William Cowper has been quoted more than once here for that sage's observation about "Our severest winter, commonly called the Spring." But his range was wide including Verses Supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk, beginning "I am monarch of all I survey,/ My right there is none to dispute" and so on. In a paperback The Oxford Book of Nature Writing, edited by Richard Mabey, there is an essay by Cowper telling how, at a low state of health, not wanting to talk or write (we might say in a depressed state), he gets a new interest when he is landed with three leverets. This is of some interest to those in Meath and perhaps other parts who mourn the decline of the hares which until about a decade ago, were plentiful and a joy to behold. Then came the hunters with dogs, and many notices on gates and along the highways testify to the resentment of the people at incursions of teams with dogs which have decimated the population of hares.
Anyway, to Cowper, who seems to have found a cure in looking after three leverets: Puss, Tiney, and Bess, all, by the way males. Cowper built them each a hut to live in, with a separate apartment so contrived that their ordure would pass through the bottom of it, into an earthen pan. In the day they seemed to have the use of Cowper's house. Puss enjoyed being carried around and often slept on the master's knee; spent the day in the garden on his own, usually "under the leaves of a cucumber pine." Generally he was happiest in human company. Tiney was surly, but even his surliness was a matter of mirth, such was his air of gravity. Bess died after he was full grown, having been turned into his box when it was still damp after washing, says Cowper. "A hare of great humour and drollery."
All three were let into the parlour after supper, when they enjoyed the firmness of the carpet. The cat tried familiarity with Bess and regretted it. So each had its own character. Like the shepherd who is said to be able to tell one sheep from another in a large flock, Cowper says that among a thousand hares, he is convinced no two could be found exactly similar. "You will not wonder, Sir, that my intimate acquaintance with these specimens has taught me to hold the sportsman's amusement in abhorrence." As to food, "it is not grass they chiefly enjoy but sowthistle, dent-de-lion (dandelion) and lettuce". They like, too, fine white sand. "I suppose as a digestive." But he chiefly fed them bread in small squares with shredded carrot, and fine-cut apple. One died young, one lived to nine years and Puss, the third has just completed his tenth year." That was in the year 1784.