[ Byron / "Inscription..." ]


An epitaph and poem written for the tomb of Lord Byron's beloved Newfoundland Boatswain. Although J. M. Barrie's Nana may be the most popular literary Newfoundland in history, Byron's poem/epitaph for Boatswain is surely the most quoted piece of "Newfie lit."


Lord Byron (1788 - 1824) was one of the most famous (and notorious) poets of the British Romantic Period (the last decade or so of the 18th Century and the first few decades of the 19th), and was as well a devoted animal lover who throughout his life surrounded himself with all manner of animals. His favorite, however, was his Newfoundland, Boatswain (pronounced "BO-zuhn"). As the image below shows, Boatswain did not look a lot like Newfoundlands as we know them today.

Boatswain image
Boatswain
Lord Byron's first Newfoundland



The epitaph and inscription are on the tomb that Byron had built at Newstead Abbey (click for photos in a new tab/window, including real Newfies at the monument!), his ancestral home in Lincolnshire. The tomb was designed with rooom for Byron's coffin, but he was instead buried in the family crypt at a church a few miles away.

The first twelve lines of the inscription — the oft-quoted epitaph proper — are now widely believed by most literary scholars to have been written not by Byron but by his close friend John Cam Hobhouse.


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, Nov 18th, 1808.


When some proud son of man returns to earth,
Unknown to glory, but upheld by birth,
The sculptor's art exhausts the pomp of woe,
And storied urns record who rest below:
When all is done, upon the tomb is seen,
Not what he was, but what he should have been:
But the poor dog, in life the firmest friend,
The first to welcome, foremost to defend,
Whose honest heart is still his master's own,
Who labours, fights, lives, breathes for him alone,
Unhonour'd falls, unnoticed all his worth,
Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth:
While man, vain insect! hopes to be forgiven,
And claims himself a sole exclusive heaven.
Oh man! thou feeble tenant of an hour,
Debased by slavery, or corrupt by power,
Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust,
Degraded mass of animated dust!
Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat,
Thy smiles hypocrisy, thy words deceit!
By nature vile, ennobled but by name,
Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for shame.
Ye! who perchance behold this simple urn,
Pass on — it honours none you wish to mourn:
To mark a friend's remains these stones arise;
I never knew but one, — and here he lies.



See also this obituary of Lord Byron, from Gentleman's Magazine (June 1824), which mentions this monument — as well as Byron's practice of testing Boatswain's "sagacity and fidelity" by pretending to fall out of a boat to see if Boatswain would rescue him.


In a brief note announcing the forthcoming publication of William Youatt's The Dog (1845), the American Turf Register and Sporting Magazine makes passing reference to Byron's inscription on Boatswain's monument, remarking that the "epitaph, though framed in misanthropy, was based on truth" (p. 724; December 1843).


Although Byron's praise of Boatswain is certainly the most famous elegy on the death of a Newfoundland, it was neither the first nor the last. An elegy on the death of "Bungy," a Newfoundland, appeared in the August, 1784, issue of the influential monthly Gentleman's Magazine. It may have the advantage of appearing 24 years before Byron's, though it lacks the literary accomplishment (and the ironic edge) of Byron's poem. Additionally, I am aware of two later elegies to Newfoundland dogs: Lord Grenville's "Tippo" (discussed here at The Cultured Newf) and Lord Elgin's "Caesar" (treated here at The Cultured Newf.)



Near the end of his life Byron owned another Newfoundland, Lyon, who, as you can see below, looked quite a bit like a Newfoundland as the breed appears today (at least to the artist who created that work, about which I have found no information so far).


Lyon image
Lyon
Lord Byron's second (and last) Newfoundland



For a bit more on Lord Byron and his Newfoundlands, see also this excerpt from Eleanor Lewis' Famous Pets of Famous People (1892), here at The Cultured Newf.



Byron was one of many prominent 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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.inscription on the monument of a newfoundland dog