ht
Pervious to thy nature;
Only _loved_ beyond that line,
With a love that answers thine,
Loving fellow-creature!

SIR THOMAS FOWELL BUXTON, BART., AND HIS DOG "SPEAKER."

Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton was very fond of dogs; his son[59] tells an
anecdote of the singular manner in which one of his pets came into his
possession. "He was standing at the door of the House of Commons talking
to a friend, when a beautiful black and tan terrier rushed between them,
and immediately began barking furiously at Mr Joseph Pease, who was
speaking. All the members jumped up, shouting and laughing, while the
officers of the house chased the dog round and round, till at last he
took refuge with Mr Buxton, who, as he could find no traces of an owner,
carried him home. He proved to be quite an original. One of his whims
was, that he would never go into the kitchen nor yet into a poor man's
cottage; but he formed a habit of visiting by himself at the country
houses in the neighbourhood of Cromer, and his refined manners and
intelligence made 'Speaker' a welcome guest wherever he pleased to go."

LORD BYRON AND HIS DOG BOATSWAIN.

In November 1808 Lord Byron lost his favourite dog Boatswain; the poor
animal having been seized with a fit of madness, at the commencement of
which so little aware was Byron of the nature of the malady, that he
more than once, with his bare hand, wiped away the slaver from the dog's
lips during the paroxysms. In a letter to his friend Mr Hodson, he thus
announces this event:--"Boatswain is dead! he expired in a state of
madness on the 18th, after suffering much, yet retaining all the
gentleness of his nature to the last, never attempting to do the least
injury to any one near him. I have now lost everything 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 w