st injury to any one
near him. I have now lost every thing except old Murray."

The monument raised by him to this dog,--the most memorable tribute of
the kind, since the Dog's Grave, of old, at Salamis,--is still a
conspicuous ornament of the gardens of Newstead. The misanthropic
verses engraved upon it may be found among his poems, and the
following is the inscription by which they are introduced:--

"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 Abbey, November 18. 1808."

The poet, Pope, when about the same age as the writer of this
inscription, passed a similar eulogy on his dog,[97] at the expense of
human nature; adding, that "Histories are more full of examples of the
fidelity of dogs than of friends." In a still sadder and bitterer
spirit, Lord Byron writes of his favourite,

"To mark a friend's remains these stones arise; I never knew
but one, and here he lies."[98]

Melancholy, indeed, seems to have been gaining fast upon his mind at
this period. In another letter to Mr. Hodgson, he says,--"You know
laughing is the sign of a rational animal--so says Dr. Smollet. I
think so too, but unluckily my spirits don't always keep pace with my
opinions."

Old Murray, the servant whom he mentions, in a preceding extract, as
the only faithful follower now remaining to him, had long been in the
service of the former lord, and was regarded by the young poet with a
fondness of affection which it has seldom been the lot of age and
dependence to inspire. "I have more than once," says a gentleman who
was at this time a constant visiter at Newstead, "seen Lord Byron at
the dinner-table fill out a tumbler of Madeira, and hand it over his
shoulder to Joe Murray, who stood behind his chair, saying, with a
cordiality that brightened his whole countenance, 'Here, my old
fellow.'"

The unconcern with which he could sometimes allude to the defect in
his foot is manifest from another passage in one of these letters to
Mr. Hodgson. That gentleman having