12 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE DOG. 



" Lo ! the poor Indian, whose untutor'd mind 

 Sees God in storms, and hears him in the wind, 

 ****** 

 And thinks, admitted to that equal sky, 

 His FAITHFUL DOG shall bear him company." 



The " many poets" have been alluded to : yes, from the 

 days of Homer, who hymned the fidelity of Argus, the old 

 dog of Ulysses, in the Odyssey, to our own times, when 

 Lord Byron, in his youth, penned the epitaph upon his faith- 

 ful favorite at Newstead ; and the late Thomas Campbell 

 sang, in one of his celebrated ballads, of the old harper by 

 the Shannon and his dog when the simple tale of Colin and 

 his " poor dog Tray" (the old shepherd and the old shep- 

 herd's dog) was adorned with plaintive verse. 



The poets of various ages and of various lands would 

 seem to have delighted in commemorating the virtues of this 

 favorite animal, perhaps, in part, as though they recognised 

 with poetic force of perception in their devotion to man, 

 something of the primal love with which man once looked up 

 to his heavenly Father and almighty Friend. If I be not 

 mistaken, this impressive comparison forms the subject of 

 one of Lord Bacon's famous "ESSAYS." 



Should it be deemed that this prefatory " character and 

 eulogium" of the dog partakes too much of " favor and af- 

 fection," is not, perhaps, scientific enough for a treatise of 

 this nature, I still trust that so much may be conceded to a 

 very zealous author in the commencement of his work, and 

 as such eulogistic notices are not, though rarely, indeed, so 

 richly merited, unusual in history,* they may, perhaps, be 

 allowed in natural history also. Though here, from the 

 nature of the subject, these remarks are necessarily placed 

 first, as prefatory, instead of being introduced in the body of 

 the work, yet may I not be excused, as the moral amiable 

 qualities of the dog are so remarkable and notorious, that 

 they form, in themselves a kind of description of the species, 

 a sort of special grade' of chivalry, giving dogs a rank of 

 honor among animals from the chivalrous character of their 

 many virtues virtues so numerous and so generally known 

 and experienced, that were they to receive a full degree 

 of tribute, these remarks would extend to the entire limits 

 of my volume ? I therefore humbly crave indulgence for 



* See Rolliii, for instance, and many others. 



