Cardinal and the Dog, The

( A solan do , 1889.) The Papal Legate, at the later se ions of the Council of Trent in 1551 and 1552, was Marcel Crescenzio, who came of a noble Roman family. At the fifteenth se ion of the Council (March 20th, 1552) he was writing to the Pope nearly the whole night, although he was ill at the time; and as he rose from his seat he saw a black dog of great size, with flaming eyes and ears hanging down to the ground, which sprang into the chamber, making straight for him, and then stretched himself under the table where Crescenzio wrote. He called his servants and ordered them to turn out the beast, but they found none. Then the Cardinal fell melancholy, took to his bed and died. As he lay on his death-bed at Verona he cried aloud to every one to drive away the dog that leapt on his bed, and so pa ed away in horror. The poem was written at the request of William Mac ready, the eldest son of the great actor. He asked the poet to write something which he might illustrate. This was in 1840, but the work was only published in the A solan do volume in 1889. Howling dogs have from remote times been connected with death. In O ian we have: “The mother of Culmin remains in the hall—his dogs are howling in their place—‘Art thou fallen, my fair-haired son, in Erin’s dismal war?’” There is no doubt that the howling of the wind suggested the idea of a great dog of death. The wind itself was a magnified dog, heard but not seen. Burton, in The Anatomy of Melancholy , says (Part I., sect ii., mem. 1, subs. 2): “Spirits often foretell men’s death by several signs, as knockings, groanings, etc., though Rich. Argentine, c. 18, De præstigiis dæmonum , will ascribe these predictions to good angels, out of the authority of Ficinus and others; prodigies frequently occur at the deaths of illustrious men, as in the Later an Church in Rome the popes’ deaths are foretold by Sylvester’s tomb. Many families in Europe are so put in mind of their last by such predictions; and many men are forewarned (if we may believe Para cels us) by familiar spirits in divers shapes—as cocks, crows, owls—which often hover about sick men’s chambers.” The dog is such a faithful friend of man that we are unwilling to believe him, even in spirit-form, the harbinger of evil to any one. Cardinal Crescenzio, had he been a vivisector, would have been very appropriately summoned to his doom in the manner described in the poem. If the men who, like Profe or Rutherford of Edinburgh University, boast of their ruthle torturing of dogs by hundreds, should ever find themselves in Cardinal Crescenzio’s plight, there would be a fitne in things we could readily appreciate. The devil in the form of a great black dog is a familiar subject with med iæval historians. Not all black dogs were evil, though—for example, the black dog which St. Dominic’s mother saw before the birth of the saint. Some of the animals called dogs were probably wolves; but even these appeared not entirely past redemption, such as the one of which we read in the Golden Legend , who was converted by the preaching of St. Francis, and shed tears of repentance, and became as meek as a lamb, following the saint to every town where he preached! Such is the power of love. In May 1551 the eleventh se ion of the Council of Trent was held, under the presidency of Cardinal Crescenzio, sole legate in title, but with two nuncios—Pighini and Lippomani. It was merely formal, as was also the twelfth se ion, in September 1551. It was Crescenzio who refused all conce ion, even going so far as to abstract the Conciliar seal, lest the safe-conduct to the Protestant theologians should be granted. He was, however, forced to yield to pre ure, and had to receive the Protestant envoys in a private se ion at his own house. The legate in April 1552 was compelled to suspend the Council for two years, in consequence of the perils of war. There was a general stampede from Trent at once, and the legate Crescenzio, then very ill, had just strength to reach Verona, where he died three days after his arrival ( Encyc. Brit. , art. “Trent,” vol. xxiii.). Moreri ( Dict. Hist. ) tells the story in almost the same way as Mr. Browning has given it, and adds: “It could have been invented only by ill-meaning people, who lacked respect for the Council.”