is but a just tribute to the memory of
Boatswain, a Dog,
who was born at Newfoundland, May, 1803,
and died at Newstead Abbey, Nov. 18, 1808.
As this dog was the friend of his youth, so Lion was the companion of his later days in Greece. Major Parry says that “riding, or walking, or sitting, or standing,” they were never apart. “His most usual phrase was, ‘Lyon, you are no rogue, Lyon,’ or ‘Lyon,’ his lordship would say, ‘thou art an honest fellow, Lyon.’ The dog’s eyes sparkled, and his tail swept the floor as he sat with his haunches on the ground. ‘Thou art more faithful than men, Lyon; I trust thee more.’ Lyon sprang up and barked, and bounded round his master, as much as to say, ‘You may trust me.’”
Faithful to the last, he watched over Byron’s death-bed, and then went to England, where he lived and died, an honored pensioner, in the house of Mrs. Leigh.
LORD BYRON AND HIS DOG LYON.
Mrs. Radcliffe, whose novels delighted and terrorized our grandmothers, had two dogs, called Fan and Dash. Fan had been a mangy, poverty-stricken beast, condemned by its rustic owner to be hung. In a lucky hour the novelist happened by, purchased the guiltless criminal for half a crown; and Fan, cured of the mange, grown plump and silky, became so beautiful a dog that Queen Charlotte, when out walking with her brood of young princesses, would stop to notice her. On one of these occasions Fan and one of the royal spaniels caught simultaneously the ends of a long bone; and for some distance this foundling of the people and the pet of royalty pranced on amicably together, holding the bone between them!
Dash was a poor street dog whose leg had been run over and broken. He was taken in a coach to the doctor’s, the leg was set, health and strength returned, and Dash was more than himself again, for now he was “Mrs. Radcliffe’s dog.”