194 THE CAT OF SHAKESPEARE. 



to the voice and presence of the cat at certain times and 

 seasons : 



Thrice the brindecl cat hath mewed. 

 The hne almost carries a kind of awe with it, a sort of 

 feehng of " what next will happen ? " He noted, also, as 

 he did most things, its marvellous powers of observation, 

 for in Coriolanus^ Act IV., Scene 2, occurs the following : 



Cats, that can judge as fitly, 

 and of the forlorn loneliness of the age-stricken male cat in 

 Ki?ig Henry the Fourth^ Falstaff, murmuring, says: 



I am as melancholy as a gib cat. 

 He marks, too, the difference of action in the lion and cat, 

 in a state of nature : 



A crouching lion and a ramping cat. 

 Of the night-time food-seeking cat, in The Merchant oj 

 Venice^ old Shylock talks of the 



. . . Slow in profit, and he sleeps by day 



More than the wild cat. 

 In the same play Shylock discourses of those that have 

 a natural horror of certain animals, which holds good till 

 this day : 



Some men there are love not a gaping pig, 

 Some, that are mad if they behold a cat. 



and further on : 



As there is no firm reason to be rendered 

 Why he cannot abide a gaping pig, 

 Why he, a harmless necessary cat. 



Note the distinction he makes between the wild and the 

 domestic cat ; the one, evidently, he knew the value and 

 use of, and the other, its peculiar stealthy ways and of 

 nature dread. In AlVs Well that Ends JVell, he gives vent 

 to his dislike ; Bertram rages forth : 



I could endure anything before but a cat. 

 And now he's cat to me. 



The feud with the wild cat intensifies in Midsummer Night' s 

 Dream ; 'tis Lysander speaks : 



Hang off, thou cat, thou burr, thou vile thing. 



