——Contented with an humble theme
I pour my stream of panegyric down
The vale of Nature, where it creeps and winds
Among her lovely works with a secure
And unambitious course, reflecting clear,
If not the virtues, yet the worth of brutes.
COWPER.
The Doctor liked not Seneca when that philosopher deduced as a consequence from his definition of a benefit, that no gratitude can be due to beasts or senseless things; “nam, qui beneficium mihi daturus est,” he says, “debet non tantum prodesse, sed velle. Ideo nec mutis animalibus quidquam debetur; et quam multos è periculo velocitas equi rapuit! Nec arboribus; et quam multos æstu laborantes ramorum opacitas texit!” that is,—“for he who is about to render me a good service, not only ought to render it, but to intend it. Nothing therefore can be owed to dumb animals, and yet how many have the speed of a horse saved from danger! Nor to trees, and yet how many when suffering under the summer sun, have the thick boughs shaded!” To the same tenour Ben Jonson speaks. “Nothing is a courtesy,” he says, “unless it be meant us, and that friendly and lovingly. We owe no thanks to rivers that they carry our boats; or winds, that they be favouring, and fill our sails; or meats that they be nourishing; for these are what they are necessarily. Horses carry us, trees shade us, but they know it not.”
What! our friend would say, do I owe thee nothing Nobs, for the many times that thou hast carried me carefully and safely, through bad ways, in stormy weather, and in dark nights? Do I owe thee nothing for thy painful services, thy unhesitating obedience, thy patient fidelity? Do I owe thee nothing for so often breaking thy rest, when thou couldest not know for what urgent cause mine had been broken, nor wherefore I was compelled by duty to put thee to thy speed? Nobs, Nobs, if I did not acknowledge a debt of gratitude to thee, and discharge it as far as kind usage can tend to prolong thy days in comfort, I should deserve to be dropt as a colt in my next stage of existence, to be broken in by a rough rider, and broken down at last by hard usage in a hackney coach.
There is not a more touching passage in Italian poetry than that in which Pulci relates the death of Orlando's famous horse, (his Nobs) in the fatal battle of Roncesvalles:
Vegliantin come Orlando in terra scese,
A piè del suo signor caduto è morto,
E inginocchiossi e licenzia gli chiese,
Quasi dicesse, io t'ho condotto a porto.
Orlando presto le braccia distese
A l'acqua, e cerca di dargli conforto,
Ma poi che pure il caval non si sente,
Si condolea molto pietosamente.
O Vegliantin, tu m'hai servito tanto:
O Vegliantin, dov'è la tua prodezza?
O Vegliantin, nessun si dia piu vanto;
O Vegliantin, venuta è l'ora sezza:
O Vegliantin, tu m'hai cresciuto il pianto;
O Vegliantin, tu non vuoi piu cavezza:
O Vegliantin, s'io ti feci mai torto,
Perdonami, ti priego, cosi morto.
Dice Turpin, che mi par maraviglia,
Che come Orlando perdonami disse,
Quel caval parve ch'aprisse le ciglia,
E col capo e co gesti acconsentisse.1
1 MORGANTE MAGGIORE.
A traveller in South Africa, Mr. Burchell, who was not less adventurous and persevering than considerate and benevolent, says that “nothing but the safety of the whole party, or the urgency of peculiar and inevitable circumstances could ever, during his whole journey, induce him to forget the consideration due to his cattle, always regarded as faithful friends whose assistance was indispensable. There may be in the world,” he says, “men who possess a nature so hard, as to think these sentiments misapplied; but I leave them to find, if they can, in the coldness of their own hearts, a satisfaction equal to that which I have enjoyed in paying a grateful attention to animals by whose services I have been so much benefitted.”
The Prince of Orange would once have been surprised and taken in his tent by the Spaniards if his dog had not been more vigilant than his guards. Julian Romero planned and led this night attack upon the Prince's camp; the camisado was given so suddenly, as well as with such resolution, “that the place of arms took no alarm, until their fellows,” says Sir Roger Williams, “were running in with the enemy in their tails; whereupon this dog hearing a great noise, fell to scratching and crying, and withal leapt on the Prince's face, awaking him, being asleep, before any of his men.” Two of his secretaries were killed hard by the tent, and “albeit the Prince lay in his arms, with a lacquey always holding one of his horses ready bridled, yet at the going out of his tent, with much ado he recovered his horse before the enemy arrived. One of his squires was slain taking horse presently after him, and divers of his servants which could not recover theirs, were forced to escape amongst the guards of foot. Ever after until the Prince's dying day, he kept one of that dog's race;—so did many of his friends and followers. The most or all of these dogs were white little hounds, with crooked noses, called camuses.”
The Lord Keeper Guilford “bred all his horses, which came to the husbandry first colts, and from thence, as they were fit, were taken into his equipage; and as by age or accident they grew unfit for that service, they were returned to the place from whence they came, and there expired.” This is one of the best traits which Roger North has related of his brother.