CHARACTER OF THE DOG. 29 



hibited, in a curious light, two traits which most 

 ennoble the dog fidelity and courage. No\v to 

 shift the portrait. 



Some of our readers will remember to have 

 noticed, a year or two since, three dogs, without 

 masters, wandering together about the streets 

 of the city sometimes seen lying, side by side. 

 on a door step, or in the shade of a garden wall ; 

 sometimes foraging in the alleys and empty 

 market houses ; but from their deformed appear- 

 ance, constant companionship, and absolute dis- 

 connection with man, always impressing the 

 mind of the beholder with a feeling of desolation 

 strangely foreign to the scene. One, a female, 

 with a broken limb, curiously distorted, was a 

 gaunt, hollow-eyed brute, upon whose infirmi- 

 ties the others seemed to attend, as we observed 

 that she was always the first to move on after a 

 halt; another, an old mongrel mastiff, had lost 

 his upper lip, which gave him a very unsightly 

 look ; but the third was perfect in his parts a 

 meek, mild-eyed cur, who appeared to have 

 joined the two misanthropes because he had been 

 fairly forsaken by the rest of the world. 



There was something strongly expressive of 

 apathetical indifference to the beings around 

 them, in the aspect of the two first. Strictly 



