354 The Poets Beasts. 



How smooth these kerchiefs, and how sweet ! 

 Oh what a delicate retreat ! 

 I will resign myself to rest 

 Till Sol, declining in the west, 

 Shall call to supper, when, no doubt, 

 Susan will come and let me out." 



But Susan does not, and the cat nearly starves to death. 



" So, beware of too sublime a sense 

 Of your own worth and consequence ; 

 The man who dreams himself so great, 

 And his importance of such weight, 

 That all around and all that's done 

 Must move and act for him alone, 

 Will learn in school of tribulation 

 The folly of his expectation." 



Even the fact of their having been worshipped in Egypt 

 brings them little credit ; it only makes Egyptian worship 

 discreditable — 



" Cats and dogs, and each obscener bea«t. 

 To which Egyptian dotards once did bow." 



Or again — 



" Lang syne in Egypt beasts were gods, 

 Sae mony that the men turned beasts. 

 Vermin and brutes, boot house or hold, 

 Had offerings, temples, and their priests." 



And then the poet goes on to say how one day the people 

 of the Nile sacrificed a rat to the great glory of the cat, and 

 next day a cat to the great glory of the rat. 



Not that their worship is by any means extinct. You 



have only to go to a Cat-show to be assured of the 



-urvival of the whimsical homage of Memphis, Bubastis, and 



^bes. The old-world dignities of priestly service, temple 



j^onial, and posthumous embalming have of course 



broii^ in the lapse of time, but their place has been 



turban 



