I was the only counsel for the defendant; and while I had to acknowledge that the circumstantial evidence was against him, I proved his general character for integrity, and showed that the common and criminal law were on our side, Coke and Blackstone in our favor, and a long list of authorities and decisions:  II.  Revised Statutes, New York, 132, Sec. 27; also, Watch vs.  Towser, Crompton and Meeson, p. 375; also, State of New Jersey vs.  Sicem Blanchard.

When I made these citations, my neighbor and his wife, who were judges and jurors in the case, looked confounded; and so I followed up the advantage I had gained with the law maxim, “Non minus ex dolo quam ex culpa quisque hac lege tenetur,” which I found afterward was the wrong Latin, but it had its desired effect, so that the jury did not agree, and Carlo escaped with his life; and on the way home he went spinning round like a top, and punctuating his glee with a semicolon made by both paws on my new clothes.

Yet, notwithstanding all his predicaments and frailties, at his decease we resolved, in our trouble, that we would never own another dog.  But this, like many another resolution of our life, has been broken; and here is Nick, the Newfoundland, lying sprawled on the mat.  He has a jaw set with strength; an eye mild, but indicative of the fact that he does not want too many familiarities from strangers; a nostril large enough to snuff a wild duck across the meadows; knows how to shake hands, and can talk with head, and ear, and tail; and, save an unreasonable antipathy to cats, is perfect, and always goes with me on my walk out of town.

He knows more than a great many people.  Never do we take a walk but the poodles, and the rat-terriers, and the grizzly curs with stringy hair and damp nose, get after him.  They tumble off the front door step and out of the kennels, and assault him front and rear.  I have several times said to him (not loud enough for Presbytery to hear), “Nick, why do you stand all this?  Go at them!” He never takes my advice.  He lets them bark and snap, and passes on unprovokedly without sniff or growl.  He seems to say, “They are not worth minding.  Let them bark.  It pleases them and don’t hurt me.  I started out for a six-mile tramp, and I cannot be diverted.  Newfoundlanders like me have a mission.  My father pulled three drowning men to the beach, and my uncle on my mother’s side saved a child from the snow.  If you have anything brave, or good, or great for me to do, just clap your hand and point out the work, and I will do it, but I cannot waste my time on rat-terriers.”

If Nick had put that in doggerel, I think it would have read well.  It was wise enough to become the dogma of a school.  Men and women are more easily diverted from the straight course than is Nick.  No useful people escape being barked at.  Mythology represents Cerberus a monster dog at the mouth of hell, but he has had a long line of puppies.  They start out at editors, teachers, philanthropists and Christians.  If these men go right on their way, they perform their mission and get their reward, but one-half of them stop and make attempt to silence the literary, political and ecclesiastical curs that snap at them.