esitating man, immediately declared that the face was "not a morsel
like," but vowed with a great oath, that nothing could ever be equal to
the correctness of the _dirt shine on his old leather breeches_, and the
_grip_ that he had of _the necks of his ferrets_!

FOOTNOTES:

[43] "My Schools and Schoolmasters; or, The Story of my Education," by
Hugh Miller, fifth edition, 1856, pp. 321-323.

[44] "Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character," tenth edition,
1864, p. 183.

POLE-CAT.

An equally blood-thirsty member of the weasel family, with the subject
of the preceding paragraph.

FOX AND THE POLE-CAT.--(POLL-CAT.[46])

Francis Grose relates the following as having happened during one of the
famous Westminster elections:--"During the poll, a dead cat being thrown
on the hustings, one of Sir Cecil Wray's party observed it stunk worse
than a fox, to which Mr Fox replied, there was nothing extraordinary in
that, considering it was a poll-cat."

FOOTNOTES:

[45] "Memoirs of the Life of William Collins, R.A," by his son, W.
Wilkie Collins, i. p. 222.

DOGS.

One who seems to love the race of dogs, and who has written a most
readable book on them,[47] remarks, that the dog "even now is rarely the
companion of a Jew, or the inmate of his house." He quotes various terms
of reproach still common among us, and which seem to have originated
from a similar feeling to that of the Jew. For instance, we say of a
very cheap article, that it is "dog cheap." To call a person "a dog," or
"a cur," or "a hound," means something the very opposite of
complimentary. A surly person is said to have "a dogged disposition."
Any one very much fatigued is said to be "dog weary." A wretched room or
house is often called "a dog hole," or said to be only fit for "a dog."
Very poor verse is "doggerel." It is told of Lady Mary Wortley
Montague, that when a young nobleman refused to translate some
inscription over an alcove, because it was in "dog-latin," she observed,
"How strange a puppy shouldn't understand his mother tongue."

What, too, can be more expressive of a man being on the verge of ruin,
than the common phrase, that "such a one is going to the dogs." Of
modern describers of the very life and feelings of dogs, who can surpass
Dr John Brown of Edinburgh? His "Rab," and his "Our Dogs," are worthy of
the brush of Sir Edwin Landseer. Who has not heard the answer _said_ to
have been given by Sydney Smith to the gr