THE CAT TRIUMPHANT 147 



come to them in the natural sequence of history, 

 we feel we are on the borderland between the old 

 life and the new ; between the tepid affection or 

 playful panegyrics which characterized the eigh- 

 teenth century, and the more sincere emotions 

 which succeeded. Dr. Johnson died sixteen years 

 before Cowper, yet it is plain that his sentiment 

 for Hodge was something very different from the 

 temperate regard of the poet, based upon unworthy 

 utilitarianism. Cowper, it is true, killed the viper, 

 lest it should rob the Olney household of the 



" only cat 

 That was of age to combat with a rat ; " 



but Johnson would have slain a wilderness of vipers 

 without thought of a mouse in the cupboard. " In- 

 dulgence " is the term applied by Boswell — who 

 cordially hated cats — to his patron's amiable weak- 

 ness ; and it is plain that it cost him some effort to 

 sympathize with so strange a partiality. 



" I shall never forget the indulgence with which 

 he treated Hodge, his cat, for whom he himself 

 used to go out and buy oysters, lest the servants, 

 having that trouble, should take a dislike to the 

 poor creature. I am, unluckily, one of those who 

 have such an antipathy to a cat that I am uneasy 

 when I am in the room with one ; and I own I fre- 

 quently suffered a good deal from the presence of 

 this same Hodge. 



