he was
presented by the King of Albania with a dog of unusual size; being
greatly delighted with its noble appearance, he ordered bears, and
after them wild boars, and then deer, to be let loose before it; but
the dog lay down and regarded them with a kind of immovable contempt.
The noble spirit of the general became irritated by the sluggishness
thus manifested by an animal of such vast bulk, and he ordered it to
be killed. The report of this reached the king, who accordingly sent
another dog, and at the same time sent word that its powers were to be
tried, not upon small animals, but upon the lion or the elephant;
adding, that he had originally but two, and that if this one were put
to death, the race would be extinct. Alexander, without delay,
procured a lion, which in his presence was instantly torn to pieces.
He then ordered an elephant to be brought, and never was he more
delighted with any spectacle; for the dog, bristling up its hair all
over the body, began by thundering forth a loud barking, and then
attacked the animal, leaping at it first on the one side and then on
the other, attacking it in the most skilful manner, and then again
retreating at the opportune moment, until at last the elephant, being
rendered quite giddy by turning round and round, fell to the earth,
and made it quite reecho with its fall.

II

THREE GREAT ARTISTS OF GREECE[93]

Apelles,[94] of Cos, surpassed all the other painters who either
preceded or succeeded him. Single-handed, he contributed more to
painting than all the others together, and even went so far as to
publish some treatises on the principles of the art. The great point
of artistic merit with him was his singular charm of gracefulness, and
this too, tho the greatest of painters were his contemporaries. In
admiring their works and bestowing high eulogiums upon them, he used
to say that there was still wanting in them that equal of beauty so
peculiar to himself, and known to the Greeks as "Charis"; others, he
said, had acquired all the other requisites of perfection, but in
this one point he himself had no equal. He also asserted his claim to
another great point of merit; admiring a picture by Protogenes, which
bore evident marks of unbounded laboriousness and the most minute
finish, he remarked that in every respect Protogenes was fully his
equal, or perhaps his superior, except in this, that he himself knew
when to take his hand off a picture--a memorable lesso