Orders were now given, much to the children's delight, for the conveyance of the favourite to the city; but, alas! this arrangement came too late, as the poor creature sank from exhaustion, while in the wagon on his way to join those beloved companions whose short absence had broken his heart and grieved him even unto death.--L.] We will not further pursue this part of our subject at present. We shall have other opportunities of speaking of the disinterested and devoted affection which this noble animal is capable of displaying when he occupies his proper situation, and discharges those offices for which nature designed him. It may, however, be added that this power of tracing back the dog to the very earliest periods of history, and the fact that he then seemed to be as sagacious, as faithful, and as valuable as at the present day, strongly favour the opinion that he descended from no inferior and comparatively worthless animal,--that he was not the progeny of the wolf, the jackal, or the fox, but he was originally created, somewhat as we now find him, the associate and the friend of man. If, within the first thousand years after the Deluge, we observe that divine honours were paid to him, we can scarcely be brought to believe his wolfish genealogy. The must savage animals are capable of affection for those to whom they have been accustomed, and by whom they have been well treated, and therefore we give full credit to several accounts of this sort related of the wolf, the lion, and even the cat and the reptile: but in no other animal--in no other, even in the genus 'Canis'--do we find the qualities of the domestic dog, or the slightest approach to them. "To his master he flies with alacrity," says the eloquent Buffon, "and submissively lays at his feet all his courage, strength, and talent. A glance of the eye is sufficient; for he understands the smallest indications of his will. He has all the ardour of friendship, and fidelity and constancy in his affections, which man can have. Neither interest nor desire of revenge can corrupt him, and he has no fear but that of displeasing. He is all zeal and obedience. He speedily forgets ill-usage, or only recollects it to make returning attachment the stronger. He licks the hand which causes him pain, and subdues his anger by submission. The training of the dog seems to have been the first art invented by man, and the fruit of that art was the conquest and peaceable possession of the earth." "Man," says Burns, "is the God of the dog; he knows no other; and see how he worships him. With what reverence he crouches at his feet--with what reverence he looks up to him--with what delight he fawns upon him, and with what cheerful alacrity he obeys him!"