berless flocks of owls from all parts flew thither, and destroyed
them, which otherwise had ruined the country, if continuing another
year. Thus, though great the distance betwixt a man and a mouse, the
meanest may become formidable to the mightiest creature by their
multitudes; and this may render the punishment of the Philistines more
clearly to our apprehensions, at the same time pestered with mice in
their barns and pained with emerods in their bodies."[172]

THE BARON VON TRENCK AND THE TAME MOUSE IN PRISON.

The unfortunate Baron Von Trenck was a Prussian officer, whose
adventures, imprisonments, and escape form the subject of memoirs which
he wrote in Hungary. He at last settled in France, and there, in 1794,
perished by the guillotine.

Before he obtained his liberty, he lost a companion which had for two
years helped to beguile the solitude of his captivity. This was a mouse,
which he had tamed so perfectly, that the little creature was
continually playing with him, and would eat out of his mouth. "One night
it skipped about so much that the sentinels heard a noise and reported
it to the officer of the guard. As the garrison had been changed at the
peace (between Austria and Prussia), and as Trenck had not been able to
form at once so close a connexion with the officers of the regular
troops as he had done with those of the militia, one of the former,
after ascertaining the truth of the report with his own ears, sent to
inform the commandant that something extraordinary was going on in the
prison. The town-major arrived in consequence early in the morning,
accompanied by locksmiths and masons. The floor, the walls, the baron's
chains, his body, everything in short, were strictly examined. Finding
all in order, they asked the cause of the last evening's bustle. Trenck
had heard the mouse, and told them frankly by what it had been
occasioned. They desired him to call his little favourite; he whistled,
and the mouse immediately leaped upon his shoulder. He solicited that
its life might be spared; but the officer of the guard took it into his
possession, promising, however, on his word of honour, to give it to a
lady who would take great care of it. Turning it afterwards loose in his
chamber, the mouse, who knew nobody but Trenck, soon disappeared, and
hid himself in a hole. At the usual hour of visiting his prison, when
the officers were just going away, the poor little animal darted in,
climbed up his legs, s