THE CAT TRIUMPHANT 143 



tion. Lord Chesterfield, to whom the urbane com- 

 panionship of his cats brought many a soothing 

 hour, also provided like an honourable gentleman 

 for these little comrades who otherwise had been 

 left homeless at his death. Sir Isaac Newton's 

 affectionate solicitude for his cat and kittens is 

 well known, while the records of humbler life show 

 many similar instances of benignity. Fielding, in 

 his pathetic "Voyage to Lisbon," vouches for the 

 high regard in which the ship's cat and her trouble- 

 some young family were held by the captain and 

 his crew. On the nth of July, when off Spithead, 

 he writes in his Journal: — 



"A most tragical incident fell out this day at 

 sea. While the ship was under sail, but making, 

 as will appear, no great way, a kitten, one of the 

 four feline inhabitants of the cabin, fell from the 

 window into the water. An alarm was immediately 

 given to the captain, who was then upon deck, and 

 who received it with many bitter oaths. He im- 

 mediately gave orders to the steersman in favour 

 of the poor thing, as he called it ; the sails were 

 instantly slackened, and all hands employed to re- 

 cover the animal. I was, I own, surprised at this ; 

 less, indeed, at the captain's extreme tenderness, 

 than at his conceiving any possibility of success ; 

 for if Puss had had nine thousand instead of nine 

 lives, I concluded they had all been lost. The 



