as you have done to-day, you would drive the wild beast wholly
from my heart, and then the veil would be a little drawn, and I should
know more of the things that wise men have prayed for knowledge of."

V

THE TWA DOGS

The Scotch poet Robert Burns, who died a few years before Landseer's
birth, was a kindred spirit of the painter in his love of dogs and his
sense of humor. An early picture by Landseer illustrating the poem of
"The Twa Dogs" fits the verses as if painter and poet had worked
together. We are told that Burns once had a collie which he named
Luath, after a dog in Ossian's "Fingal." The favorite came to an
untimely end, through some one's cruelty, and the poet was
inconsolable. He determined to immortalize Luath in a poem, and this
is the history of the tale of "The Twa Dogs."

The poem relates how

"Upon a bonny day in June
When wearing through the afternoon,
Twa dogs, that were na thrang[6] at hame,
Forgather'd ance upon a time."

[Footnote 6: Busy.]

Of the two dogs, one is the collie Luath, here represented as the
friend and comrade of a ploughman. He is described in broad Scotch
as

"A gash[7] and faithfu' tyke
As ever lap a sheugh[8] or dike.
His honest, sonsie,[9] baws'nt[10] face,
Aye gat him friends in ilka place.
His breast was white, his touzie[11] back
Weel clad wi' coat o' glossy black;
His gaucie[12] tail, wi' upward curl,
Hung o'er his hurdies[13] wi' a swirl."

[Footnote 7: Knowing.]

[Footnote 8: Ditch.]

[Footnote 9: Comely.]

[Footnote 10: White-striped.]

[Footnote 11: Shaggy.]

[Footnote 12: Bushy.]

[Footnote 13: Hips.]

Luath's companion was a foreign dog, from "some far place abroad,
where sailors gang to fish for cod," in short, Newfoundland. He was,
moreover, a dog of "high degree," whose "locked, letter'd, braw brass
collar showed him the gentleman and scholar." The "gentleman" is
appropriately called Caesar, a name commonly given to Newfoundland
dogs.

The picture carries out faithfully the poet's conception of both
animals. Luath is here to the very life, with shaggy black back, white
breast, and honest face. We only regret that his position does not
allow us to see the upward curl of his bushy tail. Caesar is a black
and white Newfoundland dog with a brass collar. The model is said to
have been Neptune, the dog of a certain Mr. Gosling.[14]

[Footnote 14: Two years later (1824) Landseer painted the portrait of