160 PUSS IN BOOTS AND THE PRINCESS VICTORIA. 



" One day, the cat having heard that the king intended to take a ride that 

 morning by the river's side with his daughter, who was the most beautiful 

 princess in the world, he said to his master : ' Take off your clothes, and 

 bathe yourself in the river, just in the place I shall show you, and leave the 

 rest to me.' The marquis did exactly as he was desired, without being able 

 to guess at what the cat intended (Thus it was the fashion, at one time, for 

 my lords of the treasury to make fools of monarchs.) While he was bathing 

 the king passed by, and puss directly called out as loud as he could bawl : 

 * Help ! help ! My lord marquis of Carabas is in danger of being drowned !* 

 The king hearing the cries, and recognizing the cat, ordered his attendants to 

 go directly to the assistance of my lord marquis of Carabas ; and the cunning 

 cat having hid his master's clothes, under a large stone, the king commanded 

 the officers of his wardrobe to fetch him the handsomest suit it contained. The 

 king's daughter was mightily taken with his appearance, and the marquis of 

 Carabas had no sooner cast upon her two or three respectful glances than she 

 became violently in love with him (all highly instructive and natural) The 

 cat, enchanted to see how well his scheme was likely to succeed, ran before 

 to a meadow that was reaping, and said to the reapers : ' Good people, if 

 you do not tell the king, who will soon pass this way, that the meadow you 

 are reaping belongs to my lord marquis of Carabas, you shall be chopped as 

 small as mince meat/ The king did not fail to ask the reapers to whom the 

 meadow belonged ? ' To my lord marquis of Carabas/ said they all at once ; 

 for the threats of the cat had terribly frighted them (what a complete Cas- 

 tlereagh !) Puss at length arrived at a stately castle, which belonged to an 

 Ogre, whom he first persuaded to assume the form of a mouse, and then 

 cleverly gobbled him up before he could get back to his proper shape again. 

 The king's party soon after arrived : the cat said the castle was his master's ; 

 and the king was so much charmed with the amiable qualities and noble for- 

 tune of the marquis of Carabas, and the young princess too had fallen so 

 violently in love with him, that when the king had partaken of a collation, 

 he said to the marquis : " It will be your own fault, my lord marquis of 

 Carabas, if you do not soon become my son-in-law." The marquis re- 

 ceived the intelligence with a thousand respectful acknowledgments, accepted 

 the honour conferred upon him, and married the princess that very day. 

 The cat became a great lord and never after ran after rats but for his amuse- 

 ment." 



Truly, this reads like a bitter political squib. What says my Lord 

 Howe ? If it be not so, it is decidedly improper as a pantomime, 

 especially for the Princess Victoria ; it may teach her things of which 

 she had much better be ignorant ; in real life, Master Puss would 

 have been transported, and the Marquis of Carabas hung. Poetical 

 licence cannot now-adays be tolerated to such an extent : we live in 

 a matter-of-fact age, and nonsense is no longer to be endured even in 

 our nurseries. Puss in boots commits every crime mentioned in our 

 statute books : the deeper he plunges in delinquency, the higher he 

 exalts his master : he is, in fact, a thorough-going tory man of all- 

 work : but let not the youthful princess imagine she will find his 

 prototype in the rising generation: the race fortunately for her 

 Royal Highness, and especially for the public, is extinct. Bad as 

 the few are who oppose the many, it would be difficult, nay impos- 

 sible for we are anxious to give the devil his due to find a puss in 

 boots even among our conservatives. 



