ment with the king, that, as soon as he should have completed his sixtieth year, he should have his full dismissal, and be permitted to retire to France. This hour was waited for with great impatience, because the king was not in a humour to let him go a third time; and it was only by using a considerable degree of address, and promising to return at the end of six months, that he permitted the marquis to depart, as will be seen hereafter. He was the more impatient to return to his own country, as since the journey he undertook in 1763, his brother had ceded to him some land he wished for, at Eguilles, of which he was the lord, to build a house and make a garden. The plan of both one and the other was settled between the brothers, and they immediately began their labours. In 1766 all was finished; the house quite ready, the gardens planted and in good order, entirely owing to the care of Monsieur de Eguilles, his brother, president of the parliament of Aix. The clock at last struck-the marquis had attained his sixtieth year. For a long time no mention had been made of the agreement: whatever address the courtier employed to recall the idea of it to his recollection, the monarch always expressed a disinclination to enter on the subject. He could not recur to it without exposing himself to cruel reproaches, or to mortifications more cruel still. In 1768, he renewed his entreaties, and imagining that the king might not, perhaps, like him to take away the original letters which that prince had written to him, he sent them to him, ranged in chronological order and accompanied them by the following letter: "Sire! I have kept till this moment a precious pledge of the confidence with which your majesty honoured me. I give them into your hands, because I do not think it right to take them with me into a strange country. My continued ill health, and a complication of disorders, put it out of my power any longer to be useful to your majesty; and I am convinced that, under a milder climate, my infirmities might be born. I therefore entreat your majesty to grant me my dismissal, assuring you, at the same time, that my heart shall be eternally devoted to you." The marquis obtained permission to pass six months in Provence, and set off in 1769, on the express condi tion of returning at the appointed time; at the same time he received the packet of original letters, which the king returned to him, assuring him that he possessed his entire confidence, and that consequently he neither could nor would keep the letters. The marquis, however, would not take them with him, but left them in the charge of one of his most particular friends. It appears, that the king was much displeased at his departure, and that he even refused to see the marquis. In vain several persons endeavoured to persuade him, that the marquis would return. He would not believe them. He was indignant, that a man whom he had loaded with his benefits, should quit him for such trifling causes, and which in no way diminished the proofs of his attachment and esteem; but the marquis had very good reasons to give on his side likewise; to pass the remainder of his days under a milder climate, and near a brother, to whom he was attached by strong ties of affection. He had, however, other motives for discontent, which he was anxious that the king should know without loss of time. Scarcely had he arrived at Dijon, when he wrote him a very bold letter, such as no one who had ever any disagreement with Frederick, would have ventured to address to him. In order to excuse himself for this freedom, he said: "It is not now to the king that I write, but lo the philosopher, and in the name of philosophy"-a distinction which the monarch himself had given the example of in their suppers at Sans Souci, where they freely conversed in the absence of the king, although at the same table with him. And he concluded his keen, yet guarded, reproaches, with that inimitable fable of the "Town and Country Mouse." Yet, notwithstanding this appearance of resentment, the marquis D'Argens resolved to return to Frederick at the expiration of the stated period; but it cost him a severe struggle to determine on leaving Aix, to return to Berlin. It was to expose the remainder of his days to new scenes of vexation and disappointment, and shorten their duration. The agitated state of his mind, which this situation involved him in, produced the very effect he wished to have avoided, and he died without being able to fulfil his promise. "In the midst of all these sufferings," says M. Thiebault, "he was detained at Bourg-en-Bresse by a long and very dangerous illness. The marchioness, whose whole care was devoted to him, never once thought of writing to the king, although the time of his leave of absence had expired. Frederick suspected him of wishing to deceive him. He sent to the marchioness's sister, and to all the members of the academy, with whom he was connected as the director, to know if they had not heard from him. And as he was informed, that no person had received any news of him, and that several months had passed without a letter either from the husband or the wife, the king's doubts were soon changed to certainty. His anger and his indignation were extreme. He despatched orders that very day to the different offices at which the salaries of the marquis were paid, strictly enjoining them to erase his name out of the publick books, and forbidding them to pay him any thing for the future. Sezer, who received this order at the academy, thought it his duty to acquaint D'Argens, and in conse quence of this determination, he pri vately gave a letter to a person who was going that way, and who promised to inquire for the marquis, and give him the letter if he should chance to meet him; if not, to address it under cover to the president D'Eguilles. The traveller found him at Bourg-enBresse, in a state of convalescence, and preparing to set off for Berlin. The letter produced an effect which might be expected. The old courtier was more irritated than af. flicted. He wrote another, which was never made publick, but its contents may easily be guessed at, and immediately returned to his beloved retreat, from which he seldom went, except to make some few slight journeys through parts of Provence. It was in one of these excursions that he died at Toulouse, of an indigestion, on the 11th of January, 1771. The publick journals and the writers of the day have asserted, that the marquis D'Argens received the sacraments before his death; that he read the Bible during his last illness, and that he caused himself to be admitted as a member of a society of penitents. Facts, which but little accord with the character of a man, who, always occupied by religious chicanery, theological disputations, and discourses of incredulity, had, however, a strong predeliction in favour of superstition, and the errours to which it gives rise. In all that we have said here of the marquis D'Argens, we have scarcely made any mention of his works. They are, however, very numerous; but if we except "The Jewish Letters," or, as it was called in English, "The Jewish Spy," none of them appears to have given him any great title to Frederick's recommendation. And of all that he has written, his Memiors are at this day the most interesting, and offer an agreeable fund of amusement, which, at the same time makes you acquainted with both the men and the manners of the time in which he lived. ON THE INSTINCT OF DOGS, AND AN ACCOUNT OF A REMARKABLE DOG. [Translated from the French.] SUCH is the depravation of the human species, that it is often compelled to seek, beyond its own limits, as well the example as the habitual practice of the most necessary virtues. Would we possess an incorruptible guardian, a faithful and disinterested companion, a friend whom adversity cannot alienate, we must not turn to man, for if we do, we shall only excite useless regret: regret to think that we must efface these estimable virtues from the history of society, or at most be content to recall peculiar instances, and admire them as something extraordinary, without, however, attempting to render them less rare. But, on the contrary, a numerous species of animals present themselves, rich in the requisite gifts of sentiment, and happy in preserving them, without reserve, for the use of man, who too often only abuses them, and seldom ennobles them by appropriating them to himself. The proof which we have daily of the intelligence of dogs is, to every reflecting mind, a subject of astonish ment and admiration. And no feeling heart can be insensible to the marks of constancy and attachment which they unceasingly lavish on us. 16 "I have seen," says Montiagne, in his naïf but philosophick language, a dog, conducting a blind man by the side of a ditch in the city, leave a plain and even path and take a worse, in order to remove his master from the ditch. How could this dog conceive that it was his office to watch only for the safety of his master, and despise his own convenience? And how could he know that the path, which was broad enough for himself, was yet too narrow for a blind man? How could he compre hend all this without ratiocination?" [Essais, liv. ii. ch. 12.] What attachment can be compared to that of the dog, seen by all Paris in 1660, who remained during VOL. II. many years upon the tomb of his master in the cemetery of the Innocents? In vain caresses were employed to induce him to quit the loved remains. Nothing could remove him from his post of fidelity and affliction. Several times he was removed by force, and shut up at the extremity of the city but as soon as they loosened him, he returned to the spot which his constant affection had assigned to him, and where, exposed to the elements, he braved the rigour of the most severe winters. The inhabitants, who resided near the spot, touched with the perseverance of this interesting animal, supplied him with food, which he seemed to receive only as the means of prolonging his grief, and the example of a fidelity truly heroical. More recently, Valenciennes was the witness of a similar event An inhabitant of the city died. His dog followed him to the churchyard, and lay upon his tomb. Food was carried to him, which he refused to touch for three days. After having tried his fidelity by every means of enticement, a doghouse was built for him on the tomb, and he remained there for nine years without ever absenting himself more than twelve or fifteen paces from the spot, and he died then of old age and grief. [See Cours d'histoire naturelle, ou tableau de la Nature; Paris, 1770, tom. II. p. 103]. But it is not only with regard to its master that the dog develops all the superiority of its instinct. There are some to whom every human being is equally the object of his solici tude. There exists, for example, upon the high mountains of the Alps a particular race of dogs, the sole destination of which is to seek for travellers who may have been involved in the snow, lost in the midst of the thick fogs which prevail there, or bewildered in impassable paths during the tempests of winter. The M m monks of Mount St. Bernard, hospitable inhabitants of these frozen and almost inaccessible heights, never fail to send, every day in winter, a confidential servant, accompanied by two dogs, for the purpose of meeting with travellers on the side of the Valais as far as St. Pierre. The dogs follow the steps of the person (if any) who has lost his way, overtake him, bring him back, and thus snatch him from inevitable death. The hair of this sort of dogs is white with black spots round the ears; and others, which are smaller and of a fawn colour, near the eyes. It is about the size of a mastiff. Its long hair, its pointed snout, and al most all the qualities of its body approximate it to the species of the shepherd dog, from which it probably proceeded, by an intermixture, not very ancient, with the mastiff. This race is also estimable as a watch dog; so that it unites the good qualities of its original stock; the intelligence of the shepherd dog; and the vigilance of our yard dogs. In the species of animals which man has domesticated, or rather reduced to a state of servitude, nature often produces monsters, either by excess or defect. Of the latter sort I will here cite an example as a new proof of the perfection of instinct in the dog, and of the resources of nature. It was first communicated to the publick by M. Peret, jun. in the Journal du Physique, for the month of August 1770. In the month of July 1768, a black spaniel bitch, with red spots, littered eight young ones. She was only allowed to keep four, and of these four it was discovered in a few days that one was deprived of the two front paws. It was thought it would not live; but this defect of conformation did not prevent it from growing equally as fast and as strong as the others. And it was two years old when the following description of it was drawn up. Two-legs, for so she was called, had a considerable resemblance to the wolfdog; but the body was more elongated. Her hair was long, rather rough, and of a brown colour. She often carried her ears erect. Her tail was a good deal like that of the fox, not only in its form, but also in the manner in which she carried it. She would caress very freely, and approached towards persons whom she knew, upon her two hind legs, which she held wide apart, and the toes very open. If she wished to advance quickly, she used the under part of her neck as a third leg to support herself with. She then proceeded with considerable velocity by successive leaps and springs; but this constrained progression fatigued her very much. Her respiration seemed to be interrupted each time her neck touched the ground; and to save her head and nose from the blows which they were likely to receive, the muscles of the neck were always in a state of contraction, in order that the head might constantly be erect. If Two-legs heard any noise, she immediately sat upright, even for a considerable time. If she wished to go up stairs, she effected it pretty easily by means of her neck; but to descend was absolutely impossible. In 1769, this extraordinary creature had six young ones, none of which were in any manner deformed. as broad, and upon this stone, almost continually, but always when they [the eagles] had young, the gentleman and his servants found a number of muir fowl, partridges, hares, rabbits, ducks, snipes, ptarmacans, rats, mice, &c. and sometimes kids, fawns, and lambs. When the young eagles were able to hop the length of this stone, to which there was a narrow road, hanging over a dreadful precipice, as a cat brings live mice to her kittens, and teaches them to kill them, so the eagles, I learned, often brought hares and rabbits alive, and placing them before their young, taught them to kill and tear them to pieces. Sometimes, it seems, hares, rabbits, rats, &c. not being sufficiently tamed, got off from the young ones while they were amusing themselves with them; and one day, a rabbit got into a hole, where the old eagle could not find it. The eagle, one day, brought to her young ones the cub of a fox, which, after it had bitten some of them desperately, attempted to escape up the hill, and would, in all probability, have accomplished it, had not the shepherd, who was watching the motion of the eagles, with a view to shoot them (which they do with bullets, swan-shot not being able to penetrate their feathers) prevented it. As the eagles kept what might be called an excellent larder, when any visiters surprised the gentleman, he was in the habit of sending his servants to see what the eagles had to spare, and who scarcely ever returned without something good for the table. Game of all kinds, it is well known, is the better for being kept a considerable time. When the gentleman or his servants carried off things from the eagle's shelf or table, near the nest (for it was next to impossible to approach the nest itself) the eagles were active in replenishing it; but when they did not take them away, the old ones loitered about inactive, amusing themselves with their young till the stock was nearly exhausted. When the hen eagle was hatching, the table or shelf of the rock was generally kept well furnished for her use. While the eagles were very young, her mate generally tore a wing from the fowls for her, and a leg from the beasts he frequently brought. Those eagles, as is generally the case with animals that are not gregarious, were faithful to one another, but would not permit any of their young to build a nest, or live near them, always driving them to a considerable distance. The eagles of this country are uncommonly large and voracious, and their claws are so long and strong, that they are used by young people as a horn, with a stopper, for holding snuff, and carried regularly in the pocket for that purpose. SIR, TO THE EDITOR OF THE MONTHLY MAGAZINE. I HAVE long been in possession of an anecdote of one of the brute creation, which I send to you, not so much for the amusement of your readers, as that Mr. Bingley may, if he thinks it worthy, insert it in the next edition of his Animal Biography. It is strictly true, and would have appeared before, had it been less extraordinary; for nothing but diffidence has hindered me from sending it. But recollecting that truth needs not to be ashamed, it is brought before the publick, and is as follows. Walking with a lady through some meadows between two villages, of the names of Upper and Lower Slaughter, in the county of Gloucester, the path |