THE PETS OF THE POETS.

PET animals play a very pretty part in modern poetry. Before the time of Cowper they played none at all. Indeed, so far as English literature is concerned, the per- sonality of animals seems to have been a recent discovery. We read of noble steeds and faithful hounds much as we read of Billy sheep and patient oxen ; but individuals are not

drawn for us even though they be named. The type is alluded to, and that is all. Strangely enough, very much the same thing may be said of children. Mamillius and Prince Arthur can be quoted against such a theory, but we think they stand alone. It is not that the great writers were not susceptible to the charm of childhood. Greene and Nicholas Breton wrote enchanting songs inspired by infancy. Vaughan's poem in praise of childhood is too well known to quote.

Ben Jonson's epitaph on his little son, who died at seven years old, is graceful and touching in the extreme :—

"Rest in soft peace, and asked, say here doth lie Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry."

But he makes little attempt to depict the child. The new interest in children, and in a lesser degree the new interest in

animals, marks a new conception of life. We no longer focus our gaze entirely upon the mature man. We do not subordi, nate the happiness of the present child entirely to that of the prospective man as we .used to do. In the same way we are not so absolutely certain as we were that animals were created for nothing but our service or pleasure,—for us to hunt, and eat, and drive, and milk, and shear. Strange to say, Pope, who had so little tenderness in him, broke ground for the good of the animals in this matter :—

" Has God, thou fool! work'd solely for thy good,

Thy joy, thy pastime, thy attire, thy food? Who for thy table feeds the wanton fawn, For him as kindly spread the iiovery lawn: Is it for thee the lark ascends and sings P Joy tunes his voice, joy elevates his wings. Is it for thee the linnet pours his throat P Loves of his own and raptures swell the note. The bounding steed you pompously bestride, Shares with his lord the pleasure and the pride.

Know, Nature's children all divide her care; The fur that warms a monarch, warm'd a bear."

But it is Cowper who strikes the first quite modern note. The "poet's cat," who—

"much addicted to inquire

For nooks to which she might retire"— was accidentally shut up in her master's linen-drawer, is a delightful study in feline character. The words put into her mouth suggest a purr of self-satisfaction, and whether from the branch of a tree she watches with supercilious detachment the gardener at his work, or from inside the drawer congratulates herself upon her comforts, she is always a real cat,—of the same race as Matthew Arnold's; "great Atossa," but with less pretensions to rank and beauty

than were possessed by "magnificent Matt's" immortal pet. There is something distinctively middle class about her.

She belongs to the Philistines, and no grand air lends an Imperial halo to her vices. Civil, if callous, self-centred, "sedate and grave," she belonged to the rank-and-file of domestic pussies. Atossa,' on the other hand, was a monarch among cats :— " Cruel, but composed and bland, Dumb, inscrutable and grand; So Tiberius might have sat, Had Tiberius been a cat."

Cowper's "wild Jack hare," too, whom he loved "for his humour's sake," although Jack' always accepted his kind- ness "with a jealous look, And, when he could, would bite," is a beautiful piece of animal miniature-painting. The same might be said of his dogs. But he draws so many morals from their admirable conduct—" My dog shall mortify the pride Of

man's superior breed," he exclaims—that one is reminded of the "goody" children in the early children's books. Still, they live before us notwithstanding their surpassing excellence,

and one has to remember that they were spaniels "high in pedigree," and that such tend to be dog-prigs. There are fashions in pets, whose influence extends to their characters no less than to their persons. Scott's deerhounds, for instance, are almost too superfine for the taste of the twentieth century, but their master's love has made them immortal.

Wordsworth's Music,' again, is almost unnaturally good, yet he manages to invest her with a winsome charm the Olney dogs were without. There are some lines in Music's'

" Tribute " which only a greater than Cowper could have written :— " We grieved for thee, and wished thy end were past; And willingly have laid thee here atlast : For thou hadst live& till everything that cheers In thee had yielded to the weight of years; Extreme old age had wasted thee away, And left thee but a glimmering of the day ; Thy ears were deaf, and feeble were thy knees,— I saw thee stagger in the summer breeze, Too weak to stand against its sportive breath, And ready for the gentlest stroke of death."

Yet "love," he continues,— " that comes wherever life and sense Are given by God, in thee was most intense; A chain of heart, a feeling of the mind, A tender sympathy, which did thee bind Not only to us Men but to thy Kind: Yea, for thy fellow-brutes in thee we saw A soul of love, love's intellectual law."

In another poem her master gives us an instance of his dog's power of friendship :—

"Four dogs, each pair of different breed, Distinguished two for scent, and two for speed," follow a hare across a river but thinly coated with ice. The hare and three of her pursuers get across in safety, the ice breaks with the fourth, and "the greyhound, Dart, is over- head !"— "Better fate have Prince and Swallow—

See them cleaving to the sport ! Music has no heart to follow, Little Music, she stops short."

Going to the aid of her drowning companion,

"From the brink her paws she stretches, Very hands as you would say ! And afflicting moans she fetches, As he breaks the ice away."

Wordsworth's animal pictures, however, are not as perfect as Matthew Arnold's, partly because he drew without humour, partly because he had not an intense delight in personality either in its lower or higher forms, a delight which, perhaps, is not compatible with an inspired comprehension of inani- mate Nature. Yet Matthew Arnold's finest tribute to a dead pet is perhaps the one which contains least humour and most philosophy, and which was written to nothing more significant than the memory of a canary. "Poor Matthias" was a fine specimen of his race, arrayed in "golden livery,' "courteous-eyed, erect and slim," and a wonderful songster. Every politeness passed for eight years between him and his owners; he was tame and they were attentive, but from first to last they never quite knew him. Between men and dogs there may be complete sympathy ; between men and cats there is occasionally more sympathy than the qualities of the felidae can be made to account for; but between humanity and birds a gulf is fined :—

" Birds, companions more unknown, Live beside us, but alone ; Finding not, do all they can, Passage from their souls to man."

All at once the poet, taught by his little hero, bursts for a moment into the region of pure poetry :— "Was it, as the Grecian sings,

Birds were born the first of things,

Before the sun, before the wind, Before the gods, before mankind,

Airy, ante-mundane throng—

Witness their unworldly song!

Proof they give, too, primal powers,

Of a prescience more than ours—

Teach us, while they come and go, When to sail, and when to sow.

Cuckoo calling from the hill, Swallow skimming by the mill, Swallows trooping in the sedge, Starlings swirling from the hedge, Mark the seasons, map our year, As they show and disappear.

But, with all this travail sage Brought from that anterior age, Goes an unreversed decree Whereby strange are they and we."

Dog-lovers, however, who do not happen to be poets, even potentially, will find 'Kaiser,' "With his collie face Penitent for want of race,"

and ' Geist,' "our little friend," with "All that gay courageous cheer, All that human pathos dear," more touching than "poor Matthias." We see the mongrel—

dachshund and collie- " A tireless shepherd-lad, Teeming with plans, alert, and glad," and we see Geist's ' "broad brown paws," and "liquid, melancholy eye." A good likeuess attracts the ordinary man more than a beautiful picture.

Did the poets read a great deal into their pets which was not there ? Possibly. On the other hand, they surely saw a great deal which commoner eyes miss. No doubt they invented in order to interpret. All artists do that. There are aspects of the truth which fancy alone can illumine, and which for the matter-of-fact must remain dark for ever.