and dismay; each proportions his fears, not to the object, but to the dread he discovers in the countenance of others; for, when once the fermentation is begun, it goes on of itself, though the original cause be discontinued which first set it in motion.

A dread of mad dogs is the epidemic terror which now prevails, and the whole nation is at present actually groaning under the malignity of its influence. The people sally from their houses with that circumspection which is prudent in such as expect a mad dog at every turning. The physician publishes his prescription, the beadle prepares his halter, and a few of unusual bravery arm themselves with boots and buff gloves, in order to face the enemy if he should offer to attack them. In short, the whole people stand bravely upon their defence, and seem, by their present spirit, to show a resolution of being tamely bit by mad dogs no longer.

Their manner of knowing whether a dog be mad or no somewhat resembles the ancient Gothic custom of trying witches. The old woman suspected was tied hand and foot and thrown into the water. If she swam, then she was instantly carried off to be burned for a witch; if she sunk, then indeed she was acquitted of the charge, but drowned in the experiment. In the same manner a crowd gather round a dog suspected of madness, and they begin by teasing the devoted animal on every side. If he attempts to stand upon the defensive and bite, then is he unanimously found guilty, for "a mad dog always snaps at everything." If, on the contrary, he strives to escape by running away, then he can expect no compassion, "for mad dogs always run straight forward before them."

It is pleasant enough for a neutral being like me, who have no share in those ideal calamities, to mark the stages of this national disease. The terror at first feebly enters with a disregarded story of a little dog, that had gone through a neighboring village, which was thought to be mad by several who had seen him. The next account comes that a mastiff ran through a certain town and had bit five geese, which immediately ran mad, foamed at the bill, and died in great agonies

soon after. Then comes an affecting history of a little boy bit in the leg, and gone down to be dipped in the salt-water. When the people have sufficiently shuddered at that, they are next congealed with a frightful account of a man who was said lately to have died from a bite he had received some years before. This relation only prepares the way for another, still more hideous: as how the master of a family, with seven small children, were all bit by a mad lapdog; and how the poor father first perceived the infection by calling for a draught of water, where he saw the lapdog swimming in the cup.

When epidemic terror is thus once excited, every morning comes loaded with some new disaster. As in stories of ghosts each loves to hear the account, though it only serves to make him uneasy; so here each listens with eagerness, and adds to the tidings with new circumstances of peculiar horror. A lady, for instance, in the country, of very weak nerves, has been frighted by the barking of a dog; and this, alas! too frequently happens. The story soon is improved and spreads, that a mad dog had frighted a lady of distinction. These circumstances begin to grow terrible before they have reached the neighboring village; and there the report is that a lady of quality was bit by a mad mastiff. This account every moment gathers new strength, and grows more dismal as it approaches the capital; and by the time it has arrived in town, the lady is described with wild eyes, foaming mouth, running mad upon all four, barking like a dog, biting her servants, and at last smothered between two beds by the advice of her doctors; while the mad mastiff is, in the meantime, ranging the whole country over, slavering at the mouth, and seeking whom he may devour.

My landlady, a good-natured woman, but a little credulous, waked me some mornings ago, before the usual hour, with horror and astonishment in her look. She desired me, if I had any regard for my safety, to keep within; for, a few days ago, so dismal an accident had happened as to put all the world upon their guard. A mad dog down in the country, she assured me, had bit a farmer, who, soon becoming mad,

ran into his own yard and bit a fine brindled cow; the cow quickly became as mad as the man, began to foam at the mouth, and, raising herself up, walked about on her hind-legs, sometimes barking like a dog, and sometimes attempting to talk like the farmer. Upon examining the grounds of this story, I found my landlady had it from one neighbor, who had it from another neighbor, who heard it from very good authority.

Were most stories of this nature well examined, it would be found that numbers of such as have been said to suffer were no way injured; and that of those who have been actually bitten, not one in an hundred was bit by a mad dog. Such accounts in general, therefore, only serve to make the people miserable by false terrors, and sometimes fright the patient into actual frenzy by creating those very symptoms they pretended to deplore.

But even allowing three or four to die in a season of this terrible death (and four is probably too large a concession), yet still it is not considered how many are preserved in their health and in their property by this devoted animal's services. The midnight robber is kept at a distance; the insidious thief is often detected; the healthful chase repairs many a worn constitution; and the poor man finds in his dog a willing assistant, eager to lessen his toil, and content with the smallest retribution.

"A dog," says one of the English poets, "is an honest creature, and I am a friend to dogs." Of all the beasts that graze the lawn or hunt the forest, a dog is the only animal that, leaving his fellows, attempts to cultivate the friendship of man; to man he looks, in all his necessities, with a speaking eye for assistance; exerts for him all the little service in his power with cheerfulness and pleasure; for him bears famine and fatigue with patience and resignation; no injuries can abate his fidelity; no distress induce him to forsake his benefactor; studious to please, and fearing to offend, he is still an humble, steadfast dependent; and in him alone fawning is

1See note, Vol. II. p. 342.

not flattery. How unkind, then, to torture this faithful creature, who has left the forest to claim the protection of man! How ungrateful a return to the trusty animal for all its services!

ESSAY XIV.1

ON THE INCREASED LOVE OF LIFE WITH AGE.

AGE, that lessens the enjoyment of life, increases our desire of living. Those dangers which, in the vigor of youth, we had learned to despise assume new terrors as we grow old. Our caution increasing as our years increase, fear becomes at last the prevailing passion of the mind; and the small remainder of life is taken up in useless efforts to keep off our end or provide for a continued existence.

Strange contradiction in our nature, and to which even the wise are liable! If I should judge of that part of life which lies before me by that which I have already seen, the prospect is hideous. Experience tells me that my past enjoyments have brought no real felicity; and sensation assures me that those I have felt are stronger than those which are yet to Yet experience and sensation in vain persuade: hope, more powerful than either, dresses out the distant prospect in fancied beauty; some happiness, in long perspective, still beckons me to pursue; and, like a losing gamester, every new disappointment increases my ardor to continue the game.

come.

Whence, then, is this increased love of life which grows "upon us with our years? whence comes it that we thus make greater efforts to preserve our existence at a period when it becomes scarce worth the keeping? Is it that nature, attentive to the preservation of mankind, increases our wishes to live, while she lessens our enjoyments; and, as she robs the senses of every pleasure, equips imagination in the spoil? Life would be insupportable to an old man who, loaded with infirmities, feared death no more than when in the vigor of

1 Also Letter LXXIII. of "The Citizen of the World."

2 See note on "The Citizen of the World," Letter LXXIII. Vol. II. p. 355. III.-14

manhood; the numberless calamities of decaying nature, and the consciousness of surviving every pleasure, would at once induce him, with his own hand, to terminate the scene of misery. But, happily, the contempt of death forsakes him at a time when it could only be prejudicial; and life acquires an imaginary value, in proportion as its real value is no more.

Our attachment to every object around us increases, in general, from the length of our acquaintance with it. "I would not choose," says a French philosopher, "to see an old post pulled up with which I had been long acquainted." A mind long habituated to a certain set of objects insensibly becomes fond of seeing them; visits them from habit, and parts from them with reluctance. From hence proceeds the avarice of the old in every kind of possession: they love the world and all that it produces; they love life and all its advantages; not because it gives them pleasure, but because they have known. it long.

Chinvang the Chaste, ascending the throne of China, commanded that all who were unjustly detained in prison during the preceding reigns should be set free. Among the number who came to thank their deliverer on this occasion there appeared a majestic old man, who, falling at the emperor's feet, addressed him as follows: "Great father of China, behold a wretch, now eighty-five years old, who was shut up in a dungeon at the age of twenty-two. I was imprisoned, though a stranger to crime, or without being even confronted by my accusers. I have now lived in solitude and darkness for more than fifty years, and am grown familiar with distress. As yet, dazzled with the splendor of that sun to which you have restored me, I have been wandering the streets to find out some friend that would assist or relieve or remember me; but my friends, my family, and relations are all dead, and I am forgotten. Permit me then, O Chinvang, to wear out the wretched remains of life in my former prison; the walls of my dungeon are to me more pleasing than the most splendid palace. I have not long to live, and shall be unhappy except I spend the rest of my days where my youth was passed-in that prison from whence you were pleased to release me."