able; and, even apart from chronology, it is something to look towards the skies with the most high poet,' and to retrace, with the aid of our own better knowledge, the simple meanings their glorious aspect held for him.

CHAPTER III.

THE DOG IN HOMER.

Two sets of strongly contrasted, nay, one might beforehand have thought mutually exclusive qualities, go to make up the canine character. In all ages, and amongst all nations, the dog has become a byword for its uncleanly habits, disgusting voracity, its quarrelsome and aggressive selfishness. The cynic, or 'doglike' philosopher, is a type of what is unamiable in human nature. Growling, snarling, whining, barking, snapping and biting, crouching and fawning, constitute a vocabulary descriptive of canine deportment conveying none but repulsive and odious associations. Our language pursues the animal through its different varieties and stages of existence in order to find varying epithets of contumely and reproach. The universal and almost prehistoric term of abuse formed by the simple patronymic-so to speak-has lost little of its pristine favour, and none of its pristine force; while amongst ourselves 'hound,' 'puppy,'.'cur.' 'whelp,' and 'cub,' come in as harmonics of the fundamental note of insult.

On the other hand, some millenniums of experience have constituted the dog a type of incorruptible. fidelity, patient abnegation, devoted attachment reaching unto and beyond the grave. Many animals have been made the slaves and victims of man; some have been found capable of becoming his willing allies; none, save the dog, affords to his master a true and intelligent companionship. Other members of the brute creation are subdued by domestication; the dog is, it might be said, transfigured by it. A new nature awakes in him. A higher ideal presents itself to him. His dormant affections are kindled; his latent intelligence develops. The overwhelming fascination of humanity submerges his native ignoble instincts, evokes virtues which man himself admires rather than practises, engages a pathetic confidence, inspires an indomitable love. Literature teems with instances of canine constancy and self-devotion. The long life-in-death of Grey Friars Bobby' forms no prodigy in the history of his race. From the dog of Colophon to the dog of Bairnsdale, man's four-footed friend has been found capable of the supreme sacrifice which one living creature can make for another. Even in the dim dawnings of civilisation this animal was chosen as the symbol of watchful attendance and untiring subordination. The bright star Sirius, owing to its close waiting on the giant' of the skies, was from the earliest time known as the 'dog of Orion.' A brace of hounds typified to the ardent imagination

of the Vedic poets the inseparable association with the sun of the morning and evening twilight. Eschylus elevates and enlarges the idea of divine companionship in the eagle by calling it the winged dog of Zeus.' Clytemnestra, in her hypocritical protestations before the elders of Argos, could find no more striking image of fidelity than that of a house-dog left by its master to guard his hearth and possessions."

Two opposing currents of sentiment regarding the animal have thus from the first set strongly in-one of repulsion verging towards abhorrence, the other of sympathy touched by the yearning pity which a superior being cannot choose but feel towards an inferior laying at his feet the priceless gift of love. But since his higher qualities develop, as it would seem, exclusively under the stimulation of human influence, it might have been anticipated, and it is actually the case, that in those countries where the dog is neglected, he is also despised, as by an inevitable reaction it must follow that where he is despised, he will also be neglected. It is accordingly among peoples whose pursuits repel his co-operation that the sinister view prevails, while in hunting and pastoral regions his credit grows as his faculties are cultivated, and from the minister and delegate, he creeps by insensible gradations into the place of canine beatitude as the friend of man.

The attitude

' Agamemnon, 133; and Prometheus, 1057. Agamemnon, 520.

of repulsion is, as is well known, general amongst Mahometan populations, and may be described—. although with notable exceptions, such as of the ancient Egyptians and Assyrians, the modern Parsees and Japanese-as the Oriental position towards the species; while a benevolent sentiment is, on the whole, characteristic of Western nations.

Now each of these opposite views is strongly and characteristically represented in the Homeric poems; represented not as the mere reflection of a popular instinct, but with a certain ardour of personal feeling which now and again seems for a moment to draw back the veil of epic impersonality from before the living face of the poet. To the bigoted believers in an indivisible Homer the fact is, no doubt, of most perplexing import, and we leave them to account for it as best they may; but to impartial inquirers it affords at once a clue and an illumination. For the Epic of Troy is not more sharply characterised by canine antipathy than the Song of Ulysses by canine sympathy; while, to enhance the contrast, dislike to the dog is most remarkably associated with a vivid and untiring enthusiasm for the horse; and deep feeling for the dog with comparative indifference to the equine race. More effectually than the most elaborate arguments of the Separatists, this innate disparity of sentiment appears to shiver the long contested unity of Homeric authorship.

To descend, however, to particulars. Homeric