Inscription on the Monument of a Newfoundland Dog
When Byron's beloved dog Boatswain died, Byron commissioned a monument for his dog to be built on the grounds of Newstead Abbey, the ancestral Byron family home located in Nottinghamshire, England (near the fabled Sherwood Forest, of Robin Hood fame). The monument has a crypt beneath it, where Boatswain's body was interred and where Byron intended his own corpse to be placed when he died. Byron was never buried here, but Boatswain was. (To this day, the crypt is checked every 25-30 years; at last report, Boatswain's collar was still intact, although his body has long since turned to dust.)
Below are images of Boatswain's monument as it appears today — note the urn on top — including several showing the monument being visited by several modern-day Newfs!
Here is the full text of the poem inscribed on the monumnet.
As an interesting side note to this monument to Boatswain: in its Spring-Fall 2023 issue, the online scholarly journal Romanticism on the Net featured a number of literary and cultural scholars discussing important cultural artifacts from the British Romantic period (roughly 1785-1832). One of the speakers — several of the pieces in this issue are videos — was Simon Brown, the curator of Newstead Abbey, Byron's ancestral home. In his brief (12 minute) video entitled "On Newstead Abbey," Brown answers the question "What is the most valuable object in your collection?" His answer? the monument to Boatswain. You can watch the video here.
For another monument involving Boatswain and Byron, this one with literal depictions of the poet and his dog, check out this page at The Cultured Newf.
