DOG. 289 



variety of human actions. It is recorded of a 

 Dog belonging to a nobleman of the Medici fa- 

 mily, that it always attended at its master's table; 

 changed the plates for him, and carried him his 

 wine in a glass placed on a salver, without spill- 

 ing the smallest drop. 



Plutarch relates, that, in the theatre of Mar- 

 cellus, a dog was exhibited before the Emperor 

 Vespasian, so well instructed as to excel in every 

 kind of dance : he afterwards feigned illness in so 

 exquisite a manner as to strike the spectators with 

 astonishment; first shewing symptoms of pain, 

 then falling down, as if dead, and suffering him- 

 self to be carried about in that state; and after- 

 wards, at the proper time, seeming to revive, as 

 if waking from a profound sleep ; and then sport- 

 ing about and shewing all the demonstrations of 



joy- 

 But of all the educational attainments by which 



the Dog has been distinguished, that of learning 

 to speak seems the most extraordinary. The 

 French academicians, however, make mention of 

 a Dog in Germany, which could call, in an intel- 

 ligible manner, for tea, coffee, chocolate, &c. 

 Sec. The account is too curious to be omitted 

 here, and is from no less a person than the cele- 

 brated Leibnitz, who communicated it to the 

 Royal Academy of France. This Dog was of a 

 middling size, and was the property of a peasant 

 in Saxony. A little boy, the peasant's son, ima- 

 gined that he perceived in the Dog's voice an in- 

 distinct resemblance to certain words, and, there- 



