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 " kitten eyes," with 

 their sweet pretence of innocence ; and offered his 

 own solution of a hitherto unanswered problem. 

 " I made a pun the other day," he writes to Man- 

 ning, " 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.) " 



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 



