the year,
Strew around my Rose's bier,
Calmly may the dust repose
Of my pretty, faithful Rose!
And if yon cloud-topp'd hill[103] behind
This frame dissolved, this breath resign'd,
Some happier isle, some humbler heaven,
Be to my trembling wishes given;
Admitted to that equal sky,
May sweet Rose bear me company!'"
ARRIVAL OF TONTON, A PET DOG, TO WALPOLE.--TONTON DOES NOT UNDERSTAND
ENGLISH.
Horace Walpole, in May 1781,[104] had announced Tonton's arrival to his
correspondent, the Hon. H. S. Conway. He says:--"I brought him this
morning to take possession of his new villa, but his inauguration has
not been at all pacific. As he has already found out that he may be as
despotic as at St Joseph's, he began with exiling my beautiful little
cat, upon which, however, we shall not quite agree. He then flew at one
of my dogs, who returned it by biting his foot till it bled, but was
severely beaten for it. I immediately rung for Margaret (his
housekeeper) to dress his foot; but in the midst of my tribulation could
not keep my countenance, for she cried, 'Poor little thing; he does not
understand my language!' I hope she will not recollect, too, that he is
a Papist!" In a postscript he tells the general that Tonton "is a
cavalier, and a little of the _mousquetaire_ still; but if I do not
correct his vivacities, at least I shall not encourage them, like my
dear old friend."
In a letter of about the same date to Mason the poet, he again alludes
to his fondness of Tonton, but adds--"I have no occasion to brag of my
dogmanity."[105]
Horace Walpole, in 1774, thus refers to Margaret, in a letter to Lady
Ossory:--"Who is to have the care of the dear mouse in your absence? I
wish I could spare Margaret, who loves all creatures so well that she
would have been happy in the ark, and sorry when the deluge ceased;
unless people had come to see Noah's old house, which she would have
liked still better than cramming his menagerie."[106] A sly allusion to
the numerous fees Margaret got from visitors. Horace, in another of his
letters, alludes to this, and, in a joke, proposes to marry Margaret to
enrich himself.
HORACE WALPOLE.--DEATH OF HIS DOG TONTON.
Horace Walpole, writing to the Countess of Ossory, Feb. 24, 1789,[107]
says:--"I delayed telling you that Tonton is dead, and that I comfort
myself. He was grown stone deaf, and very nearly equally blind, and so
weak that the two last days he could not walk up-stairs. Happily he had
not suffered, and died close by my side without a pang or a groan. I
have had the satisfaction, for my dear old friend's sake and his own, of
having nursed him up, by constant attention, to the age of sixteen, yet
always afraid of his surviving me, as it was scarcely possible he could
meet a third person who would study his happiness equally. I sent him to
Strawberry, and went thither on Sunday to see him buried behind the
chapel near Rosette. I shall miss him greatly, and must not have another
dog; I am too old, and should only breed it up to be unhappy when I am
gone. My resource is in two marble kittens that Mrs Damer has given me,
of her own work, and which are so much alive that I talk to them, as I
did to poor Tonton! If this is being superannuated, no matter; when
dotage can amuse itself it ceases to be an evil. I fear my marble
playfellows are better adapted to me, than I am to being your ladyship's
correspondent." Poor Tonton was left to Walpole by "poor dear Madame de
Deffand." In a letter to the Rev. Mr Cole, in 1781, he announces its
arrival, and how "she made me promise to take care of it the last time I
saw her. That I will most religiously, and make it as happy as is
possible."[108]
ARCHBISHOP WHATELY AND HIS DOGS.
"In these rambles he was generally attended by three
uncompromising-looking dogs, the heads of which, if it were possible to
draw them together in shamrock form, would forcibly suggest Cerberus.
Richard Whately found, or thought he found, in the society of these dogs
far brighter intelligence, and infinitely more fidelity, than in many of
the Oxford men, who had been fulsomely praised for both.
"In devotion to his dogs, Dr Whately continued true to the end of his
life, and during the winter season might be daily seen in St Stephen's
Green, Dublin, playing at 'tig' or 'hide and seek' with his canine
attendants. Sometimes the old archbishop might be seen clambering up a
tree, secreting his handkerchief or pocket-knife in some cunning nook,
then resuming his walk, and, after a while, suddenly affecting to have
lost these articles, which the dogs never failed immediately to regain.
"That he was a close observer of the habits of dogs and other quadrupeds
we have evidence in his able lecture on 'Animal Instinct.' Dr Whately,
when referring to another subject, once said not irrelevantly, 'The
power of duly appreciating _little_ things belongs to a great mind: a
narrow-minded man has it not, for to him they are _great_ things.' Dr
Whately was of opinion that some brutes were as capable of exercising
reason as instinct. In his 'Lectures and Reviews' (p. 64) he tells of a
dog which, being left on the bank of a river by his master, who had gone
up the river in a boat, attempted to join him. He plunged into the
water, but not making allowance for the strength of the stream, which
carried him considerably below the boat, he could not beat up against
it. He landed, and made allowance for the current of the river by
leaping in at a place higher up. The combined action of the stream and
his swimming carried him in an oblique direction, and he thus reached
the boat. Dr Whately adopts the following conclusion--'It appears, then,
that we can neither deny reason universally and altogether to brutes,
nor instinct to man; but that each possesses a share of both, though in
very different proportions.'"[109]
SIR DAVID WILKIE COULD NOT SEE A PUN.--"A DOG-ROSE."
The son and biographer of William Collins, the Royal Academician,[110]
quotes from a manuscript collection of anecdotes, written by that
charming painter of country life and landscape, the following on Sir
David Wilkie:--"Wilkie was not quick in perceiving a joke, although he
was always anxious to do so, and to recollect humorous stories, of which
he was exceedingly fond. As instances, I recollect once when we were
staying at Mr Wells's, at Redleaf, one morning at breakfast a very small
puppy was running about under the table. 'Dear me,' said a lady, 'how
this creature teases me!' I took it up and put it into my breast-pocket.
Mr Wells said, 'That is a pretty nosegay.'--'Yes,' said I, 'it is a
dog-rose.' Wilkie's attention, sitting opposite, was called to his
friend's pun, but all in vain. He could not be persuaded to see anything
in it. I recollect trying once to explain to him, with the same want of
success, Hogarth's joke in putting the sign of the woman without a head
('The Good Woman') under the window from which the quarrelsome wife is
throwing the dinner into the street."
ULYSSES AND HIS DOG.
Richard Payne Knight, in his "Inquiry into the Principles of
Taste,"[111] when treating of the "sublime and pathetic," quotes the
story of Ulysses and his dog, as follows:--"No Dutch painter ever
exhibited an image less imposing, or less calculated to inspire awe and
terror, or any other of Burke's symptoms or sources of the sublime
(unless, indeed, it be a stink), than the celebrated dog of Ulysses
lying upon a dunghill, covered with vermin and in the agonies of death;
yet, when in such circumstances, on hearing the voice of his old master,
who had been absent twenty years, he pricks his ears, wags his tail, and
expires, what heart is not at once melted, elevated, and expanded with
all those glowing feelings which Longinus has so well described as the
genuine effects of the true sublime? That master, too--the patient,
crafty, and obdurate Ulysses, who encounters every danger and bears
every calamity with a constancy unshaken, a spirit undepressed, and a
temper unruffled--when he sees this faithful old servant perishing in
want, misery, and neglect, yet still remembering his long-lost
benefactor, and collecting the last effort of expiring nature to give a
sign of joy and gratulation at his return, hides his face and wipes away
the tear! This is true sublimity of character, which is always mixed
with tenderness--mere sanguinary ferocity being terrible and odious, but
never sublime. [Greek: Agathoi polydakrytoi andres]--_Men prone to tears
are brave_, says the proverbial Greek hemistich; for courage, which does
not arise from mere coarseness of organisation, but from that sense of
dignity and honour which constitutes the generous pride of a high mind,
is founded in sensibility."
FOOTNOTES:
[46] "The Olio," by the late Francis Grose, Esq., F.A.S., p. 203.
[47] "Dogs and their Ways;" illustrated by numerous anecdotes, compiled
from authentic sources, by the Rev. Charles Williams. 1863.
[48] It may interest the reader, who does not dive deep into literary
curiosities, to refer to the original edition of Hayley's "Cowper" (4to,
1803, vol. i. p. 314), where the poet, in a letter to Samuel Rose, Esq.,
written at Weston, August 18, 1788, alludes to his having "composed a
_spick_ and _span_ new piece called 'The Dog and the Water-lily;'" and
in his next letter, September 11, he sent this piece to his excellent
friend, the London barrister. Visitors to Olney and Weston, who have
gone over the poet's walks, cannot but have their love for the gentle
and afflicted Cowper most deeply _intensified_.--_See_ Miller's "First
Impressions."
[49] This book, like Storer's other illustrations of the scenes of the
poems of Burns and Bloomfield, drawn immediately after the death of
these poets, will become year by year more valuable.
[50] "Memoirs of the Life of the Right Honourable Sir James Mackintosh,"
edited by his son, Robert James Mackintosh, Esq., vol. i. p. 164.
[51] "Bawsn't," having a white stripe down the face.--_Glossary to
Burns's Poems._
[52] See an extract farther on, in proof of this.
[53] "The Jordan and the Rhine" (1854), p. 46, and pp. 91-93.
[54] _See_ Layard's "Nineveh and its Remains," vol. ii. (1849), p. 425.
[55] "Ladak, Physical, Statistical, and Historical," p. 218.
[56] "Memoir of Bishop Blomfield," by his son, i. 220.
[57] Mark Lemon, "Jest Book," p. 177.
[58] A selection from the poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. London,
1866, pp. 134-138.
[59] "Memoirs of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, Bart.," edited by his son,
Charles Buxton, Esq., B.A., third edition, p. 139.
[60] Moore's "Life of Byron," chap. vii. p. 74.
[61] Mark Lemon, "Jest Book," p. 279.
[62] "Memoirs of the Life of Wm. Collins, R.A.," by his Son, i. 105.
[63] Mark Lemon, "Jest Book," p. 203.
[64] _Loc. cit._ p. 213.
[65] "The Life, Character, and Literary Labours of Samuel Drew, A.M.,"
by his eldest son, p. 66.
[66] "Memoirs of Samuel Foote, Esq.," &c., by W. Cooke, Esq., vol. ii.
p. 36.
[67] "Life of Thomas Gainsborough, R.A.," by the late George William
Fulcher, p. 155.
[68] _Edinburgh Review_, 1836, vol. lxiv. p. 17.
[69] "Life and Letters of Elizabeth, last Duchess of Gordon," by the
Rev. A. Moody Stuart, 1865, pp. 198-200.
[70] Portion of the Journal kept by Thomas Raikes, Esq., from 1831 to
1837, vol. iii. p. 134.
[71] "Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds," by C. R. Leslie, R.A. and
Tom Taylor, M.A., vol. ii. p. 191.
[72] "John Leifchild, D.D. His Public Ministry, &c.," by J. R.
Leifchild, A.M., p. 143.
[73] Agnes Strickland, "Lives of the Queens of England," vol. v. p. 293
(ed. 1851).
[74] "A History of Peeblesshire," by William Chambers of Glenormiston,
p. 428.
[75] Vol. i. p. 156.
[76] Memoir by his friend, the Rev. John W. Burgon, p. 204.
[77] Mark Lemon, "Jest Book," p. 44.
[78] Mark Lemon, "Jest Book," p. 43.
[79] "Charles Lamb: his Friends, his Haunts, and his Books," by Percy
Fitzgerald, M.A., 1866, p. 161.
[80] Cunningham's Edition of Correspondence, viii. p. 331.
[81] "The Table Talk; or, Familiar Discourse of Martin Luther," p. 66.
[82] "The Diary of an Invalid; being the Journal of a Tour in Pursuit of
Health in Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, and France in 1817-1819," p.
144.
[83] "Common-Place Book," 4th ser. p. 423.
[84] Mark Lemon, "Jest Book," p. 24.
[85] "Memoir of Baron Larrey, Surgeon-in-chief of the Grande Armee."
London. 1861. P. 191.
[86] "England under the House of Hanover," by Thomas Wright, Esq., M.A.,
vol. ii. p. 57.
[87] "Memoir of Perthes," vol. ii. pp. 153-4.
[88] "Original Anecdotes of Peter the Great, collected from the
conversation of several persons of distinction at St Petersburg and
Moscow," by Mr Stoehlin, Member of the Imp. Acad., St Peters., p. 306.
[89] A denthtchick is a soldier appointed to wait on an officer.
[90] "Recollections and Anecdotes," 2d ser., by Capt. R. H. Gronow, p.
194 (1863).
[91] "History of England, from the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of
Versailles," by Lord Mahon, vii. p. 261.
[92] See Mundy's "Life of Lord Rodney," vol. i. 258. "Remember me to my
dear girls and poor Loup. Kiss them for me. I hope they were pleased
with my letter." Vol. ii. p. 28.
[93] "Life of Thomas Ruddiman, A.M., the Keeper for almost fifty years
of the Library belonging to the Faculty of Advocates, Edinburgh," p. 4.
[94] See her "Autobiography," p. 85, for an anecdote of her saving a
little dog, tied in a basket of stones, from the water. She called it
"Moses."
[95] Vol. ii. pp. 264, 265.
[96] "Memoir of the Rev. Sydney Smith," by his daughter, Lady Holland,
&c., vol. i. p. 200.
[97] "Life of the Rev. Sydney Smith," by his daughter, Lady Holland,
&c., vol. i. p. 379.
[98] Vol. i. p. 267.
[99] "Life and Correspondence," vol. v. p. 133.
[100] "John Leifchild, D.D., his Public Ministry, Private Usefulness,
and Personal Characteristics," founded upon an autobiography, by J. R.
Leifchild, A.M., p. 34.
[101] See Burgon's "Memoir of Patrick F. Tytler," p. 140.