342 The Poets Beasts. 



tlie kittens of Cowper that found the snake in the garden, 

 and Hurdis, "cuffing the suspended cork," of Blomfield and 

 Gay, and a score of others who delight in "the instinct joy 

 of kittens," and " the kitling ever happy." By-and-by, and 

 all too soon, they grow into cats. 



"And so, poor kit ! must thou endure, 

 When thou becomest a cat demure, 

 Full many a cuff and angry word, 

 Chased roughly from the tempting board. 

 But yet, for that thou hast, I ween, 

 So oft our favoured playmate been. 

 Soft be the change which thou shalt prove ! 

 When lime hath spoiled thee of our love. 

 Still be thou deemed by housewife fat, 

 A comely, careful, mousing cat ; 

 Whose dish is, for the public good. 

 Replenished oft with savoury food. 

 Nor, when thy span of life is past, 

 Be thou to pond or dung-hill cast ; 

 But, gently borne on gardener's spade, 

 Beneath the decent sod be laid ; 

 And children show, with glistening eyes, 

 The place where poor old pussy lies. " 



In connection with the adage that the cat has nine lives 

 — found very useful, by the way, in verse — a very delightful 

 instance of what Bain would call eccentric ratiocination 

 occurs in Barry Cornwall. The line is this — 



" One bite of a mad cat — no more than -woiiLl kill a tailor." 



The relation here of a nine-lived cat (each cat being really, 

 therefore, only a ninth of one) to a tailor who, they say, is 

 only the ninth of a man, is, it seems to me, most humor- 

 ously involved. 



For myself, I discredit the theory of sartorial fractions, 

 and hold with the poet (Taylor) who says — 



".Some foolish knave, I think, it fust began 

 Tlie slander that three tailors make one man." 



