When we regard the comparative sagacity of animals, it should always be remembered that every creature, from the lowest point of sentient existence upward, till we arrive at man, is endued with sagacity sufficient to provide for its own well-being, and for the continuance of its kind. They are gifted with greater endowments as they ascend in the scale of being, and those who lead a life of danger, and at the same time of enterprise, have their faculties improved by practice, take lessons from experience, and draw rational conclusions upon matters within their sphere of intellect and of action, more sagaciously than nine tenths of the human race can do. Now no other animal is placed in circumstances which tend so continually to sharpen its wits,—(were I writing to the learned only, I should perhaps say to acuate its faculties, or to develope its intellectual powers,) as the rat, nor does any other appear to be of a more improvable nature. He is of a most intelligent family, being related to the Beaver. And in civilized countries he is not a wild creature, for he follows the progress of civilization, and adapts his own habits of life to it, so as to avail himself of its benefits. The “pampered Goose” who in Pope's Essay retorts upon man, and says that man was made for the use of Geese, must have been forgetful of plucking time, as well as ignorant of the rites that are celebrated in all old-fashioned families on St. Michael's day. But the Rat might with more apparent reason support such an assertion: he is not mistaken in thinking that corn-stacks are as much for his use as for the farmers; that barns and granaries are his winter magazines; that the Miller is his acting partner, the Cheesemonger his purveyor, and the Storekeeper his steward. He places himself in relation with man, not as his dependent like the dog, nor like the cat as his ally, nor like the sheep as his property, nor like the ox as his servant, nor like horse and ass as his slaves, nor like poultry who are to “come and be killed” when Mrs. Bond invites them; but as his enemy, a bold borderer, a Johnnie Armstrong or Rob Roy who acknowledge no right of property in others, and live by spoil.