Newfoundland dog Newfoundland dog that will do as much." Henry David Thoreau "Walden" "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." George Gordon, Lord Byron, Epitaph to a Dog. "That boat, Rover by name, which, though now in strange seas, had often pressed the beach of Captain Delano's home, and, brought to its threshold for repairs, had
Poet laureate of the office of Poet Laureate of England. The office developed from earlier practice when minstrels and versifiers were members of the king's retinue. Richard Cœur-de-Lion had a "versificator regis" (English: "king's poet"), Gulielmus Peregrinus (William the Pilgrim), and Henry III had a "versificator" named Master Henry. In the fifteenth century, John Kay, a versifier, described himself as Edward IV's "humble poet laureate". According to Wharton, King Henry I paid 10 shillings a year to a "versificator regis". Geoffrey Chaucer (1340–1400) was called Poet Laureate, being granted in 1389 an annual allowance of wine. W. Hamilton describes Chaucer, Gower, Kay,