Inscription on the Monument of a Newfoundland Dog
When Byron's beloved dog Boatswain died, Byron commissioned a monument for his dog to be built on the grounds of Newstead Abbey, the ancestral Byron family home located in Nottinghamshire, England (near the fabled Sherwood Forest, of Robin Hood fame). The monument has a crypt beneath it, where Boatswain's body was interred and where Byron intended his own corpse to be placed when he died. Byron was never buried here, but Boatswain was. (To this day, the crypt is checked every 25-30 years; at last report, Boatswain's collar was still intact, although his body has long since turned to dust.)
Below are images of Boatswain's monument as it appears today -- note the urn on top -- including several images with Newfoundland dogs as they appear today. (Many Newfoundland dogs, including Byron's, did not look much like this in the early 19th Century; many would have been smaller, with shorter, curly coats, and with the black-and-white coat color known today as "Landseer," after the 19th Century English painter Sir Edwin Landseer, some of whose most famous works featured black-and-white Newfoundland dogs.)
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