100 Dogs Who Changed Civilization by Sam Stall

Author:Sam Stall [Stall, Sam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-59474-587-4
Publisher: Quirk Books
Published: 2011-12-06T05:00:00+00:00

BOATSWAIN

THE DOG WHOSE DEATH

INSPIRED A CLASSIC POEM

The nineteenth-century poet Lord George Gordon Byron was, by all accounts, quite a piece of work. A leading figure in the Romantic movement, he was a prolific writer who produced verse of undeniable genius. He even helped inspire his friend, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, to write Frankenstein during an impromptu ghost story contest.

But while his poems were sublime, his private and public existence were often ridiculous. Described by one of his many, many ex-lovers as “mad, bad, and dangerous to know,” he spent most of his short life living extravagantly, running up huge debts, enjoying erotic interludes with everyone from noblewomen to scullery maids, and participating, sometimes at great personal risk, in various European revolutionary movements. It was during one of these improbable adventures—fighting for Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1824—that he died of fever.

Among his many near-obsessive interests, Byron was a legendary lover of animals. He owned, at various times in his life, a badger, an eagle, a crocodile, a bear, and numerous other creatures. But no member of his vast menagerie was closer to his heart than a Newfoundland named Boatswain.

For a time, the two were inseparable companions. When the dog contracted rabies, Byron cared for him personally, disregarding the very real danger of being bitten. And when the animal died and was laid to rest, Byron authored one of his best-known works in honor of his friend. Called Epitaph to a Dog, its loving words could be applied to almost any faithful canine who has ever brightened a human life with his or her presence. It reads in part:

Near this Spot

are deposited the Remains of one

who possessed Beauty without Vanity,

Strength without Insolence,

Courage without Ferosity,

and all the Virtues of Man without his Vices.

This praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery

if inscribed over human Ashes,

is but a just tribute to the Memory of

BOATSWAIN, a DOG,

who was born in Newfoundland May 1803,

and died at Newstead Nov. 18, 1808

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