110 MORAL QUALITIES OF THE DOG. 



instruction of his dogs had been taken up merely as a curious and amusing 

 investigation.* 



Another strange attainment of the dog is the learning to speak. The 

 French Academicians mention one of these animals that could call in an 

 intelligible manner for tea, coffee, chocolate, &c. The account is given 

 by the celebrated 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, a peasant's son, imagined that he perceived in the dog's 

 voice an indistinct resemblance to certain words, and therefore took it 

 into his head to teach him to speak. For this purpose he spared neither 

 time nor pains with his pupil, who was about three years old when his 

 learned education commenced, and in process of time he was able to articu- 

 late no fewer than thirty distinct words. He was, however, somewhat of 

 a truant, and did not very willingly exert his talent, and was rather pressed 

 than otherwise into the service of literature. It was necessary that the 

 words should be pronounced to him each time, and then he repeated them 

 after his preceptor. Leibnitz attests that he heard the animal talk in this 

 way, and the French Academicians add, that unless they had received the 

 testimony of so celebrated a person they would scarcely have dared to 

 report the circumstance. It took place in Misnia, in Saxony. 



THE MORAL QUALITIES OF THE DOG. 



We pass on to another division of our subject, the moral qualities of 

 the dog, strongly developed and beautifully displayed, and often putting 

 the biped to shame. 



It is truly said of the dog that he possesses 



" Many a good 



And useful quality, and virtue too. 

 Attachment never to be weaned or changed 

 By any change of fortune ; proof alike 

 Against unkindness, absence, and neglect ; 

 Fidelity, that neither bribe nor threat 

 Can move or warp ; and gratitude, for small 

 And trivial favours, lasting as the life, 

 And glistening even in the dying eye." 



It may here be noticed that, among the inferior animals with large 

 nerves and more medullary substance, there are acuter senses ; but man, 

 excelling them in the general bulk of his brain, and more particularly in 

 the cortical portion of it, has far superior powers of mind. These are 

 circumstances that deserve the deepest consideration. In their wild state 

 the brutes have no concern no idea beyond their food and their reproduc- 

 tion. In their domesticated state, they are doomed to be the servants of 

 man. Their power of mind is sufficient to qualify them for this service ; 

 but were proportionate intellectual capacity added to this were they made 

 conscious of their strength, and of the objects that could be effected by it 



a Plutarch relates that, at the theatre of tors with astonishment. He first exhi- 

 Marcellus, a dog was exhibited before the bited various symptoms of pain ; he then 

 emperor Vespasian, so well instructed as fell down as if dead, and, afterwards seem- 

 to exercise in every kind of dance. He ing to revive, as if waking from a pro- 

 afterwards feigned illness in a most sin- found sleep, and then sported about and 

 gular manner, so as to strike the specta- showed various demonstrations of joy. 



