nd who would gain so much by assassinating
Paoli. A certain number of soldiers are continually on guard upon him;
and as still closer guards, he has some faithful Corsican dogs. Of these
five or six sleep, some in his chamber, and some at the outside of the
chamber-door. He treats them with great kindness, and they are strongly
attached to him. They are extremely sagacious, and know all his friends
and attendants. Were any person to approach the General during the
darkness of the night, they would instantly tear him in pieces.

Having dogs for his attendants, is another circumstance about Paoli
similar to the heroes of antiquity. Homer represents Telemachus so
attended.

[Greek: duo kunes argoi heponto],

--HOMER, "Odyss.," lib. ii., l. 11.

"Two dogs a faithful guard attend behind."

--POPE.

But the description given of the family of Patroclus applies better to
Paoli.

[Greek: Ennea to ge anakti trapezees kunes esan],

--HOMER, "Iliad," lib. xxiii., l. 73.

"Nine large dogs domestick at his board."

--POPE.

Mr. Pope, in his notes on the second book of the "Odyssey," is much
pleased with dogs being introduced, as it furnishes an agreeable
instance of ancient simplicity. He observes that Virgil thought this
circumstance worthy of his imitation, in describing old Evander.[135] So
we read of Syphax, general of the Numidians, "Syphax inter duos canes
stans, Scipionem appellavit.[136] Syphax standing between two dogs
called to Scipio."

[Footnote 135: "AEneid," lib. viii., l. 461.]

[Footnote 136: I mention this on the authority of an excellent scholar,
and one of our best writers, Mr. Joseph Warton, in his notes on the
Aeneid; for I have not been able to find the passage in Livy which he
quotes.]

Talking of courage, he made a very just distinction between
constitutional courage and courage from reflection. "Sir Thomas More,"
said he, "would not probably have mounted a breach so well as a sergeant
who had never thought of death. But a sergeant would not on a scaffold
have shewn the calm resolution of Sir Thomas More."

On this subject he told me a very remarkable anecdote, which happened
during the last war in Italy. At the siege of Tortona, the commander of
the army which lay before the town, ordered Carew an Irish officer in
the service of Naples, to advance with a detachment to a particular
post. Having given his orders, he whispered to Carew, "Sir, I know you