This bit of ironic American History was brought to my attention from a friend that owns a surf shop https://www.surfcapeann.com .
It seems back in the 1700-1800’s squirrels as pets were quite the rage, especially among the elites…In fact Benjamin Franklin penned a letter with poem as an ode to squirrel that met its untimely demise at the jaws of a dog named Ranger….the letter is all the more humorous to me seeing as how I currently have a Dog name Ranger!
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-19-02-0202
From Benjamin Franklin to Georgiana Shipley, 26 September 1772
als (draft): Yale University Library
London, Sept. 26. 1773 [17724]
Dear Miss,
I lament with you most sincerely the unfortunate End of poor Mungo: Few Squirrels were better accomplish’d; for he had had a good Education, had travell’d far, and seen much of the World. As he had the Honour of being for his Virtues your Favourite, he should not go like common Skuggs5 without an Elegy or an Epitaph. Let us give him one in the monumental Stile and Measure, which being neither Prose nor Verse, is perhaps the properest for Grief; since to use common Language would look as if we were not affected, and to make Rhimes would seem Trifling in Sorrow.
Alas! poor Mungo!
Happy wert thou, hadst thou known
Thy own Felicity!
Remote from the fierce Bald-Eagle,
Tyrant of thy native Woods,
Thou hadst nought to fear from his piercing Talons;
Nor from the murdering Gun
Of the thoughtless Sportsman.
Safe in thy wired Castle,
Grimalkin never could annoy thee.
Daily wert thou fed with the choicest Viands
By the fair Hand
Of an indulgent Mistress.
But, discontented, thou wouldst have more Freedom.
Too soon, alas! didst thou obtain it,
And, wandering,
Fell by the merciless Fangs,
Of wanton, cruel Ranger.6
Learn hence, ye who blindly wish more Liberty,
Whether Subjects, Sons, Squirrels or Daughters,
That apparent Restraint may be real Protection,
Yielding Peace, Plenty, and Security.
You see how much more decent and proper this broken Stile, interrupted as it were with Sighs, is for the Occasion, than if one were to say, by way of Epitaph,
Here Skugg
Lies snug
As a Bug
In a Rug.
And yet perhaps there are People in the World of so little Feeling as to think, that would be a good-enough Epitaph for our poor Mungo!
If you wish it, I shall procure another to succeed him.7 But perhaps you will now chuse some other Amusement. Remember me respectfully to all the [torn] good Family; and believe me ever, Your affectionate Friend
B Franklin
[Note numbering follows the Franklin Papers source.]
4. bf misdated the draft by a year. He wrote on the inside of the four-page sheet that Georgiana used for the preceding document, to which he was clearly replying; five months later he sent the correspondence to df: below, Feb. 14, 1773.
5. The “Name by which all Squirrels are called here, as all Cats are called Puss”: ibid.
6. bf has christened the dog that Georgiana mentioned as the culprit.
7. bf did so, and the successor apparently lived to a ripe old age. See df to bfbelow, Oct. 29, 1773; Georgiana to bf, May 1, 1779, APS.PERMANENT LINK What’s this?https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-19-02-0202
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