The Dog and the French Murderers. (an occurrence in the spring of 1837.)
Thomas Raikes,[70] in his Journal 8th March 1837, records:—"Eight years ago, a labouring man in the department of the Loire was found murdered in a wood near his house, and his dog sitting near the body. No clue could be gained to the perpetrators of the crime, and his widow continued to live in the same cottage, accompanied always by the faithful animal. Last week two men, apparently travellers, stopped at the house, requesting shelter from the storm, which was granted; but no sooner had the dog perceived them, than he flew at them with fury, and could not be pacified. As they were quitting the house, one of them said to the other, 'That rascally dog has not forgotten us.' This raised the suspicion of the widow, who overheard it, and applying to the gendarmes in the neighbourhood, they followed and arrested them. The result has been that, after a long examination, one of them has confessed the crime, and impeached his associate."
Hannah More wrote an ode addressed to Garrick's famous house-dog Dragon. A copy of this she gave to Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1777, while still unprinted, under an oath neither to take nor give a copy of it, which oath Sir Joshua had observed (she says) like a true knight, only reading it to his visitors till some of them learned it by heart. The "charming bagatelle" was afterwards printed, that posterity might be enabled to wonder what a small expenditure of wit in metre sufficed to purchase a large modicum of fame among the blues of that day.[71]