Ill 



not acquired skill enough to make out, and 

 which only serve to increase the irregularity of 

 his undirected wandering, and to wear out his 

 powers to no purpose. 



I have before me a marked and lamentable 

 instance of a dog, belonging to a friend of mine 

 (I beg permission for the introduction of his 

 portrait as a negative example), who has been 

 lost to all the distinctions of excellence, by a 

 slovenly inattention to his deportment, and the 

 want of a better direction of himself, in early 

 life. He had all the requisites from nature ; his 

 nose is uncommonly and steadily good, and with 

 so much of natural discrimination in it, that I 

 have seen few, with whom, when fairly put 

 upon the haunt, I would sooner follow up a 

 point : but his hunt amounts to nothing ; of beat 

 he has no notion; he is here, and there, and 

 every where ; for ever on the caper, but never 

 on the inquiry : so that, with more than equal 

 faculties, when brought into competition with 

 dogs of more skilfully directed noses, he shrinks 

 into nothing in the comparison ; and, excepting 

 from the chop of accident, in such company 

 you may follow him for hours without one origi- 

 nal find: yet I have heard him praised up to 

 the skies, as the pattern of all excellence, by 

 some people, who are delighted with the per- 



