The Doctor liked not Seneca when that philosopher deduced as a consequence from his definition of a benefit, that no gratitude can be due to beasts or senseless things; “_nam, qui beneficium mihi daturus est_,” he says, “_debet non tantum prodesse, sed velle. Ideo nec mutis animalibus quidquam debetur; et quam multos è periculo velocitas equi rapuit! Nec arboribus; et quam multos æstu laborantes ramorum opacitas texit!_” that is,—“for he who is about to render me a good service, not only ought to render it, but to intend it. Nothing therefore can be owed to dumb animals, and yet how many have the speed of a horse saved from danger! Nor to trees, and yet how many when suffering under the summer sun, have the thick boughs shaded!” To the same tenour Ben Jonson speaks. “Nothing is a courtesy,” he says, “unless it be meant us, and that friendly and lovingly. We owe no thanks to rivers that they carry our boats; or winds, that they be favouring, and fill our sails; or meats that they be nourishing; for these are what they are necessarily. Horses carry us, trees shade us, but they know it not.” What! our friend would say, do I owe thee nothing Nobs, for the many times that thou hast carried me carefully and safely, through bad ways, in stormy weather, and in dark nights? Do I owe thee nothing for thy painful services, thy unhesitating obedience, thy patient fidelity? Do I owe thee nothing for so often breaking thy rest, when thou couldest not know for what urgent cause mine had been broken, nor wherefore I was compelled by duty to put thee to thy speed? Nobs, Nobs, if I did not acknowledge a debt of gratitude to thee, and discharge it as far as kind usage can tend to prolong thy days in comfort, I should deserve to be dropt as a colt in my next stage of existence, to be broken in by a rough rider, and broken down at last by hard usage in a hackney coach. There is not a more touching passage in Italian poetry than that in which Pulci relates the death of Orlando's famous horse, (his Nobs) in the fatal battle of Roncesvalles: _Vegliantin come Orlando in terra scese, A piè del suo signor caduto è morto, E inginocchiossi e licenzia gli chiese, Quasi dicesse, io t'ho condotto a porto. Orlando presto le braccia distese A l'acqua, e cerca di dargli conforto, Ma poi che pure il caval non si sente, Si condolea molto pietosamente._ _O Vegliantin, tu m'hai servito tanto: O Vegliantin, dov'è la tua prodezza? O Vegliantin, nessun si dia piu vanto; O Vegliantin, venuta è l'ora sezza: O Vegliantin, tu m'hai cresciuto il pianto; O Vegliantin, tu non vuoi piu cavezza: O Vegliantin, s'io ti feci mai torto, Perdonami, ti priego, cosi morto._ _Dice Turpin, che mi par maraviglia, Che come Orlando perdonami disse, Quel caval parve ch'aprisse le ciglia, E col capo e co gesti acconsentisse._[1] [Footnote 1: MORGANTE MAGGIORE.]