issuing two or more portly monks, staff and crucifix in hand, to administer the last consolation of religion to the poor wretch, who appears already too far frozen for any human aid to be able to restore him to conscious ness. "The dog has always a bottle containing brandy tied round his neck, and a cloak strapped on his back, and this absurd picture is taken (I for one believed it most implicitly) as a true and faithful delineation of what actually occurs there. Anyone who has been at the convent of St. Bernard can see with his own eyes that not a tree grows within some miles, and that the dogs are not nearly so large as a well-grown Newfoundland; and as I have taken the pains to make very minute inquiries of the monks who are the most polite, gentlemanly men I ever saw, quite au fait with all that is passing in the world outside, and the usages of polite society—I can venture to say one or two words on the matter. In the first place, the dogs are never sent out alone, nor with a cloak or any other garment strapped on their backs and a bottle of brandy hanging round their necks; and their sense of smell, though good, is not of that wonderful, almost miraculous, keenness attributed .to them. Their great usefulness, as one of the brethren told me, consists in this-that as, every day, they accompany the servants belonging to the monks to the cantine and the villages below the line of snow, for the purpose of fetching fuel, hay, and provisions for the use of the Hospice, they are so accustomed to the road that, when it is entirely lost under the deep snows of winter, their instinct is a much surer guide than human reason in helping to find it. And as to the monks, whose hospitality and delightful society I shall never forget, they are men of too much humanity and practical good sense not to give their first care to the revival of the body, and are far more likely to gladden the awakening senses of a frozen traveller with the grateful sight and smell of a cup of hot tea or spiced Mr. du Maurier's " Chang." 149 wine-such as they provided for one of our party who was exhausted with the cold and fatigue-than a crucifix.” The Rev. J. Cumming Macdona may fairly claim the credit of having established this magnificent breed in England, and there are now several kennels besides his which contain far finer specimens than ever were seen on the St. Bernard. The measurements of one of these-Menthonwere given as 80in. in length and 40in. in girth. A pup, since named Silver King, belonging to another breeder, weighed 981b. at only five months old, and he would have reached colossal proportions, had not some cowardly ruffian given him poison at the Liverpool Show, and seriously checked his growth. The highest price I can find as paid for one of these dogs is £800, the sum given by Mr. Emmett, the American actor, for Rector, who had changed hands previously for £300. Though usually kept as companions only, St. Bernards may be turned to good account by the sportsman. Mr. W. Cunliffe Brooks, M.P., mentions one of his, Bayard, which pulled down the first stag he was laid on in the forest of Glen Tana, giving tongue, too, at the bay; and Hilda, another from Mr. Cumming Macdona's kennels, established for herself a great reputation in Glen Tana as a deerstalker, often crawling very long distances as low and as silently as the most skilful and stealthy ghillie, and ultimately tracking for miles the wounded quarry. وو My personal acquaintance with these dogs is almost limited to the noble specimen, Chang, owned by Mr. G. du Maurier, the accomplished "society artist of Punch, who for some eight years was a familiar figure, in close attendance on his master, on Hampstead Heath. I walked over to the Alexandra Palace with Mr. du Maurier and Chang in 1875, and saw the dog benched for the only time in his life at the dog show then being held. He evinced his disgust with the whole business by the most touching expressions of grief on the departure of his master, who contributed sub The admirable drawing, by the late Mr. T. W. Wood, well expresses the leonine aspect of this noble specimen. His manners in the house were perfect, and his temper unruffled by the utmost strain the children could put upon his good nature. As he lay on the floor of his master's studio, they would roll about on his great tawny body to their hearts' content; but Chang never resented any interference on their part with his convenience or dignity. Shortly before Chang's death, which resulted from a complication of heart disease, inflammation of the lungs, and dropsy, his master wrote to me: "I don't think anyone ever got more pleasure out of an animal than I have out of Chang. His beauty is always fresh to me, and he has always been so constant a companion. An incident occurred the other day which will interest you. He recollects things well, and sometimes broods over them. One night I came home late from the Punch dinner, and, letting myself in, found Chang more demonstrative than usual in the hall, and with apparently something on his mind. I went into my studio, and sat down on his bench in the bow window, reading a paper, and Chang got up, put his head on my knees, and went to sleep. Presently, my wife came down from the nursery, and began, 'Such an unfortunate thing! Chang and May"" (his youngest daughter) 66 6 were playing together, and he rolled down the hill with her, and hurt her knee.' As soon as Chang heard May's name, he sat up, and began to paw me in an apparent agony of remorse and anxiety. I had the greatest trouble in soothing him, and he had evidently been thinking of nothing else but the accident." The bulldog has been termed by Youatt a "stupid and ferocious brute," a designation which might have been justly applied to him in olden times, when his life was passed in bull baiting and fighting, and he was the favourite of blackguards of high and low degree; but it is certainly a libel on his modern representative. A short time ago, I visited the |