[92] "I refer to my old friend and corporeal pastor and master, John Jackson, Esq., Professor of Pugilism, who I trust still retains the strength and symmetry of his model of a form, together with his good humour and athletic, as well as mental, accomplishments."—Note on Don Juan, Canto II.
[93] Thus addressed always by Lord Byron, but without any right to the distinction.
[94] The Journal entitled by himself "Detached Thoughts."
[95] Few philosophers, however, have been so indulgent to the pride of birth as Rousseau.—"S'il est un orgueil pardonnable (he says) après celui qui se tire du mérite personnel, c'est celui qui se tire de la naissance."—Confess.
[96] This gentleman, who took orders in the year 1814, is the author of a spirited translation of Juvenal, and of other works of distinguished merit. He was long in correspondence with Lord Byron, and to him I am indebted for some interesting letters of his noble friend, which will be given in the course of the following pages.
[97] He had also, at one time, as appears from an anecdote preserved by Spence, some thoughts of burying this dog in his garden, and placing a monument over him, with the inscription, "Oh, rare Bounce!"
In speaking of the members of Rousseau's domestic establishment, Hume says, "She (Therése) governs him as absolutely as a nurse does a child. In her absence, his dog has acquired that ascendant. His affection for that creature is beyond all expression or conception."—Private Correspondence. See an instance which he gives of this dog's influence over the philosopher, p. 143.
In Burns's elegy on the death of his favourite Mailie, we find the friendship even of a sheep set on a level with that of man:—
"Wi' kindly bleat, when she did spy him,
She ran wi' speed:
A friend mair faithful ne'er came nigh him,
Than Mailie dead."
In speaking of the favourite dogs of great poets, we must not forget Cowper's little spaniel "Beau;" nor will posterity fail to add to the list the name of Sir Walter Scott's "Maida."