Tom _the Cat is born of poor but honest parents. His mother dies
in child-bed, his brothers and sisters, to the number of nine are
sent adrift, and drowned._
_Mab_, the mother of _Tom_, was left a widow by a former husband,
who had left behind him no great means to support her, and therefore
she wisely thought it the best expedient she could make use of
to change her condition once more, and enter into the state of
matrimony. We are left in the dark, as to the person who performed
the ceremony, nor are we certain, whether the _Feline_ gentleman
who tied them together, was regularly qualified to do his office,
but he discharged it to the great satisfaction of both parties;
though some are malicious enough to insinuate, that he went snacks
with the bridegroom that very night, who not having it in his power
to provide a wedding-supper, is reported by the best historians, to
have left his wife in very unuxorious manner to run after a Rat,
which served him for supper. Now as it is a wise child that knows
his own father, so we dare not insist upon _Tom’s_ being the lawful
issue of _Mowser_, or the spurious child of the parson; be that as
it will, he was brought into this troublesome world on the 29th.
day of _September_, a day memorable for the perplexity which the
generality of tenants are in, to find or raise money to pay their
rents. On account of this day on which he was born, several of his
father’s friends were for having him called _Michael_, but more
solid arguments, which we never heard, being offered, he was called
_Tom_. His poor mother having born nine helpless children beside
himself, and being exhausted in spirits, by the hard labour which
she underwent, expired in the company of the midwife, and some other
good neighbours, of the Feline species, who performed their last
office, and buried her in an adjacent Dunghill. Mab’s Mistress was
seeking her, and having called to no purpose, found ten very fine
bantlings lying under the bed, nine of which she drowned, and saved
one, who happened to be our illustrious Hero, she took the care of
Tom on herself, intending he should spend his days with her in regard
to his mother Mab, of whom she never could get any tidings ever
after; she did not care to put him out to nurse, having heard so many
sad stories of those nurses daily employed to supply the foundling
Hospital, and therefore she determined, to nurse him herself. This
is the truest account we could collect from the best authors,
concerning his birth; as to his genealogy, we did examine into that,
and to that end ransacked several circulating libraries for Welch
records, which we traced backwards even to the Cat of Whittington,
but found nothing that we dared advance as truth, for we scorn to
impose upon our readers, with reports or facts, which we cannot vouch
for. Nevertheless we make no question, but Tom’s parents, by father
and mother’s side, could put in their claim to as high a descent, in
Feline genealogy as Whittinton’s Cat, or the famous Cat of Montaigne,
who laughed at her Master for being such a fool, as to spend his time
in playing with her, and actually told him so, or Montaigne himself
is a liar, who very gravely reports it for truth in some of his
essays.