brings every other dog from his business, had the least effect on Hector, save that it made him a little trouble some on his own charge, and set him a running round and round them, turning them in at corners, out of a sort of impatience to be employed as well as his baying neighbours at the fold. Whenever old Sirrah found himself hard set, in commanding wild sheep on steep ground, where they are worst to manage, he never failed, without any hint to the purpose, to throw himself wide in below them, and lay their faces to the hill, by which means he got the command of them in a minute. I never could make Hector comprehend this advantage, with all my art, although his father found it out entirely of himself. The former would turn or wear sheep no other way, but on the hill above them; and though very good at it, he gave both them and himself double the trouble and fatigue.

impassable, so that I had to go up by St Mary's Loch, and go across by the boat; and, on drawing near to Bowerhope, I soon perceived that matters had gone precisely as I suspected. Large as the Yarrow was, and it appeared impassable by any living creature, Hector had made his escape early in the morning, had swum the river, and was sitting, "like a drookit hen," on a knoll at the east end of the house, awaiting my arrival with great impatience. I had a great attachment to this animal, who, with a good deal of absurdity, joined all the amiable qualities of his species. He was rather of a small size, very rough and shagged, and not far from the colour of a fox.

It cannot be supposed that he could understand all that was passing in the little family circle, but he certainly comprehended a good part of it. In particular, it was very easy to discover that he rarely missed aught that was said about himself, the sheep, the cat, or of a hunt. When aught of that nature came to be discussed, Hector's attention and impatience soon became manifest. There was one winter evening, I said to my mother that I was going to Bowerhope for a fortnight, for that I had more conveniency for writing with Alexander Laidlaw, than at home; and I added, "But I will not take Hector with me, for he is constantly quarrelling with the rest of the dogs, singing music, or breeding some uproar."-"Na, na," quoth she, "leave Hector with me; I like aye best to have him at hame, poor fallow."

These were all the words that passed. The next morning the waters were in a great flood, and I did not go away till after breakfast; but when the time came for tying up Hector, he was wanting." The d's in that beast," said I, "I will wager that he heard what we were saying yesternight, and has gone off for Bowerhope as soon as the door was opened this morning."

"If that that should really be the case, I'll think the beast no canny," said my mother.

The Yarrow was so large as to be quite

His son, Lion, was the very picture of his dad, had a good deal more sagacity, but also more selfishness. A history of the one, however, would only be an epitome of that of the other. Mr William Nicholson took a fine likeness of this latter one, which that gentleman still possesses. He could not get him to sit for his picture in such a position as he wanted, till he exhibited a singularly fine picture of his, of a small dog, on the opposite side of the room. Lion took it for a real animal, and, disliking its fierce and important look exceedingly, he immediately set up his ears and his shaggy birses, and fixing a stern eye on the picture, in manifest wrath, he would then sit for a whole day, and point his eye at it, without budging or altering his position.

It is a curious fact, in the history of these animals, that the most useless of the breed have often the greatest degree of sagacity in trifling and useless matters. An exceedingly good sheep dog attends to nothing else, but that particular branch of business to which he is bred. His whole capacity is exerted and exhausted on it, and he is of little avail in miscellaneous matters; whereas, a very indifferent cur, bred about the house, and accustomed to assist with everything, will often put the more noble breed to disgrace, in these paltry services. If one calls out, for instance, that the cows are in the corn, or the hens in the garden, the house-colley needs no other hint, but runs and turns them out. The shepherd's dog knows not what is astir; and, if he is called out in a hurry for such work, all that he will do is to break to the hill, and rear himself up

on end, to see if no sheep are running away. A bred sheep-dog, if coming ravening from the hills, and getting into a milk-house, would most likely think of nothing else than filling his belly with the cream. Not so his uninitiated brother. He is bred at home, to far higher principles of honour. I have known such lie night and day, among from ten to twenty pails full of milk, and never once break the cream of one of them with the tip of his tongue, nor would he suffer cat, rat, or any other creature, to touch it. This latter sort, too, are far more acute at taking up what is said in a family. There was a farmer of this country, a Mr Alexander Cuninghame, who had a bitch that, for the space of three or four years, in the latter part of her life, met him always at the foot of his farm, about a mile and a half from his house, on his way home. If he was half a day away, a week, or a fortnight, it was all the same; she met him at that spot, and there never was an instance seen of her going to wait his arrival there on a wrong day. If this was a fact, which I have heard averred by people who lived in the house at that time, she could only know of his coming home by hearing it mentioned in the family. The same animal would have gone and brought the cows from the hill when it grew dark, without any bidding, yet she was a very indif ferent sheep-dog.

The anecdotes of these animals are all so much alike, that were I but to relate the thousandth part of those I have heard, they would often look very much like repetitions. I shall there fore only in this paper mention one or two of the most singular, which I know to be well authenticated.

the hill, whenever he found a kebbed ewe, he immediately gave her in charge to his bitch to take home, which saved him from coming back that way again, and going over the same ground he had looked before. She always took them carefully home, and put them into a fold which was close by the house, keeping watch over them till she was seen by some one of the family; and then that moment she decamped, and hasted back to her master, who sometimes sent her three times home in one morning, with different charges. It was the custom of the farmer to watch her, and take the sheep in charge from her; but this required a good deal of caution; for as soon as she perceived that she was seen, whether the sheep were put into the fold or not, she conceived her charge at an end, and no flattery could induce her to stay and assist in folding them. There was a display of accuracy and attention in this, that I cannot say I have ever seen equalled.

The late Mr Steel, flesher in Peebles, had a bitch that was fully equal to the one mentioned above, and that in the very same qualification too. Her feats in taking home sheep from the neighbouring farms into the fleshmarket at Peebles by herself, form innumerable anecdotes in that vicinity, all similar to one another. But there is one instance related of her, that com bines so much sagacity with natural affection, that I do not think the history of the animal creation furnishes such another.

Mr Steel had such an implicit de pendence on the attention of this animal to his orders, that whenever he put a lot of sheep before her, he took a pride of leaving it to herself, and There was a shepherd lad near either remained to take a glass with Langholm, whose name was Scott, who the farmer of whom he had made the possessed a bitch, famed over all the purchase, or took another road, to look West Border for her singular tractabi- after bargains or other business. But lity. He could have sent her home one time he chanced to commit a drove with one sheep, two sheep, or any to her charge at a place called Willens given number, from any of the neigh- lee, without attending to her condition, bouring farms; and in the lambing as he ought to have done. This farm season it was his uniform practice to is five miles from Peebles, over wild send her home with the kebbed ewes hills, and there is no regularly defined just as he got them.-I must let the path to it. Whether Mr Steel remaintown reader understand this. A kebed behind, or took another road, I bed ewe is one whose lamb dies. As soon as such is found, she is imme diately brought home by the shep herd, and another lamb put to her; and this lad, on going his rounds on VOL. XV.

know not; but on coming home late in the evening, he was astonished at hearing that his faithful animal had never made her appearance with the drove. He and his son, or servant, in

2A

they had nothing more ado than turn the sheep into an associate's enclosure, in whose house the dog was well fed and entertained, and would have soon taken all the fat sheep on the Lothian edges to that house. This was likewise a female, a jet-black one, with a deep coat of soft hair, but smooth headed, and very strong and handsome in her make. On the disappearance of her master, she lay about the hills and the places where he had frequented; but she never attempted to steal a drove by herself, nor yet anything for her own hand. She was kept a while by a relation of her master's; but never acting heartily in his service, soon came to an untimely end privately. of this there is little doubt, although some spread the report that one evening, after uttering two or three loud howls, she had vanished!-From such dogs as these, good Lord deliver us!

H. ALTRIVE, Feb. 2d, 1824.

CONCILIATION."

TO C. NORTH, ESQ.

tion for the future ;-if they had turned from their ranks with abhorrence and contempt those members who disgraced them by their factious designs, and by their association with the radical principles of the day;-if they had come forward and declared, that instead of a systematic opposition carried on in a spirit of most glaring inconsistency with all their former measures, they were now to be regulated by something like a spirit of knowledge, and discrimination, and honesty;-then would it have been most proper to have forgiven, and, if possible, forgotten, what was past, and to have treated them with all the favour and complacency which are due to men who are sensible that they can do harm no longer.

A public measure must not now be carried, if they are set violently against it ;-a firm and manly tone must not now be adopted, if they have brought forward any of their vague and idle charges;-and even persons attached to government, and who have defended it through good and bad report, must be given up to their rage, because their pride and pretensions demand such a victim. One would be lieve, that, instead of being men who once held bad and base principles, and who had suddenly abandoned them, they were even viewed as a party of persecuted patriots, who after being unjustly humbled for many years were now to be raised, and to have their hard treatment atoned for by every flattering mark of kindness, of concession, and of conciliation.

And what, after all, is the fact? The truth is, that the Whigs are in all things, except in power, the same now, as they were at any former period of their history. There has been no confession of any of their crimes no recantation-no atonement. They hold and avow at this day, the self-same principles, which, during the last war, at the time of Radical commotion, when the Queen held her rabble court, and while the Spanish war was last discussed in Parliament, led them successively to worship tyranny abroad, to preach insubordination at home, to follow and acclaim the steps of profligacy-and to declare that consistency formed no part of their creed, whenever the peace and happiness of the country might be destroyed. They are the same in intention now, though their power and influence are utterly gone. Disappoint

But has this, indeed, been done? Have the Whigs repented them of that mad opposition which, if successful, would have bent the spirit of this free and happy country under the yoke of the bloodiest tyrant that the world ever produced? Have they declared their regret, that when a season of distress visited our land, they joined, in their drunken folly, with the ignorant scoffers at our national laws and institutions; and tried to take advantage of that hour of danger to raise their rabble party into power? Have they humbled themselves at the recollection of their efforts to stamp with the name of virtue and suffering innocence, the rankest scenes of indelicacy that ever were brought before a British public-and to erect a standard of open and avowed profligacy for the imitation of the women of England? Have they indeed confessed with contrition, that the only consistent part of their conduct has been their continued op-ed in their hopes, frustrated in their position to the measures of Ministers;

and that it was only in illustration of this principle that they lately called upon this country to engage in a war, not half so justifiable as one against which they cried for the last twenty years? Have they made their confessions, and their recantations upon these points, that their opponents are now so ready to receive them with favour and regard?

One would really believe, from the tenderness in every quarter as to giving offence to the feelings of these persons, that there was some such change in their conduct, as we have mentioned above. We see, in every case, the most lively concern as to their interests and views.

intentions, seeing their prophecies disproved, and themselves and their measures covered with contempt, they still cling to their heritage of shame, and glory in shewing their hatred to everything honest in principle and noble in conduct. Their voice has indeed been lost amidst the general shout of exultation which pervades a happy and prosperous country, but their silence is one of necessity, not of contentment. There is no change in their principles, for these are still directed to the hopeless task of raising themselves to power;

there is no alteration in their measures, for these are still aimed against the supporters of Government ;-they are the same discontented, invidious,