ills to be:
Willing for him his blood be spent,
His look is never insolent.
Few men to do such noble deeds have learn'd,
Nor having done, could look so unconcern'd."

This is one of the finest descriptions of a noble dog which I have yet
met with in English poetry. Courage and modesty are well portrayed,
and contrasted.

The following anecdotes relate to an animal which must have strongly
resembled the Irish wolf-dog:--

Plutarch mentions a certain Roman in the civil wars, whose head nobody
durst cut off for fear of the dog that guarded his body, and fought in
his defence. The same author relates that King Pyrrhus, in the course
of one of his journies, observed a dog watching over a dead body; and
hearing that he had been there three days without meat or drink,
ordered the body to be buried, and the dog taken care of and brought
to him. A few days afterwards there was a muster of the soldiers, so
that every man had to march in order before the king. The dog lay
quiet for some time; but when he saw the murderers of his late master
pass by, he flew upon them with extraordinary fury, barking, and
tearing their garments, and frequently turning about to the king;
which both excited the king's suspicion, and that of all who stood
about him. The men were in consequence apprehended, and though the
circumstances which appeared in evidence against them were very
slight, they confessed the crime, and were accordingly punished.

Montfaucon mentions a similar case of attachment and revenge which
occurred in France, in the reign of Charles V.[E] The anecdote has
been frequently related, and is as follows:--A gentleman named
Macaire, an officer of the king's body-guard, entertained, for some
reason, a bitter hatred against another gentleman, named Aubry de
Montdidier, his comrade in service. These two having met in the Forest
of Bondi, near Paris, Macaire took an opportunity of treacherously
murdering his brother-officer, and buried him in a ditch. Montdidier
was unaccompanied at the moment, excepting by a dog (probably a
wolf-hound), with which he had gone out, perhaps to hunt. It is not
known whether the dog was muzzled, or from what other cause it
permitted the deed to be accomplished without its interference. Be
this as it might, the hound lay down on the grave of its master, and
there remained till hunger compelled it to rise. It then went to the
kitchen of one of Aubry de Montdidier's dearest friends, w