Some Poets' Cats. 



04-J 



I always feel inclined to retort upon it with the other adage 

 that " 'tis the tailor makes the man; " so in " King Lear" — 



"A tailor makes a man ? Ay, a tailor, sir ; " 



and hesitate to contribute my acquiescence in the circuitous 

 arithmetic of the playwright who makes a character, on 

 meeting eighteen tailors, cry out to them all, " Come on, 

 I'll fight you both." The inadequate championship of 

 Teufelsdrock does not satisfy me. He goes not far enough. 

 I remember well enough what Petruchio says to his 

 tailor — 



" O monstrous arrogance ! Thou liest, 

 Thou thread, thou thimble, 

 Thou yard, three-quarters, half 

 Yard, quarter, nail. 



Thou flea, thou nit, thou winter-cricket, thou. 

 Away, thou rag, thou quantity, thou remnant ! " 



and do not forget INIontaigne's evidence. "I have," he 

 says, " an honest lad to my taylor, who I never knew guilty 

 of one truth — no, not when it had been to his advantage 

 not to lye." 



But I remember also how Master Feeble, '* the forcible 

 Feeble," proved himself the best man of all Falstaff's . 

 recruits ; with what discretion Robin Starveling played the 

 part of Thisbe's mother before the Duke ; and carry it to 

 their credit the public spirit of those stitchers of Tooley 

 Street. 



" Give tbs gods a thankful sacrifice. When it pleaseth 

 their deities to take the wife of a man from him, it shows 

 to man the tailors of the earth." 



I have no wish to rehabilitate Urquiza of Paita, nor 

 apologise for the tailor who pricked the elephant's trunk 

 with his needle and got squirted with a puddle by Behemoth 

 for doing so — except to say that I think the elephant was 

 an ill-mannered beast to 2:0 thrusting several feet of trunk 



