[ Boyle / Seven Gardens and a Palace ]


Boyle (1825 - 1916) was an English artist and writer, particularly known for her illustrations of children's books and for her garden-related writing.

This book was first published in 1900; the text here is taken from the 3rd edition, also 1900, published by John Lane: The Bodley Head, London & New York.

This book is a description of British landscape gardens visited by Boyle (each of the descriptions here had appeared earlier in various magazines). One of the descriptions is of the gardens at Dropmore, the country estate of Lord Grenville, an important early-19th-Century English political figure. Boyle makes brief mention of artifacts in the gardens related to Grenville's dogs, including the "table tomb" that Grenville erected for his beloved Newfoundland, Tippo. The epitaph to which Boyle refers is reproduced in Edward Jesse's Anecdotes of Dogs (1858), also discussed in this section of The Cultured Newf.


Not quite least in interest among portraits of Lord Grenville's many friends, there hangs over the chimney-piece in a room off the library one, life-size, which represents his favourite Italian greyhound, "Aline," painted in five different attitudes of grace. Some other dogs were also counted by him as dear and faithful friends. On the bookshelves may be found a thin volume, The Nugtz, in which are printed lines to "Zephyr" and "Tippo," commemorating their master's affection for them. There is a touch of pathos in the supposing dying address (in Latin) from one of them — the old greyhound — translated thus —

"Dear Master, thy poor Zephyr, old and blind,
Gratefully thanks thy love, which ever kind
And still unchanged, e'en yet has power to charm,
And death's approach of bitterness disarm.
Alone survives, not lightly praised by thee,
Thy dying servant's fond fidelity."

Tippo's story, recorded in verse, appears in the Latin epitaph, carved on the stone under which he lies, overshadowed by many trees, near the garden fountain. It seems that the dog was washed ashore from a wreck in a disastrous storm off the coast of Tenby. He carried a pocket-book held firmly between his teeth. The dumb, devoted creature could give no account of himself; but it was believed that he alone was saved, bearing safely to shore his drowned master's trust when the ill-fated ship and all her crew went down. The dog never left the spot where he came first to shore, and there Lord Grenville found him when he visited Tenby playing with the children on the sands. No one treated Tippo unkindly, but he was no one's dog; so he was brought away to Dropmore, where he ended his days in peace. (pp. 45 - 46)


This anecdote is strikingly similar to one first told by Thomas Bewick et al in A General History of Quadrupeds (1790) and repeated by many subsequent writers: a Newfoundland is the lone survivor of a shipwreck and brings ashore a pocket-book belonging to one of the crew, then remains near the spot where he came ashore. But in Bewick's account the shipwreck happened near Yarmouth, on the east cost of England; in the account of Tippo, above, we are told the wreck happened near Tenby, which is a seaport in Wales, on the opposite side of Britain from Yarmouth.



Greville was one of many famous individuals who owned Newfoundlands at some point during their lives. You can find an annotated list of well-known Newfie owners here at The Cultured Newf.




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