[ "In Charge" ]
This anonymous piece of travel writing — concerning travels throughout the Mediterranean, primarily — appeared in the July 30, 1859, issue of All the Year Round, a weekly literary magazine founded and owned by Charles Dickens.
The mention of a Newfoundland here is rather minor, but worth noting because it establishes that an important British military and diplomatic figure, Admiral Edmund Lyons, the 1st Baron Lyons (1790 - 1858) was a Newfie owner. (For more on Admiral Lyons — who not only himself had an illustrious military and diplomatic career but was related to several other such men — check out his Wiki entry.)
The narrator of this travel story makes the following observation upon his arrival in Valetta, the capital of the island nation of Malta. Strolling through the town he and a companion walk
to some pretty, elevated gardens, known, if I remember rightly, as the ramparts, whence there is a lovely view of the town and the
harbour, and where we find a little old gentleman in naval uniform and cap, strolling up and down followed by a splendid Newfoundland dog. This old gentleman, to whom I am presented, was but eighteen months ago the terror of the Russian navy, and promised, had he had the opportunity, to have rivalled the fame of that Nelson of whose portrait, in his small slight figure, his silver hair cut straight across the forehead, his clear blue eye, and his tanned cheeks, he is the very counterpart. This is Lord Lyons, Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean squadron, who, I hear, is as popular as he is famous. (I: 330 - 331)