42 THE MODEL MERCHANT 



the laud. He appears by the Isme Rolls, copies of which will appear 

 in the Appendix, to have supplied the wedding trousseau of the Princess 

 Blanche, King Henry the Foiu-th's eldest daughter, on her marriage 

 with the son of the King of the Eomans. And, again, he supplied the 

 wedding dresses, pearls, and cloth of gold, for the marriage of the Princess 

 Phillippa, the King's daughter. Queen of Sweden and iS'orway, with the 

 King of the Eomans. In short, "NYhittington appears to have been the 

 great HoweU and James of his day, dealing in rich dresses and fancy arti- 

 cles, and to have had no dealings whatever in coal that we can discover. 

 But to connect our hero with the Cat ; Malcolm * says, " The clerk 

 of the Mercer's Company has, in his apartment at Mercer's Hall, a 

 portrait on canvas, ten inches and a half broad, and twelve inches 

 high, of a man of about sixty years of age, in a fur livciy gown and 

 black cap, such as the Yeomen of the Guard now wear. The figure 

 reaches about half the length of the arms from the shoulders ; on the 

 left hand of the figure is a black and wliite cai, whose right ear 

 reaches up to the band or broad turning down of the shirt of the 

 figure. On the left upper corner of the canvas is painted in Boman 

 characters, R. Whittington, 1536. The size of the canvas of this 

 portrait has, for some reason, been altered, and the inscription has 

 evidently been painted since the alteration; yet it is hardly to be sup- 

 posed it was then invented, and if not, it carries the common vulgar 

 opinion of some connection between Whittington and a cat as far back 

 as 1536." This, observe, is only 113 years after Whittington's death, 

 when the tradition of two generations, from father to son, might have 

 readily conveyed a story which none Avould then be found to dispute. 

 This pictui'e, it seems, does not now exist, though what has become 

 of it I have been unable to learn on inquiiy at Mercer's Hall. They 

 have, however, a portrait of our worthy, with a cat, apparently of 

 more modern date, though evidently of some antiquity, but it does not 

 answer the description of the portrait given by Malcolm. The portrait 

 which now adorns the Mercer's Hall has been engraved by Benoist, 

 and illustrates the Neto History, Description, and Survey of London, by 

 William Thornton and others, folio, 1784. There is, however, another 

 portrait of Bichard Whittington extant, in an engraving (reproduced 

 especially for this biography, from a copy in my possession,) by 

 b Malcolm, Londiii. Rcdiviv., vol. 1, p. 515. 



