Poets and the Collie. 35 



ennoble hounds of various kinds, and a peculiar strain 

 of terrier which, without the great novelist's assistance, 

 would probably not be known to-day, at any rate to the 

 extent of its present popularity. Personally, I always 

 regretted that the faithful, though cross-bred terrier, that 

 accompanied young Gough during his fatal ascent of 

 Helvellyn had not been a sheep dog. The latter would have 

 made the more faithful companion, and might have been 

 despatched for assistance when the unfortunate pedestrian 

 became prostrate. These words to a well-trained collie, 

 " Hie away home," and the dog would have gone, and by 

 his manner let friends know that some accident had hap- 

 pened to his master. Melancholy as was the occurrence 

 which formed the subject of one of Sir Walter's most 

 sympathetic poems, it was rendered even more so by the 

 supposition that the faithful terrier had prolonged his own 

 life at the expense of his dead master's body, a horrible 

 idea which with a collie could never have been suggested. 

 James Hogg (the Ettrick Shepherd), Professor Wilson, 

 Tennyson, all appreciated this variety of dog to the 

 utmost, but Wordsworth cared very little about dogs. 

 His poems afforded every opportunity for him to do 

 his share towards popularising the shepherd's dog, so 

 common and faithful in his district of the lakes, but he 

 allowed the idle boys to find the lost lamb 



Still swimming round and round. 



In "The Evening Walk" Wordsworth, however, notices 

 this dog a little more generously. 



Waving his hat, the shepherd, in the vale 

 Directs his winding dog the cliffs to scale, 

 That barking, busy 'mid the glittering rocks 

 Hunts, where he points, the intercepted flocks. 



D 2 



