gard of personal inconvenience and want, when employed in our service, it is impossible to entertain a doubt. We have sometimes thought that the attachment of the dog to its master was increased, or, at least, the exhibition of it, by the penury of the owner. At all events one fact is plain enough, that, while poverty drives away from us many a companion of our happier hours, it was never known to diminish the love of our quadruped friend.
The early history of the dog has been described, and the abomination in which he was held by the Israelites. At no great distance of time, however, we find him, almost in the neighbourhood of Palestine, in one of the islands of the Ionian Sea, the companion and the friend of princes, and deserving their regard. The reader will forgive a somewhat abbreviated account of the last meeting of Ulysses and his dog.
Twenty years had passed since Argus, the favourite dog of Ulysses, had been parted from his master. The monarch at length wended his way homewards, and, disguised as a beggar, for his life would have been sacrificed had he been known, stood at the entrance of his palace-door. There he met with an old dependent, who had formerly served him with fidelity and who was yet faithful to his memory; but age and hardship and care, and the disguise which he now wore, had so altered the wanderer that the
good Eumæus had not the most distant suspicion with whom he was conversing; but—
Near to the gates, conferring as they drew,
Argus the dog his ancient master knew,
And, not unconscious of the voice and tread,
Lifts to the sound his ears, and rears his head.
He knew his Lord, he knew, and strove to meet ;
In vain he strove to crawl and kiss his feet :
Yet, all he could, his tail, his ears, his eyes
Salute his master, and confess his joys.[1]
In Daniel’s Rural Sports, the account of a nobleman and his dog is given. The nobleman had been absent two years on foreign service. On his return this faithful creature was the first to recognise him, as he came through the court-yard, and he flew to welcome his old master and friend. He sprung upon him; his agitation and his joy knew not any bounds; and at length, in the fulness of his transport, he fell at his master's feet and expired.
We will not further pursue this part of our subject at present. We shall have other opportunities of speaking of the disinterested and devoted affection which this noble animal is capable of displaying when he occupies his proper situation, and discharges those offices for which nature designed him. It may, however, be added that this power of tracing back the dog to the very earliest periods of history, and the fact that he then seemed to be as sagacious, as faithful, and as valuable as at the present day, strongly favour the opinion that he descended from no inferior and comparatively worthless animal,—that he was not the progeny of the wolf, the jackal, or the fox, but he was originally created, somewhat as we now find him, the associate and the friend of man.
If, within the first thousand years after the Deluge, we observe that divine honours were paid to him, we can scarcely be brought to believe his wolfish genealogy. The most savage animals are capable of affection for those to whom they have been accustomed, and by whom they have been well treated, and therefore we give full credit to several accounts of
- ↑ Pope's Odyssey, xvii.
