196 The Poets Beasts. 



But ye were instant in her claws, 



With squeakings dread ; 

 Ye're now set free from tyrant's laws, 



Poor pussy's dead." 



They may eat crumbs if they can, but if the cat comes, 

 it will serve them right if they get eaten themselves ; as in 

 Herrick — 



" So the brisk mouse may feast herself with crumbs, 

 Till the green-eyed kitling comes, 

 Then to her cabin, blest she can escape 

 The sudden danger of a rape." 



So also when the mouse is cauglit in a trap, the poets 

 hold it inevitable justice that it should die. Thus Somer- 

 ville speaks of " the rigorous decree of fate " that condemns 

 cheese-hunting mice to execution, and Clare of the "rigid 

 fate " that awaits the tiny pilferer. 



But outside the poets, the mouse has considerable dignity. 

 It is " the ravisher " of Vedic legends, and in the solar 

 myth the mice are the shadows which creep out from under 

 the hills, and which the cat-moon and her kitten the twi- 

 light hunt. It was turned into a tiger as a reward for 

 assisting a Brahmin, and might have been a tiger still, had 

 it not in its new shape proceeded to eat the Brahmin, and 

 for this been promptly turned back into a mouse again. 

 Nor can an animal be called merely a pantry-thief that 

 sometimes eats kings and archbishops, to say nothing of 

 the sons of Polish dukes. ^ Is the mouse, portentous to 

 Rome, to be perpetually cowering before "green-eyed kit- 

 lings?" If poets have no respect for m.ice, have they none 

 for St. Gertrude, their patron ? Take again their position 

 in fairy tales. The mice arc always beneficent. Their feud 

 with the sparrows is doubtless deplorable, but did it arise 



1 According to legend King Popelus was eaten by mice, also Duke 

 Conrad's son (of Poland), also Olho, Archbishop of Mentz. 



