o the etymological strata to be impressed by the unenviable
place which the dog has made for himself in the tradition and experience
of our race. The name itself, and still more its variations, such as
cur, hound, puppy, and whelp, are anything but complimentary when
applied to mankind; and its derivatives, such as "dogged" and
"doggerel," are not of dignified suggestion. And, mark you, these
associations with the names do not seem to "let go," any more than the
dog itself from his bone.

The dog slipped into literature at a very early date after the Fall, but
slunk about with his tail between his legs, as it were, and was kicked
and cursed with entire unanimity. It is difficult to say just when his
dogship began to stand up on his hind legs in literature. He has little
or no classical standing. The dog of Ulysses is, I believe, a solitary
instance. Shakespeare's "view" comes out in Lear's climacteric
execration of his "dog-hearted daughters." Sir Henry Holland once lost a
bet of a guinea owing to his failure to find a dog kindly spoken of by
Shakespeare. Milton for the most part sublimely passes them by, except
to embellish his "portress at hell's gate" with a canine appendix.
Goethe's aversion to them is well known. Old Dr. Watts is an authority
on moral traits, and the best word he has for them is that "dogs delight
to bark and bite, for 'tis their nature to."

Let it not be supposed that I altogether endorse this apparent
conspiracy of the ages to give the dog a bad name,--always supposing
that he did not himself furnish the bad name to literature. I am not
impervious to advanced thought, and I like to see fair play. When a dog
is down, and everybody is down on him, he ought to be let up. It is no
wonder that a reaction set in, as will always be the case in extremes,
and, as usual, to the opposite extreme. English literature experienced
about the beginning of this century an invasion of shepherd kings, such
as Walter Scott, Christopher North, the Ettrick Shepherd, and the like,
who brought with them a great gust of outdoor air, and with it a
renaissance of the dog. But the great apostle of the new movement was
the late Dr. John Brown, of Edinburgh, whose famous "Rab and his
Friends" has inoculated the reading public with something which might be
called a species of _rabies_. This charming writer reminds me of certain
gentle inhabitants of the asylum, who have so identified themselves in
imagination with dogs that t