This elegiac poem, lamenting the death of Bungy — identified in a footnote as "a Newfoundland Dog belonging to the recorder of Canterbury" — appeared in the August, 1784, issue of Gentleman's Magazine, an important and influential monthly magazine in the 18th and 19th Centuries; it began in 1731, ceased regular publication in 1907, and shut down completely in 1922.
The author is identified only as "T. W."; the poem is dated June 6.
Compare this praise of a deceased Newfoundland with Lord Byron's later and much more well-known "Inscription on the Monument of a Newfoundland Dog," as well as with the two other elegies to Newfoundlands linked below, all of them discussed here at The Cultured Newf.
"ELEGY on the Death of Bungy"
Descend, Melpomene, descend,
To me your kind assistance lend,
Whilst I attempt, in plaintive verse,
Poor Bungy's merits to rehearse: Bungy, a dog of high renown,
In city and in country known;
Bold as a lion, in his gait
He e'er preferr'd uncommon state,
And, did mis mistress walk or ride,
A firm companion at her side,
On caitiffs vile he fix'd his eye,
But gents. he pass'd unheeded by;
And well the difference he could scan
Between a rogue and honest man;
For Bungy had a great pretence,
I'd almost said, to human sense;
His mistress' guard by night and day, Bungy was ever in the way;
To sum up all, and make an end,
Poor Bungy was a faithful friend:
A better brute I never knew,
Therefore I pay this tribute due.
But now, Melpomene, relate
Poor Bungy's miserable fate!
His health, alas! poor dog, impairs
In spite of all his mistress' cares;
The doctors all in haste repair,
All the dog-doctors soon are there.
One down his throat a vomit drives;
Another, fond of laxatives,
Thinking a vomit much too rough,
Cries "Give him jalap quantum suff."
All shew their medicinal skill,
This brings a bolus, that a pill:
But all in vain; his pains increase,
Nor but with life and breath they cease.
Not ev'n Sir Compton's skill could save
The much-loved Bungy from the grave.
He dies — in his our fate we see;
Poor Bungy dies — and so must we.
While this is the earliest Newfoundland elegy of which I am aware, there are at least two other Newfoundlands memorialized with poetic epitaphs and/or monuments (in addition to Byron's Boatswain, mentioned above): Lord Grenville's "Tippo" (discussed here at The Cultured Newf) and Lord Elgin's "Caesar" (treated here at The Cultured Newf.)