_Translated by a young Lady, a near Relation of the Author._
Here, stranger, pause, nor view with scornful eyes
The stone which marks where faithful Tippo lies.
Freely kind Nature gave each liberal grace,
Which most ennobles and exalts our race,
Excelling strength and beauty joined in me,
Ingenuous worth, and firm fidelity.
Nor shame I to have borne a tyrant's name,
So far unlike to his my spotless fame.
Cast by a fatal storm on Tenby's coast,
Reckless of life, I wailed my master lost.
Whom long contending with the o'erwhelming wave
In vain with fruitless love I strove to save.
I, only I, alas! surviving bore,
His dying trust, his tablets,[M] to the shore.
Kind welcome from the Belgian race I found,
Who, once in times remote, to British ground
Strangers like me came from a foreign strand.
I loved at large along the extended sand
To roam, and oft beneath the swelling wave,
Tho' known so fatal once, my limbs to lave;
Or join the children in their summer play,
First in their sports, companion of their way.
Thus while from many a hand a meal I sought,
Winter and age had certain misery brought;
But Fortune smiled, a safe and blest abode
A new-found master's generous love bestowed,
And midst these shades, where smiling flow'rets bloom,
Gave me a happy life and honoured tomb.
Dr. Abell, in one of his lectures on phrenology, related a very
striking anecdote of a Newfoundland dog at Cork. This dog was of a
noble and generous disposition, and when he left his master's house
was often assailed by a number of little noisy dogs in the street. He
usually passed them with apparent unconcern, as if they were beneath
his notice. One little cur, however, was particularly troublesome, and
at length carried his petulance so far as to bite the Newfoundland dog
in the back of his foot. This was too much to be patiently endured. He
instantly turned round, ran after the offender, and seized him by the
skin of his back. In this way he carried him in his mouth to the quay,
and holding him some time over the water, at length dropped him into
it. He did not seem, however, to wish to punish the culprit too much,
for he waited a little while the poor animal, who was unused to that
element, was not only well ducked, but near sinking, when he plunged
in himself, and brought the other safe to land.
An officer, late in the 15th Hussars, informed me that he had
witnessed a similar occurrence at St. Petersburg. These certainly are
instances of a noble and generous disposition, as well as of great
forbearance in not resenting an injury.