A CHAPTER ON DOGS. 



was armed with a sword, and next running into the journeymen's chamber, awoke them 

 b}' drawing off the bed clothes, and pulling them alternately by the arm. The men, not 

 comprehending the cause of his importunity, drove him from the room and locked the 

 door. Nothing daunted he returned to the charge, and overtaking the thief who had re- 

 treated into the street, he held him by the cloak. The fellow had the wit to cry out mad 

 dog, which brought the loiterers to his assistance, and for this time he escaped. After a 

 considerable interval, as Cellini was walking in one of the squares of Rome, his dog flew 

 on a young man, and endeavorad to tear him to pieces, in spite of the sticks and swords that 

 were brought to his defence. The dog was got off with great difficulty, and the man was 

 retiring, when some bundles fell from under his cloak, in one of which Cellini espied a 

 little ring of his own. ' This is the villain,' he exclaimed, ' that broke open my shop, 

 and my dog knows him again;' and he once more let loose the animal — but the thief lost 

 no time in imploring mercy, and confessing his crime. 



The most mysterious faculty of the dog, one that approaches to divination, is yet to be 

 told. A dog of Henry III. of France, was perfectly furious toward the regicide Clement, 

 as he advanced to the audience in which he slew his sovereign, and could with difficulty be 

 retained in an adjoining room. The merenastiness of the monk may have excited the bile 

 of the dog. But there is an equally celebrated case, in which an English mastiff, who had 

 never attracted the regards of his master, followed him one night to bed, and though re- 

 peatedly repulsed, could not be quieted till he got permission to remain. That same night 

 an Italian valetentered his master's room with a design to murder him, and was only pre- 

 vented by the faithful sentinel pinning him to the ground. The solution must be looked 

 for either in the minute observation of the dog, which leads him to notice circumstances 

 tliat escape our eyes, or else in a conjecture adopted by M. Blaze, that the emotion of a 

 man who medidates a crime produces a peculiar odor from his bod3^ 



The dog who prevents your pi'operty from being stolen, will sometimes recover it when 

 lost. A lady in Bath found her road blockaded by a strange mastiff, who compelled her 

 to retrace her steps, and brought her to the spot where she had dropped a shawl, which 

 he no sooner saw in her possession, than he galloped away. A bo^'^who let fall some cakes 

 from a basket, found, on his arrival at home that the greater part had been gathered up by 

 his dog, who deposited them untasted, and then set off to fetch the remainder. Mr. Bell, in 

 his ' Historj" of British Quadrupeds,' mentions that a friend of his own dropped a louis- 

 d'or one morning, as he was on the point of going out. On returning late at night he was 

 told hy his servant that the dog had fallen sick, and refused to eat; 'and what,' says Mr. 

 Bell, ' appeared very strange, she would not suffer him to take her food away from before 

 her, but had been lying with her nose close to the ves.sel, without attempting to touch it. 

 On my friend's entering the room, she instantly jumped upon him, laid the money at his 

 feet, and began to devour her victuals with great voracity. An affecting story has fre- 

 quently been told of a dog who persevered in leaping upon the horse of a traveller, to call 

 his attention to his money, which he had left on a bank where he halted to rest. His 

 master, imagining he was mad, shot the poor animal, who retired to die upon the purse. 

 Some dogs possess a singular knack of hunting out anything that has recentl}' been in the 

 possession of their masters. There is one ludicrous anecdote of this facult}', which we 

 fear is too good to be true. A gentleman made a bet that his dog would identify a franc 

 that he threw down upon the Boulevards at Paris. Before the dog had discovered the 

 money, a passenger picked it up. Presently the dog caught the scent, followed him to his 

 Iiotel, remained with him all day, and attended him to bed, to the great delight of his new- 

 ly constituted master, who was extremely flattered by his sudden attachment. But the 



