I have added a new post to the Copy Book, Dog and Ducking. This is a brief anecdote about a Newfoundland dog, from a collection of doggy tales by Edward Jesse (1780-1868) entitled Anecdotes of Dogs (1846).
By profession Jesse was a surveyor for the Office of Works, created in 1378 to take care of royal residences. It was in this capacity that Jesse oversaw the restoration of Hampton Court Palace, which since the death of George II in 1760 had not been used as a royal residence, and made it ready to be opened to the public in 1838. Jesse was also a naturalist, who published Gleanings in Natural History (1832-1835), An Angler’s Rambles (1836) and Lectures on Natural History (1863) as well as several articles for the magazine Once a Week, chiefly on the habits of animals.