Some Poets' Cats. 351 



will studiously devote a whole day to the circumvention of 

 the lodger's canary rather than spend an hour upon the 

 landlady's rats. A single bullfinch in the drawing-room is 

 worth a wilderness of mice in the pantry. 



" Let take a cat, foster her with milk, 

 And tender flesh, and make her couch of silk. 

 And let her see a mouse go by the wall, 

 Anon she scometh milk and flesh and all. 

 And every dainty that is in that house. 

 Such appetite hath she to eat the mouse. 

 Lo here hath kind her domination. 

 And appetite o'ercomes discretion." 



This may be an allusion to that fable in ^sop where the 

 youth " falls in love " with a cat, and in a moment of caprice 

 calls upon Venus to change the pretty animal into a pretty 

 woman. The goddess does so. But the happy couple 

 have hardly met before a mouse happens to run by and the 

 bride rushes away in feline pursuit — "and appetite o'er- 

 comes discretion." 



However diligent and habitual mousing may have been 

 a characteristic of cats in Chaucer's time, it may even be 

 true still. But yet there is abundant proof for the accusation 

 that mouse-catching has become for the town-cat a mere 

 pastime, or at best an avocation, a parergon. Just as the 

 town-sparrow now only eats insects by way of dessert, as it 

 were, and never goes among trees except for an occasional 

 picnic, so the cat amuses itself, of a wet afternoon, over the 

 mouse-hole in the cupboard — and as often as not goes to 

 sleep at her post. 



If there be any other just cause of complaint against 

 this pretty little favourite, it is surely its habit of vociferous 

 dialogue during our hours of sleep. "Foul night-waking 

 cats," "clamorous o'er their joys," "who amant misere'' 

 (Shelley). How heartily the poets hated it. 



