[Footnote 1: This monument is placed in the garden of Newstead.
A prose inscription precedes the verses:--
"Near this spot
Are deposited the Remains of one
Who possessed Beauty without Vanity,
Strength without Insolence,
Courage without Ferocity,
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 at Newfoundland, May, 1803,
And died at Newstead Abbey, Nov. 18, 1808."
Byron thus announced the death of his favourite to his friend
Hodgson:--"Boatswain is dead!--he expired in a state of madness on the
18th after suffering much, yet retaining all the gentleness of his
nature to the last; never attempting to do the least injury to any one
near him. I have now lost everything except old Murray." In the will
which the poet executed in 1811, he desired to be buried in the vault
with his dog, and Joe Murray was to have the honour of making one of the
party. When the poet was on his travels, a gentleman, to whom Murray
showed the tomb, said, "Well, old boy, you will take your place here
some twenty years hence." "I don't know that, sir," replied Joe; "if I
was sure his lordship would come here I should like it well enough, but
I should not like to lie alone with the dog."--'Life', pp. 73, 131.]
[Footnote i:
_I knew but one unchang'd--and here he lies.--
[_Imit. and Transl_., p. 191.] ]