Public sentiment is not so unanimously in favour of cats, yet they have
had their warm admirers, while in Egypt they were adored as
divine—worshipped as an emblem of the moon. When a cat died, the owners
gave the body a showy funeral, went into mourning, and shaved off their
eyebrows. Diodorus tells of a Roman soldier who was condemned to death
for killing a cat. It is said that Cambyses, King of Persia, when he
went to fight the Egyptians, fastened before every soldier’s breast a
live cat. Their enemies dared not run the risk of hurting their sacred
pets, and so were conquered.
Artists, monarchs, poets, diplomatists, religious leaders, authors, have
all condescended to care for cats. A mere list of their names would make
a big book. For instance, Godefroi Mind, a German artist, was called the
Raphael of Cats. People would hunt him up in his attic, and pay large
prices for his pictures. In the long winter evenings he amused himself
carving tiny cats out of chestnuts, and could not make them fast enough
for those who wanted to buy. Mohammed was so fond of his cat Muezza that
once, when she was sleeping on his sleeve, he cut off the sleeve rather
than disturb her. Andrew Doria, one of the rulers of Venice, not only
had a portrait painted of his pet cat, but after her death had her
skeleton preserved as a treasure. Richelieu’s special favourite was a
splendid Angora, his resting place being the table covered with state
papers. Montaigne used to rest himself by a frolic with his cat.
Fontenelle liked to place his “Tom” in an armchair and deliver an
oration before him. The cat of Cardinal Wolsey sat by his side when he
received princes. Petrarch had his pet feline embalmed and placed in his
apartment.
You see, the idea of the cat being the pet of old maids alone is far
from true. Edward Lear, of Nonsense Verses fame, wrote of himself:
He has many friends, laymen and clerical;
Old Foss is the name of his cat;
His body is perfectly spherical;
He weareth a runcible hat.
Wordsworth wrote about a Kitten and the Falling Leaves. A volume of two
hundred and eighty-five pages of poems in all languages, consecrated to
the memory of a single cat, was published at Milan in 1741. Shelley
wrote verses to a cat.
It seems unjust to assert that the cat is incapable of personal
attachment, when she has won the affection of so many of earth’s great
ones. The skull of Morosini’s cat is preserved among the relics of that
Venetian worthy. Andrea Doria’s cat was painted with him. Sir Henry
Wyat’s gratitude to the cat who saved him from starvation in the Tower
of London by bringing him pigeons to eat, caused this remark: “You shall
not find his picture anywhere but with a cat beside him.” Cowper often
wrote about his cats and kittens. Horace Walpole wrote to Gray, mourning
the loss of his handsomest cat, and Gray replied: “I know Zara and
Zerlina, or rather I knew them both together, for I can not justly say
which was which. Then, as to your handsomest cat, I am no less at a
loss; as well as knowing one’s handsomest cat is always the cat one
likes best, or, if one be alive and the other dead, it is usually the
latter that is handsomest. Besides, if the point were so clear, I hope
you do not think me so ill bred as to forget my interest in the
survivor—oh, no! I would rather seem to mistake, and imagine, to be
sure, that it must be the tabby one.” It was the tabby; her death being
sudden and pitiful, tumbling from a “lofty vase’s side” while trying to
secure a goldfish for her dinner. Gray sent Walpole an ode inspired by
the misfortune, in which he said:
What woman’s heart can gold despise?
What cat’s averse to fish?
and thus describes the final scene:
Eight times emerging from the flood,
She mewed to every watery god
Some speedy aid to send.
No dolphin came, no Nereid stirred,
Nor cruel Tom nor Susan heard.
A favourite has no friend.
Upon Gray’s death, Walpole placed Zerlina’s vase upon a pedestal marked
with the first stanza.
Jeremy Bentham at first christened his cat Langbourne; afterward, Sir
John Langbourne; and when very wise and dignified, the Rev. Sir John
Langbourne, D. D. Pius IX allowed his cat to sit with him at table,
waiting his turn to be fed in a most decorous manner. Théophile Gautier
tells us how beautifully his cats behaved at the dinner table. A friend
visiting Bishop Thirlwall in his retirement, thought he looked weary,
and asked him to take the big easy-chair. “Don’t you see who is already
there?” said the great churchman, pointing to a cat asleep on the
cushion. “She must not be disturbed.” Helen Hunt Jackson devoted a large
book to the praise of cats and kittens. We know that Isaac Newton was
fond of cats, for did he not make two holes in his barn door—a big one
for old pussy to go in and out, and a little one for the kitty?
Among French authors we recall Rousseau, who has much to say in favour
of felines. Colbert reared half a dozen cats in his study, and taught
them many interesting tricks. The cat supplied Perrault with one of the
most attractive subjects of his stories, and under the magical pen of
this admirable story-teller, Puss in Boots has become an example of the
power of work, industry, and _savoir-faire_. Gautier scoffs at storms
raging without, as long as he has
Sur mes genoux un chat qui se joue et folâtre,
Un livre pour veiller, un fauteil pour devenir.
Béranger, in his idyl The Cat, makes an intelligent cat a go-between of
lovers. Baudelaire returned from his wanderings in the East a devotee of
cats, and addressed to them several fine bits of verse; they are seen in
his poetry, as dogs in the paintings of Paul Veronese. Here is a sample:
Come, beauty, rest upon my loving heart,
But cease thy paws’ sharp-nailèd play,
And let me peer into those eyes that dart
Mixed agate and metallic ray.
Again:
Grave scholars and mad lovers all admire
And love, and each alike, at his full tide
Those suave and puissant cats, the fireside’s pride,
Who like the sedentary life and glow of fire.