Have you ever wondered what Lord Byron’s dog looked like?
You know, Boatswain, the “Newfoundland” dog that we know Byron so deeply cherished that when he died of rabies, the Romantic poet composed these lines, which are usually referred to as “Epitaph to a Dog” or “Inscription on the Monument to a Newfoundland Dog” :
Near this Spot
are deposited the Remains of one
who possessed Beauty without Vanity,
Strength without Insolence,
Courage without Ferosity,
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 in Newfoundland May 1803
and died at Newstead Nov. 18, 1808.
When some proud Son of Man returns to Earth,
Unknown by Glory, but upheld by Birth,
The sculptor’s art exhausts the pomp of woe,
And storied urns record who rests below.
When all is done, upon the Tomb is seen,
Not what he was, but what he should have been.
But the poor Dog, in life the firmest friend,
The first to welcome, foremost to defend,
Whose honest heart is still his Master’s own,
Who labours, fights, lives, breathes for him alone,
Unhonoured falls, unnoticed all his worth,
Denied in heaven the Soul he held on earth –
While man, vain insect! hopes to be forgiven,
And claims himself a sole exclusive heaven.
Oh man! thou feeble tenant of an hour,
Debased by slavery, or corrupt by power –
Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust,
Degraded mass of animated dust!
Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat,
Thy tongue hypocrisy, thy heart deceit!
By nature vile, ennobled but by name,
Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for shame
Ye, who perchance behold this simple urn,
Pass on – it honors none you wish to mourn.
To mark a friend’s remains these stones arise;
I never knew but one – and here he lies.
Now, virtually every Newfoundland dog owner and breed historian knows these lines.
Everyone with a Newfoundland likes to imagine that their giant dogs have some connection to one owned by one of the greatest poets in the history of the English language.
But you know what?
Byron had a painting of Boatswain commission. I may have to warn certain Newfoundland dog owners, about the only thing he had in common with modern Newfoundland is that he was a well-muscled dog and that he was black and white like an Irish-marked Landseer. This painting was done by Clifton Thomson in 1808, just months before poor Boatswain contracted rabies and died.
Other than that, he was essentially a St. John’s water dog with prick ears. He could have passed for a very robust border collie.
Prick-ears could be the result of cropping. I honestly cannot tell from the painting whether he was naturally prick-eared or not. The other ear that is pointed away from the viewer of the painting in such a way that it may have been semi-pricked.
St. John’s water dogs had small ears, and it would not have been unusual for some of them to have had prick or semi-prick ears.
Boatswain was also a smooth-coated dog, which is nothing like a modern Newfoundland dog at all.
It’s very difficult to get an assessment of his size, but my guess is that he wasn’t much larger than a Labrador retriever– just like a St. John’s water dog.
The only hint of his size that I can find is this painting of him, which was obviously hadn’t seen him. In that painting, he’s not a giant dog at all. He is very much like slightly larger black and white golden retriever.
So when you read breed histories and see people trying to adhere their dogs to some historical animal, one should be a bit skeptical.
I’ve noticed that one never can find painting of Boatswain on any sites about Newfoundland dogs. They almost always put paintings of Landseer Newfoundlands that Landseer himself painted.
This painting of Boatswain doesn’t comport with what people think a Newfoundland dog should look like, so it’s ignored.
But they do seem to like that epitaph.
Whether the dog was exactly like theirs is immaterial.
See related post:
Very interesting painting! It is hard to say the length of the fur on the body… there is slight feathering on the legs… my guess is that the body fur is not that short. The head and coloring really look more like the Border Collie… Yup, don’t see the Newfoundland of today there at all. I suppose the poem would be applicable to any water loving dog…
By short hair, I mean like what one would have normally seen on a St. John’s water dog.
I don’t know much about the Newfoundland’s history… now I am curious to see the breed’s progression. Did it change drastically at some point in time? or is there just confusion regarding the ancestry…
I’m googling and finding a number of your posts on the subject… just wondering at what time https://retrieverman.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/custers-newfoundland.jpg became the modern version… The dog looks sooo different… and why did the change happen? Are other retriever breeds destined to become like this because modern breeders are breeding teddy bears for pet homes? I was shocked to hear a prominent breeder say she didn’t think a Golden needed to be birdie at all… hunting instinct was a lesser attribute. really scared me about where the breed is going.
When did “the change” happen? Probably when breeders began to focus on UK Ch Shelton Viking and his descendants, a number of which were imported into the USA. I’ve heard Viking referred to as “the father of the modern Newfoundland”.
Thank you M.R.S.
http://www.chessieinfo.net/history-of-the-newfoundland.htm …what do you think of this link?
The photo of the champion Newfoundland from the 1920s (next to last on the page) is a dog named Ch. Jonmun Shakespeare.
Thanks for this blog… I am learning allot! I found this on the above link, do you think this is accurate? “By the mid-1800’s, pedigreed breeding of dogs had become popular. England began publishing a Stud Book, and written standards became the norm. The Newfoundlands imported to England had been further bred to other mastiff-type breeds to “improve” the Newfoundland, and to create larger and more imposing size. Color stabilized somewhat, the solid black and the black-and-white Landseer types being considered ideal. By the 1920s, the breed in England had diverged considerably from what was considered ideal in the Americas. Importations of English-style Newfs back to the Americas soon spelled the end of the original type of Newfoundland. Traces of the original Newfoundland can still be found in its closest living descendent: the Chesapeake Bay Retriever.”
100 percent agree!
I’m glad someone in Chesapeake Bay retrievers figured this out. It’s taken me a long time to figure out which of the retrievers is closest to that original dog, and from Col Peter Hawker’s description, I think the Chesapeake is the closest to the original. Hawker wrote about the dogs being good guards and fighters, which you don’t see in the other retrievers, except for the curly.
In Britain there was a huge divergence between dogs that were imported and selected to be pets and dogs that were imported and selected to be retrievers. The ones that became retrievers were bred to be even smaller and more wiry than the St. John’s water dog. The Newfoundlanders exported the long-haired St. John’s water dogs initially because they weren’t as good in icy conditions. The initial dog was called a “Labrador” or “wavy-coated retriever.” The ones that were bred to be larger– probably from being bred to primarily white mastiffs– became the basis for the Newfoundland dog we know today. The wavy-coated retriever is the ancestor of the flat-coated and golden retrievers, and in those imports, you could get smooths and long-hairs– long hair didn’t always mean that setter or collie had been crossed in, contrary to what many Labrador retriever historians believe. A Newfoundland dog is just a giant retriever. It’s more closely related to the retrievers than it is to the St. Bernard.
The only thing I am a bit concerned about on that page is that there is no evidence of any Norse dogs surviving on Newfoundland once the Norse colony failed. The last Native people of Newfoundland, the Beothuks, owned no dogs, though they did have a bizarre relationship with the wolves of Newfoundland.
Let me give you some links:
1. https://retrieverman.wordpress.com/2011/04/01/lambert-de-boilieu-on-the-labrador-dog/
2. https://retrieverman.wordpress.com/2011/03/27/windham-and-jet/
3. https://retrieverman.wordpress.com/2011/03/31/more-long-haired-st-johns-water-dog/
4. https://retrieverman.wordpress.com/2011/01/24/parisian-water-rescue-dogs/
Just a sampler of my stuff on this issue.
And then, you should read Richard Wolters’s book, The Labrador Retriever: The History…The People…Revisited: http://www.amazon.com/The-Labrador-Retriever-History-People-Revisited/dp/0525933603
This book should be read a little carefully. He was a fan of Labrador retrievers, and apparently, he didn’t get that some of the St. John’s water dogs had long hair– though if you read the history carefully, you can figure this out easily. He also has Labrador-colored glasses. The truth is the golden retriever, the flat-coat, the curly, and the Chesapeake are every bit as derived from the St. John’s water dogs as the Labrador. The history of that old water dog is the history of all of these breeds, not just the Labrador. He also denies any connection to Portugal, for very poorly understood history of the Grand Banks. He says that the Portuguese and the English fished different waters and never met. This is nonsense. Newfondland was a place where people jumped ship all the time and went wild in the bush. It didn’t matter what country from which they came. Further, Portugal and England have always had a close relationship, except for when Portugal was in union Spain, which was at the same time that Spain was England’s greatest enemy (late 1500’s to early 1600’s). They would have had some connection with each other. Sailors from friendly nations always have some connection with each other when they are in the same region.
And another:
https://retrieverman.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/paris-was-a-long-haired-st-johns-water-dog/
Paris was said to have been a “pure Labrador,” or St. John’s water dog or something from the Newfoundland water dog landrace. Melody was one of those crossed with setter.
Both were wavy-coated retrievers.
Thanks!
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[…] to wolves. The fact that a lot of Newfoundland dogs at the time had semi-prick or prick ears (like Lord Byron’s Boatswain) further added to their lupine reputation. The Irish dog expert H.D. Richardson laid out the […]