An Italian greyhound, buried in Earl Temple’s garden at Stowe, had never saved his master’s life, but was nevertheless held worthy of a memorial stone, bearing the eulogistic epitaph from the pen of Arbuthnot:
‘To the Memory of Signor Fido—An Italian of good extraction, who came to England not to bite us, like most of his countrymen, but to gain an honest livelihood. He hunted not for fame, yet acquired it; regardless of the praises of his friends, but most sensible of their love. Though he lived among the Great, he neither learned nor flattered any vice. He was no bigot, though he doubted of none of the Thirty-nine Articles. And if to follow Nature and to respect the laws of Society be philosophical, he was a perfect philosopher, a faithful friend, an agreeable companion, a loving husband, distinguished by a numerous offspring, all which he lived to see take good courses. In his old age, he retired to the home of a clergyman in the country, where he finished his earthly race, and died an honour and an example to his species. Reader—This stone is guiltless of flattery, for he to whom it is inscribed was not a Man, but a Greyhound.’
That eulogy is more than could honestly be said of the animal whose monument proclaims:
Here lies the body of my dear retriever;
Of his master alone he was ne’er a deceiver;
But the Game-laws he hated, and poached out of bounds—
His spirit now ranges the glad hunting-grounds.
Not in company, we should say, with that of the blameless creature commemorated by the couplet:
Beneath this stone, there lies at rest
Bandy, of all good dogs the best.