“Wundern kannes mich nicht dass Menschen die Hunde so lieben; Denn ein erbärmlicher Schuffist, wie Der Mensch, so der Hund,” which has been rendered: “It cannot surprise me that men love dogs so much, For dog, like man, is a pitiful, sneaking rogue.” Such a disagreeable sentiment as this--one so unworthy both of man and author--requires an antidote. We find one in these lines of Herrick to his spaniel Tracy: “Now thou art dead, no eye shall ever see For shape and service spaniel like to thee. This shall my love doe, give thy sad fate one Teare, that deserves of me a million.” This is all we know of Tracy, but it suffices enough. A faithful dog, a fond master--in these words his story is told. Bounce--named most suggestive--belonged to Alexander Pope; Bean, to the gentler poet, Cowper. Goldsmith had a dog, of course, and equally of course it was a poodle. No creature less comic would serve his turn. Sir Joshua Reynolds tells a story of the pair which reads like a fragment from the Vicar of Wakefield: how one morning he called on the improvident author, rather expecting to find him in low spirits, and found him, instead, at his table, alternately writing a few words, and looking over at the poodle which he had made stand on its hind legs in a corner of the room. In this fashion the impecunious one was amusing himself; and the great artist looked on, no less amused in truth, and pleasantly sympathetic. If only he had painted the scene, one wishes. Very different in temperament was Lord Byron. Practically, he agreed with Mme. de Staël in liking dogs the better, the more he knew of men. He seems to have had as friendly a feeling for the animal world as his contemporary, Scott, although showing it in a more whimsical fashion. Scott would never have traveled with a private menagerie, but Byron carried with him from England to Italy, “ten horses, eight enormous dogs, three monkeys, five cats, an eagle, a crow and a falcon.” Dogs were his favorites; they were friends whose affection could be trusted, and whose criticism he had not to fear. Boatswain is almost as widely known as his master. No one visits Newstead without seeing his picture in the dining-room, and in the grounds his grave, with the famous epitaph: 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, NOV. 18, 1808.