332 The Poets Beasts. 



almost to the level of human companions. The gilly's wife 

 says, in Wordsworth — 



" This honest sheep-dog's countenance I read. 

 With him can talk, nor blush to waste a word 

 On creatures less intelligent and shrewd." 



Now and again, in order to point the extraordinary 

 depravity of the wolf, the moral tone of the colley is so 

 lowered that it connives with Sir Isegrim to destroy its 

 master's flocks; and in Mother Hubbard's Tale will be 

 found the deplorable narrative of the demoralised dog that 

 demoralised its master, the "disguised dog that loved 

 blood to spill, and drew the wicked shepherd to his will, 

 so 'twixt them both they not a lambkin left." Nor does 

 Southey hesitate to picture the dog reverting to lupine 

 habits : " The shepherd's dog prdfyed on the scattered flock, 

 for there was now no hand to feed him." 



The bulldog, "with black mouth," the turnspit, that 

 affords the poets tlae same moral and similes as the caged 

 squirrel — 



" That climbs the wheel, but all in vain, 

 His own weight brings him down again, 

 And still he's in the self-same place 

 Where at the setting out he was." 



The St. Bernard's dog, "the dog of the Alps," "of grave 

 demeanour, all meekness, gentleness, though large of Umb " 

 finds honourable mention, in spite of Eliza Cook's assur- 

 ance that 



" It is not ambition that leads him to danger, 



He toils not for trophy, he seeks not for fame, 

 He faces all peril and succours the stranger, 



But asks not the wide world to blazon his name," — 



in the verse of Thomson, Rogers, and others. The New- 

 foundland, " the brave diver," in several, notably Burns — 



