SAGACITY OF THE DOG. 315 



all tlie v^icissitudes of life. Secondly, from his 

 natural endowments, not consisting solely in the 

 exquisite delicacy of one individual sense, that fine- 

 ness of olfactory nerve by which the earth and air 

 send forth showers of perfumes ; not merely combin- 

 ing memory with reflection that soars above instinc- 

 tive preservation or self-enjoyment ; but qualities of 

 the mind that absolutely stagger us in the contem- 

 plation of them, and which we can alone account for 

 in the gradation existing in that wonderful system 

 which (by different links of one vast chain, extend- 

 ing from the first to the last of all things, till it 

 forms a perfect whole) is placed, as Professor Har- 

 wood elegantly expresses it, " in the doubtful con- 

 fines of the material and spiritual worlds/' It 

 might have been instinct that enabled Ulysses's 

 dog to recognise him on his re-landing in Ithaca, 

 after an absence which must have set the powers 

 of memory at defiance ; and he recognised him 

 with all the acuteness and affection which instinct 

 boasts ; hut what caused him to expire at his feet on 

 the sudden dawn of unexpected happiness ? The 

 heart of man could go no farther than this ; and 

 although perhaps the poet's fiction is only present 

 to us in this instance, by what name can we call 

 those tender affections, those sincere attachments, 

 those personal considerations, which we every day 

 witness, in these faithful creatures towards human 

 kind? Virtue alone is too cold a term, as almost 

 every good quality to be found in animated nature 

 is to be found here ; and when we reflect upon the 

 miserable existence so often the lot of this kind- 



