favorite all-time epithet and poem are these: Most of us know the lines: "Beauty without Vanity, Strength without Insolence..." But did you know that while Lord Byron wrote the famous poem, he actually borrowed the prose introduction from his best friend? When his dog Boatswain (a Newfoundland) contracted rabies in 1808, Byron famously nursed him by hand, wiping the foam from the dog's mouth despite the risk of infection. Byron was so moved by the eulogy his friend John Cam Hobhouse wrote for the monument that he chose Hobhouse’s words over his own to introduce the poem. Here is the full inscription from Boatswain’s tomb at Newstead Abbey, a monument that, to this day, remains larger than the poet’s own. Prose Inscription (by John Cam Hobhouse): "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 was born in Newfoundland May 1803 and died at Newstead November 18th 1808." The Poem (by Lord Byron): "When some proud Son of Man returns to Earth, Unknown to Glory but upheld by Birth, The sculptor’s art exhausts the pomp of woe, And storied urns record who rests below... 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. ...To mark a friend’s remains these stones arise; I never knew but one, and here he lies."