Note 97 — LIFE OF LORD BYRON. (continued 4)
Reading edition
He had also, at one time, as appears from an anecdote preserved by Spence, some thoughts of burying this dog in his garden, and placing a monument over him, with the inscription, "Oh, rare Bounce!"
In speaking of the members of Rousseau's domestic establishment, Hume says, "She (Therése) governs him as absolutely as a nurse does a child. In her absence, his dog has acquired that ascendant. His affection for that creature is beyond all expression or conception."—Private Correspondence. See an instance which he gives of this dog's influence over the philosopher, p. 143.
In Burns's elegy on the death of his favourite Mailie, we find the friendship even of a sheep set on a level with that of man:—
"Wi' kindly bleat, when she did spy him, She ran wi' speed: A friend mair faithful ne'er came nigh him, Than Mailie dead."
In speaking of the favourite dogs of great poets, we must not forget Cowper's little spaniel "Beau;" nor will posterity fail to add to the list the name of Sir Walter Scott's "Maida."