Famous Pets of Famous People

Part 1

Transcriber’s Notes

Hyphenation has been standardised.

The spellings of Durer and Dürer are being left unchanged. The spellings of Etretat and Etretât are being left unchanged. Page 190.png changed other to another

In this text version, text in italics is delimited by underscores.

FAMOUS PETS

OF FAMOUS PEOPLE

ELEANOR LEWIS

ILLUSTRATED

BOSTON D. LOTHROP COMPANY WASHINGTON STREET OPPOSITE BROMFIELD

COPYRIGHT, 1892, BY D. LOTHROP COMPANY.

PRESS OF Rockwell and Churchill BOSTON

Maud Howe Elliott

WHOSE DEVOTION TO HER OWN PETS CONSTITUTES HER THE FRIEND OF EVERY OTHER, THIS BOOK IS APPRECIATIVELY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR

CONTENTS.

SOME SCOTCH CELEBRITIES 15

II.

A SELECT COMPANY 37

III.

PETS IN LITERARY LIFE 53

IV.

“THE UPPER TEN” 75

A NOTABLE CANINE TRIO 119

VI.

PETS IN ARTIST LIFE 135

VII.

PUSSY IN PRIVATE LIFE 173

VIII.

AN ODD SET 189

Part 2

IX.

MILITARY PETS 209

ANIMALS AT SCHOOL 231

XI.

A MENAGERIE IN STONE 247

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Miss Maud Howe and her dog Sambo Frontis.

Statue of Sir Walter Scott, in Edinburgh 17

Sir Walter Scott and his bull-terrier, Camp 21

Rab 25

“Baby Rab” 26

“Pity the sorrows of us homeless dogs” 27

Dr. John Brown, Dr. Peddie, and Dandie 28

Drinking-fountain monument to Greyfriars’ Bobby, Edinburgh 29

Greyfriars’ Bobby 31

Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe at home 38

Mrs. Stowe’s dog Punch 40

Mrs. Stowe’s dog Missy 41

Mrs. Phelps’s dog Daniel Deronda 42

Mrs. Jane Welsh Carlyle and Nero 45

Lord Byron and his dog Lyon 56

Sir Horace Walpole and Patapan 59

Charles Dickens’s pet raven, Grip 62

Bushie, the favorite dog of Charlotte Cushman 66

Mouche, Victor Hugo’s cat 68

General Muff, Miss Mary L. Booth’s cat 69

Nelly, the dog of Edmund Yates 71

Frederick the Great and his sister Wilhelmina 78

Part 3

Prince Bismarck and his dogs 81

Queen Elizabeth in her peacock gown 86

Mary, Queen of Scots, at the age of ten 87

Lady Margaret Lenox, mother of Lord Darnley 88

Children of Charles I. with spaniels 90

Children of Charles I.; Prince Charles and his mastiff 91

James Stuart, Duke of Richmond, son of Esme Stuart 95

Princess Elizabeth, eldest daughter of James I., and her pets 98

Princess Mary, daughter of Charles I. 101

Charles II. and pet spaniel, at Dawney Court, Bucks, seat of the Duchess of Cleveland 104

Princess Amelia and her dog 105

Princess Augusta, daughter of George III.} Princess Amelia, daughter of George III. } 107

A favorite at Marlborough House 109

Pet spaniel of Louis XVI., companion of his daughter “Madame Royale,” in prison 111

Pet Italian greyhound of Marie Louise 112

Carlo Alberto and his favorite horse 113

Victor Emmanuel and his dog 115

Prince Henry, eldest son of James I. 120

Prince Rupert with his white dog Boy 127

Puritan caricature of the death of Prince Rupert’s white hound Boy 131

Miss Bowles 136

“Friends now, Pussy!” 137

The painter Hogarth and his dog Trump 139

Portrait of Albrecht Dürer at thirteen 141

Hare drawn by the boy Albrecht Dürer 142

Two Venetian ladies and their pets 143

Section of dome 145

Ducks 146

Part 4

Fragment 147

Hens and chickens 147

Two of Gottfried Mind’s cats 148

The Cavalier’s pets 149

The dustman’s dog 151

Countess, the sleeping bloodhound 151

The critics 152

Paul Pry, a member of the Humane Society 153

An old monarch 155

Wasp, Rosa Bonheur’s pet terrier 157

The horse fair 158

The lion at home 159

Glen and his master at Etretât 160

Glen 161

Mr. Chase and Kat-te 162

Lilla, Cruikshank’s little dog 163

Lady Tankerville, who hid her kittens in the head of Story’s statue of Peabody 165

Entrance and window of the sculptor Ezekiel’s studio in Rome 168

Bimbo, one of the sculptor Story’s pets 169

Cat-headed Egyptian goddess, Bast or Bubastis 174

Bas-relief of Whittington and his cat 175

Cardinal Richelieu, front face and sides 179

The two-legged cat that belonged to Dr. Hill of Princeton College 183

Sally 193

Cowper’s tame hares 199

Helix Desertorum 204

Bobby, the dog who would be a soldier 211

The deer that marched ahead 220

Part 5

The Welsh Fusileers’ goat 221

Old Abe 223

Love leading the orchestra 232

The elephants of Germanicus 232

The cat showman 233

Pinta and his mule Marco 234

Help, the railway dog of England 235

Prof. Bonnetty’s troupe 237

The Brighton Cats 239

A cat with a conscience 241

“Tell me thy secret, Beppo” 242

Sculpture of greyhounds in the Vatican 248

Sculpture of thieving monkey in the Vatican 249

Stag in alabaster in the Vatican 250

Pliny’s doves; a mosaic in the Capitol at Rome 251

Patrician or plebeian? 253

The chimera; Etruscan sculpture in the Bargello at Florence 254

SOME SCOTCH CELEBRITIES.

FAMOUS PETS.

SOME SCOTCH CELEBRITIES.

Beautiful Edinburgh, her gray warmed into gold by the summer sunshine, lies half-asleep at the foot of her Castle Rock, and dreams, through the peaceful present, of her stormy, impetuous past. Each grain of dust there is historic. The traveler’s every footstep wakes some memory of old days. Over castle and palace, broad way and narrow close, over Canongate, Grassmarket, Arthur’s Seat, over hills that environ and streams that link, a magician has cast his spell--so intimately blending past and present, that we cannot look upon the one without remembering the other.

To-day in sculptured marble, as erstwhile in life, the weaver of the spell yet guards his time-worn city, like the good genius of its fate. Passionless, mute, he sits brooding--the bustle of existence all around him--while the hound at his side gazes up at him, in rest unbroken as his own. The Scott monument--that is what rises before us; and the broad-browed, deep-eyed enchanter within, that--as every schoolboy knows--is the great Sir Walter Scott, the good, well-loving, dearly-loved Sir Walter.

“What has he not done for every one of us?” writes the historian of Rab. “Who else ever, except Shakespeare, so diverted mankind, entertained and entertains a world so liberally, so wholesomely?” Who, indeed? And, in truth, we owe him far more than mere diversion, however liberal and wholesome; and may count it not least among his gifts to the world that, from the height of his fame, he set it example of a wise, distinguishing regard for animals.

“He prayeth well who loveth well Both man and bird and beast”--

might stand for the motto of his life. From babyhood to old age the power of loving enriched him, and won from “all things, great or small,” a warm response.

The most conversible, attachable, and hence, dearest, among his humble friends were, naturally, horses and dogs. He liked, however, almost everything that breathes; and poultry, cattle, sheep, or pigs, cats and birds--all shared, to greater or less degree, in his good-will. An old gray badger lived, hermit-like, in a hole near Abbotsford for many years under his protection. A hen and a pig formed ardent attachments to him; and a pair of little donkeys would trot like puppies at his heels whenever they got the chance.

Carlyle tells the story of a Blenheim cocker in Edinburgh, the most timid and reserved of its race, which shrank from all attention save that of its mistress, until one day on the street it made a sudden spring towards a tall, halting stranger, and fawned upon him in an ecstasy of delight. This was, of course, our own Sir Walter, whose great heart, like a magnet, drew to it all other hearts, whether bold or shy.

His horses all fed from his hand, and preferred his attendance to that of the grooms; while, until lameness obliged him, in later years, to give up walking, he would never ride on Sunday, believing that “all domestic animals have a full right to their Sabbath of rest.” If his four-footed dependants were ill, he nursed and prescribed for them. When little Spice, an asthmatic terrier, was following the carriage, he would carry it over the brooks, that it might not get wet. In fine, he was always what too few are--“a gentleman, even to his dogs.”

Part 6

Pets were so numerous at Abbotsford that their record must be brief. The long list of pet horses opens in his childhood with a Shetland pony called Marion--a dwarfish creature that fed from his hand, and ran in and out of the house like a dog. The pair were close friends, and passed hours together exploring the hills. In his twentieth year, or thereabouts, Lenore is mentioned as doing him good service, but ere long was succeeded by Captain, coal-black and full of mettle. Next came Lieutenant, and then Brown Adam, a special favorite, who would let none but his master ride him, and who, when saddled and bridled, would trot out of the stable by himself to the mounting-stone, and wait there for Sir Walter. Daisy, next in order, was “all over white, without a speck, and with such a mane as Rubens delighted to paint.” His temper, unfortunately, was less perfect than his mane, and eventually Sir Walter sold him. Daisy was succeeded by the original of Dandie Dinmont’s “Dumple,” in the shape of a sober cob named Sybil Grey; and the list closes with a staid old horse known indifferently as Donce Davie and the Covenanter.

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