158 THE FIRESIDE SPHINX 



Turn where we may in this Augustan age, we 

 see the same consoling picture, from Sterne s 

 cat purring by the fire, to Charles Lamb s faithful 

 old Pussy decorated with green ribbons to fit her 

 for her pastoral part in Edmonton. Lamb, as we 

 know, admired Miss Grey s &quot; kitten eyes,&quot; with 

 their sweet pretence of innocence ; and offered his 

 own solution of a hitherto unanswered problem. 

 &quot; I made a pun the other day,&quot; he writes to Man 

 ning, &quot; and palmed it upon Holcroft, who grinned 

 like a Cheshire cat. (Why do cats grin in Cheshire ? 

 Because it was once a county palatine, and the 

 cats cannot help laughing whenever they think of 

 it, though /see no great joke in it.) &quot; 



Even Christopher North, guilty as he appears 

 in the matter of that brutal sport, cat-worrying, had 

 a sincere and well-founded admiration for his own 

 puss, who was a Nimrod among hunters, a Cceur 

 de Lion among fighters, and an Autolycus among 

 thieves. The genial depravity of this gifted cat, 

 and his wonderful readiness of resource, delighted 

 Wilson s soul. He it was who, having adroitly re 

 moved the pigeon from a well-built pie, stuffed up 

 the hole with his master s ink-sponge, as matter 

 better suited to the literary appetite. He it was 

 whose clamorous battle-cry, ringing through the 

 frosty night, summoned all the warriors of the 

 wall to mortal combat, until Wilson s back green 



