of my father's two dogs."

THE DIFFERENCE OF EXCHANGE.--"DOG-CHEAP."

Dining at a nobleman's table, where the company were praising the
claret, his lordship told them that he had received that hogshead of
wine in return for a couple of hounds, which he sometime before
presented to Count Lauragais. "Why, then, my lord," cried Foote, "I not
only think your wine excellent, but _dog-cheap_."[66]

GAINSBOROUGH AND HIS WIFE AND THEIR DOGS.

Thomas Gainsborough, the rival of Sir Joshua in portraiture, wanted that
evenness of temper which the President of the Royal Academy so
abundantly possessed. He was easily angered, but as soon appeased, and
says his biographer,[67] "If he was the first to offend, he was the
first to atone. Whenever he spoke crossly to his wife, a remarkably
sweet-tempered woman, he would write a note of repentance, sign it with
the name of his favourite dog 'Fox,' and address it to his Margaret's
pet spaniel, 'Tristram.' Fox would take the note in his mouth, and duly
deliver it to Tristram. Margaret would then answer--'My own dear Fox,
you are always loving and good, and I am a naughty little female ever to
worry you, as I too often do, so we will kiss and say no more about it;
your own affectionate Tris.'" The writers of such a correspondence could
not have led what is called "a cat and dog life." Husbands and wives
might derive a hint from this anecdote; for we know, from the old
ballad, that they will be sulky and quarrel at times even about getting

"Up to bar the door, O!"

SIR WILLIAM GELL'S DOG.

The reviewer[68] of Sir Thomas Browne's works says--"We ourselves have
witnessed an example of the curious and credulous exaggeration which has
construed certain articulations in animals into rational speech. Some
time since, in travelling through Italy, we heard, in grave earnest,
from several Italians, of the prodigy of a Pomeranian dog that had been
taught to speak most intelligibly by Sir William Gell. Afterwards, in
visiting that accomplished and lamented gentleman at Naples, we
requested to hear an animal possessed of so unusual a gift. And, as the
friends of the urban scholar can bear witness, the dog undoubtedly could
utter a howl, which, assisted by the hand of the master in closing the
jaw at certain inflections, might be intelligibly construed into two
words not to be repeated. Such a dog, with such an anathema in his
vocabulary, would have hanged any witch in England three centu