PETS IN LITERARY LIFE.
The pets and authors of the past may be briefly glanced at on our way to those of to-day. We may begin with the learned Justus Lipsius, erstwhile professor at Louvain. This worthy went daily to his lecture-room with a retinue of dogs, whose portraits, each with a commemorative description, adorned the walls of his study. Three have been individualized for posterity as Mopsikins, Mopsy and Sapphire.
Tarot, Franza, Balassa, Ciccone, Musa, Mademoiselle and Monsieur, were, in their long-vanished life-time, companions to Agrippa, the astrologer and scholar. The knowing little Monsieur was permitted, as special favorite, to sleep upon his master’s bed, eat from his plate, and lie upon the table beside his papers, while he wrote. He may even have suggested to Goethe the black poodle in Faust, since, like Rupert’s hound Boy, and Claver’s battle-horse, he was commonly supposed to be a fiend.
The creator of Faust’s demon-poodle could not endure dogs in real life, and was always scolding about their “ungeheure Ton.” As to their character, he even committed himself in this very unpleasant epigram:
“Wundern kannes mich nicht dass
Menschen die Hunde so lieben;
Denn ein erbärmlicher Schuffist, wie
Der Mensch, so der Hund,”
which has been rendered:
“It cannot surprise me that men love dogs so much,