122 



Whittington and Ilis Cat. 



Ten thousand pound he gave 

 To his priuce willingly, 



New Gate he builded faire 

 For prisoners to live in ; 



And would not one penny have, 

 This in kind curtesie. 



God did thus make him great 

 So would he daily see, 



Christ's Church he did repaire, 

 Christian love for to win. 



jVIany more such like deedes 

 Were done by Whittington, 



Poore people fed with meat 

 To show his charity. 



Which joy and comfort breedes 

 To such as looke thereon. 



Prisoners poore cherished were, 



Widdowes sweet comfort found, 

 Good deeds both far and neere, 

 Of him do still resound. 



Lancashire then hast bred 



Though he be gon and dead. 



This flower of charity; 



Yet lives he lastingly. 



Whittington Colledere is 

 One of his charities; 



Those bells that called him so, 

 "Turne again Whittington," 



Records reporteth this 

 To lasting memories. 



Call you back many moe 

 To live so in London.* 



From the registers of the Stationers' Company in London it appears 

 that on the 8t]i day of February, 1604-5, Thomas Pavier entered The 

 history of Eiohard Whittington, of his lowe birthe, his great fortunes 

 as yt was plaied by the Prince's Servants." This is the earliest printed 

 account of the story of which we have a certain date, and it was fol- 

 lowed on the 6th of July, 1605, by a ballad, entered by Joseph Wright, 

 called ^^The wondrous life and memorable death of Sir Eichard Whit- 

 tington, now sometime Lord Maior of the Honorable City of London." 



All these illustrations go to show that the story was invented some 

 time in the reign of Elizabeth, as we find no record of it at an earlier 

 date; and we are met at once by the question, how did the story come 

 to be told of Whittington at all? That is a hard question to answer; 

 but there's a harder one. Did he have a cat? And this question has 

 been a puzzler to scientific and antiquarian societies. The London 

 Antiquarian Society had a discussion on this point, but did not settle 

 it. *'Mr. Pegge," it is said, ^'gave us the history of Whittington, but 

 could make nothing at all of his cat, although she is his constant 

 companion in all statues and pictures." And Horace Walpole, angry 

 at the society because of their publication of Master's reply to his his- 

 toric doubts, says in oae of his letters: "I choose to be at liberty to 

 say what I think of the learned society, and, therefore, I have taken 

 leave of them, having so good an occasion presented as their council 

 on Whittington and his cat, and the ridicule that Foote has thrown on 



Foote did indeed do his best to ridicule the society, and the account 

 of it is not only amusing but pertinent to this matter we are discuss- 

 ing, too. His satire on the society is found in the comedy of ^^The 



* Harper's Magazine for December, 1879, published a fae simile of a ballad entitled Lon- 

 don's Glory and Whittington's Renown; or a Looking-Glass for Citizens of London." 

 This ballad is found among the Rexburghe ballads (III, 58), and the conjectured date of 

 its publication is 16il. It is, however, substantially Johnson's earlier ballad, with the ad- 

 dition of the 1st verse and the 18th verse, and other changes of words and lines through- 

 out the whole ballad. 



them.' 



