A NOTABLE CANINE TRIO.
V.
A NOTABLE CANINE TRIO.
In almost every library where the owner has an antiquarian taste may be found a pair of stout, leather-bound volumes, bearing a kind of “important-facts” appearance which the title, stamped in gilt, airily contradicts. Nugæ antiquæ, it reads. Trifles, in fine; anecdotes, memoranda of things passed by.
The writer of the Nugæ was Sir John Harrington—a man of literary tastes, witty, vivacious, warm-hearted and sarcastic. He put into his collection a little about a good many things. There are items of secret or curious history; there are good stories about “King Elizabeth and Queen James,” as some witty person entitled them; there are letters; and there is one letter, above all, full of interest and feeling, “concerninge his dogge, Bungey.” It was written to the young Prince Henry, King James’s oldest son; and Sir John evidently thought it worth while to make a copy, before sending away the original. It is only a trifle in the great sum of history—yet a trifle that means much. The brilliant Sir John comes very near us as we read; and none of his wit pleases us so well as this simple and affectionate tribute to the dog he had lost.
One or two facts “concerninge” Bungey’s owner may not be amiss before giving the letter.
PRINCE HENRY, ELDEST SON OF JAMES I.