was heavy and paper dear. That life of his
may have been dull or monotonous; he may
have tired at last of the Louvain spires, and
of the dull Belgian brains he was instructing.
He may have sickened at last of the old dull
tune, and the heavy speechless physiognomy
of his books: but by that time he had found
out other living comforters, who were to be
to him a source of prodigious delight. Old
Dog Tray had gotten into the University,
and those who took their way up the little
stair leading to the Professor's room would
have heard strange sound of yelping and canine
quarrel. When the door was opened, there
would have flown out at the visitor, three
—no less than three—of the smartest little
terriers that could be conceived; knowing,
rat–catching fellows—full of tricks and
spirit. Well they might be; for they were
all but spoiled by their good–natured master.
Had they upset the ink between them, or
torn up the sheets of his Magnum Opus;
these books of politics, or the Menippæan
satire, or the treatise on the Roman
Amphitheatre, he was always busy with, he would
have taken it about as easily as good Sir
Isaac did his misfortune. It was always a
hard thing to fret these gentle–hearted
scholars. They had learned lessons from the
sweet–tempered preachers on the shelves;
lessons laid to their hearts through many
years. They might have picked out Master
Richard of Bury's enthusiastic apostrophe,
framed it neatly, and hung it up, to be before
them as a perpetual remembrancer. 'These,'
said that fine old worthy, 'are the masters
that instruct us without rods.'

This was Pundit Lipsius's philosophy, too.
Supposing that that one of his brother
professors, or of his scholars wished to have
speech of him some morning—perhaps to
show him a letter from fierce Scaliger, only
newly arrived; perhaps to consult with him
on the sigui6cation of a little Greek
particle—he would hesitate for a lew minutes
on the threshold, over which should properly
have been written, Cave Canem.

That dog hurlyburly, from within, surely
must have scared timorous student's hearts.
'Down, Mopsy! quiet, Mopsikins! to bed,
Jewel!' he would hear in the mild tone of
the professor, and, entering, would see the
three little wicked faces looking out at him
from under a chair. He could tell a little
story about the three pets, if he chose. There
were three pictures upon the study–walls,
painted by the Louvain Landseer,—one of
Mopsy, one of Mopsikins, the third of Jewel.
'They are graduated in size,' says the Pundit
Lipsius, playfully, in one of his letters, 'one
I call little 'un, another the big 'un, and
the third the huge 'un. There is an
inscription over each, and a little verse of my
own.'

This was true enough: for, over Jewel (who
was the huge 'un) might be read an epigraph
of this sort:

'This is Sapphire, of Dutch lineage. He
is white all over, but his head and ears are
purple, all but a white wedge–shaped streak
that runs from his eyes down to his neck. He
is now, in his old age, being fully thirteen
years old; but in his prime was the
handsomest fellow in the world.'

From which minute description it is plain
that Sapphire must have been akin to the
Bull–Dog stock. Mopsikins was a white
dog, too, and pet the second. His signalement
is given over his picture.

'This is Mopsikins,'it says, 'a dog come of
an Antwerp House, a present from the lawyer
Arnold Borcout. He is white all over,
except that there is a streak of yellow over
his head, ears, and one eye. His chest is a
mixture of white and red, he is short and
sturdy. He is a fat little fellow, and very
knowing. HE BITES: and is not more than
two years old.'

From that spot over his eye, and the short
chest, it is likely enough that Mopsikins,
having made his teeth meet in human calf,
would hang on to the last extremity even
to the mincing of his limbs. To him specially
would attach the panegyric, sung over
original Old Dog Tray, of being good at cats
and alike a 'mortial 'foe to all rats that
infested the professor's chambers.

Mopsy must have been the real pet: the
Benjamin of our professor's children. He
has his verse, too, about double as long as
that of the others. Mopsy was a Scotch
terrier, with all the points peculiar to that
breed; so that, even in that remote period,
these wiry–haired fellows were considered
handsome. But what had brought him to
Louvain? What in the wide world had brought
him so far? Perhaps some raw Caledonian
youth, journeying peripatetically in quest of
education, as was then the custom, had taken
him from the wilds or the Highlands, or
even from the island bearing the name of
Skye; and, at parting, had left him as a present
to the professor whom he had sat under,
and who was so extravagantly fond of
dogs. Perhaps Sandy, cautious chiel, had
not been exactly minded to part with his
comrade, and had promised the Dominie
to send him out by the next ship a true
and handsome specimen. What became
of those paintings in the rough changes of
time?

Often and often had he talked about
dogs in general—with certain favourite
pupils of his; to wit, Francis Oran, the
two Richardots, Philip Rubens, and others.
In that profound delving in the old classics,
he had noted all that referred to his fourfooted
pets; and this he unfolded pleasantly
to them as he walked. In his own life,
too, he had fallen in with some instances
of dog virtue, and dog honesty, and these he
loved to dwell on in those walks. For, as he
writes himself in one of his letters, the aim of
his constant advocacy was, 'that I, for one,