“‘Cousin,’ replied Richard, ‘it means a great deal for you and very little for me.’ “‘How?’ said Henry, ‘pray explain it.’ “‘I understand by it,’ added the unfortunate king, ‘that this my favourite greyhound Math fondles and pays his court to you this day as King of England, which you will be, and I shall be deposed, for that the natural instinct of the creature perceives. Keep him therefore by your side, for, lo! he leaveth me, and will ever follow you.’ Henry treasured up what King Richard had said, and paid attention to the greyhound Math, who would no more follow Richard of Bordeaux, but kept by the side of Henry, as was witnessed by thirty thousand men.” History has many pathetic traditionary stories of this kind, one of which Southey has painted in poetic colours. Roderick, the last king of the Visigoths, having escaped from the battlefield in the guise of a peasant, where he had been defeated by Count Julian and his Moorish allies, finally returned to his shattered kingdom after a hermit life of twenty years. His dog Theron alone knew him, yet not even he at once, but only after eyeing him long and wistfully, did he recognise at length his master-- “Changed as he was, and in those sordid weeds, His royal master. And he rose and licked His withered hand, and earnestly looked up With eyes whose human meaning did not need The aid of speech; and moaned as if at once To court and chide the long withheld caress.” Queen Mary was a lover of birds and animals, allusions to which occur in the entries relating to her household expenditure. Thus, in the year 1542, Boxley, a yeoman of the king’s chamber, was given by the princess 15s. for bringing her a present of a little spaniel. Sir Bryan Tuke sent her “a couple of little fair hounds,” evidently white Italian greyhounds, which we find frequently introduced in her portrait, and in those of her contemporaries. Then a woman of London had a present of 5s. for bringing her a bird in a cage; and the woodman of Hampton Court took charge of a white pet lark which the Princess had left there, and he was paid 3d. for bringing it to her at Westminster in April 1543. Elizabeth, too, was very fond of singing-birds, apes, and little dogs; and there was the favourite lap-dog of Mary Queen of Scots, connected with which there is the well-known incident in the last tragic scene at Fotheringay. After the headsman had done his work, it appeared that the dog had followed its mistress, and was concealed under her clothes. When discovered it gave a short cry, and seated itself between the head and the neck, from which the blood was still flowing.