e of
Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, he one day met a couple
of under-graduates, who neglected to pay the accustomed compliment of
_capping_. The bishop inquired the reason of the neglect. The two men
begged his lordship's pardon, observing they were _freshmen_, and did
not know him. "How long have you been in Cambridge?" asked his lordship.
"Only _eight_ days," was the reply. "Very good," said the bishop;
"_puppies_ never see till they are _nine_ days old."[57]

MRS ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING'S DOG FLUSH.

Few have written so lovingly on the dog as this gifted poetess. Her dog
Flush is described so well that Landseer could paint the creature almost
to a hair. She has entered into the very feeling created in us by this
favoured pet of our race. The beautiful stanzas[58] I have copied give
also many little touches of her autobiography. This gifted lady was long
an invalid. She could enter with rare sympathy into Cowper's attachments
to animals. Her experience of the friendship of Flush is well told in
the following lines, so different from Lord Byron's misanthropic verses
on his dog:--

TO FLUSH, MY DOG.

Loving friend, the gift of one
Who her own true faith has run
Through her lower nature,
Be my benediction said
With my hand upon thy head,
Gentle fellow-creature!

Like a lady's ringlets brown
Flow thy silken ears adown
Either side demurely
Of thy silver-suited breast,
Shining out from all the rest
Of thy body purely.

Darkly brown thy body is,
Till the sunshine, striking this,
Alchemise its dulness,
When the sleek curls manifold
Flash all over into gold
With a burnish'd fulness.

Underneath my stroking hand,
Startled eyes of hazel bland
Kindling, growing larger,
Up thou leapest with a spring,
Full of prank and curveting
Leaping like a charger.

Leap! thy broad tail waves a light;
Leap! thy slender feet are bright,
Canopied in fringes;
Leap! those tassell'd ears of thine
Flicker strangely, fair and fine,
Down their golden inches.

Yet, my pretty, sporting friend,
Little is 't to such an end
That I praise thy rareness;
Other dogs may be thy peers
Haply in these drooping ears
And this glossy fairness.

But of _thee_ it shall be said,
This dog watch'd beside a bed
Day and night unweary--
Watch'd within a curtain'd room,
Wh