Epitaph to a Dog for shame. Ye, who behold perchance 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. </poem> Epitaph to a Dog "Epitaph to a Dog" (also sometimes referred to as "Inscription on the Monument to a Newfoundland Dog") is a poem by the British poet Lord Byron. It was written in 1808 in honour of his Newfoundland dog, Boatswain, who had just died of rabies. When Boatswain contracted the disease, Byron reportedly nursed him without any fear of becoming
Newfoundland dog in 1785, lived at Edgbaston Hall, Birmingham between 1786 and 1799. While there, he bred Newfoundland Dogs. There is very little else on his experiments with these dogs. His daughter Charlotte married a Beriah Botfield and they had a painting in Norton Hall by Samuel Cox of Daventry painted about 1830-1840 called "Portrait of Lion, a Newfoundland Dog, and Juba, a Pug Dog of Mrs. Botfield's. This hung in the north front of Norton Hall. This painting would have been made around the same time that Landseer painted his portrait of Lion, the Newfoundland Dog. (See 'Catalogue of Pictures in