The life and adventures of a cat

Et, adhuc sub judice lis est.

The Ass too has had the assurance, to throw down his gauntlet in this tournament, tho’ with no better a face than his competitor, the bird of Minerva. But what person, tho’ ever so little inclined, to the talents of observation, could possibly avoid taking notice of the uncommon prudery of the Cat. He, or she, male, or female, shall take their post close by a fire side, with all the conformity, with all that respectable quality, which should entitle him or her to a notable attention. Nay the old ladies, vulgarly called old women, have been so hardy as to say, that Cats are witches, that they can prognosticate, foretell, predict, and what not? and it is affirmed by some of those venerable matrons, that a cat has made an Almanack. I have heard indeed, and with some aspect of credibility, that a Cat is something barometrical, or in plainer terms bears a resemblance to a weather glass; that when she washes her face, it is a sign of good weather, and when she is in her frolicks, it will blow hard, but how to attest these diagnostic symptoms is above our capacity, and even Pliny himself the natural historian would be puzzled to decide a matter of such consequence.

To possess two qualities eminently distinct, is the inheritance of no creature upon earth. The Dog is faithful, vigilant, docile, and of an excellent scent. The Horse boasts of many virtues, and amiable endowments; his speed, his strength and other illustrious talents recommend him to man: So of other animals; but none of these enumerates good qualities diametrically opposite each other. Now in the Cat, there appears the utmost austerity, with the greatest levity. A rake and a senator are most wonderfully compounded. Who can analize these differing ingredients, so demure a puritan on a sudden, converted into the most absolute debauchè? One time sitting for four or five hours in the attitude of solemnity, and then on sudden break out into the most dissolute festivity. These qualities, so dissonant, so very opposite to each other, must indicate something superior in the animal, whose history we are at present writing, and we think we have proved this superiority of the Cat above all other animals so incontestibly, that all historians, ancient and modern, must submit to our sublime decree, or else confute our at present irrefragable argument in some future treatise.

CHAP. II.

Of the Lyon, &c.

Nature has bestowed in the distribution of her various gifts, some characterestic badge to every animal, by which they know and are known to each other; and by which they are conversible with, or envious to one another. Sociability, or the love of herding, is not so peculiar to man, as man would boast. Lyons, horses, dogs, Cats, and the other species are as fond of forming colonies as we are. And yet in contradistinction to this principle, we see the Lion chase the Jack-all for his caterer. The Jack-all, says Pliny, is endowed with the most excellent nose to investigate the paths of those weak, or timorous beasts, which are the Lion’s prey. This scent renders him the more useful to his friend the Lyon, whom he leads by the nose to a herd of deer or oxen. The Lyon, wanting this fine scent, and convinced of his deficience, takes into his familiarity, and confidence, this weak animal, who makes use of the other’s strength, and from his own inability in personal prowess, compensates the loss by the admirable organization of his odorific nerves. Thus, in like manner, the Pilot-fish conveys the Shark to his prey: And I have read in some learned antiquary of a bird, called the Tooth-pick, which lives on the leavings of the Crocodile, who having filled his belly with what fish he can pick up in the Nile, lies on his back, on the banks of that river, and basks himself with delight, while this bird, guided by instinct, and no way afraid of his terrors, perches on his teeth, and from the gleanings feeds himself to satiety. We ought not in this detail omit to take notice of the Fly-eater, who puts his tongue out, till several thousand flies, have in swarms covered it, and when he perceives it to be pretty well stocked, all on a sudden introduces the cargo, where it is fairly entered; and this trick he plays for several hours, till the custom-house can hold no more.

CHAP. III.

Of the more docile, and sagacious animals, such as Dogs, Horses, Elephants, &c.

There are few people but have either seen or heard of the learned Dog, Le Chien Scavant, and yet his uncommon knowledge, except we should now record it, will appear incredible to posterity. He could read, write, and figure, play cards, spell any person’s names, with many other parts in useful knowledge; and, as Hudibras says,

Greek was to him no more difficile Than to a blackbird ’tis to whistle.

We have heard of a dog who saved money, and lent it out to usury; of a horse that would usually of a morning go out a hunting with the hounds; of the Elephant there are many strange accounts, among the rest of his surprising gratitude and love for his keeper, his vast memory, and retention, and his understanding the language of those among whom he is reared; I say, these and more excellencies of the several creatures are to be found all concentered in the Cat, therefore expecting an implicit belief to all we have advanced, concerning this most sagacious of all sagacious animals, we shall immediately enter upon, and to our history, still reserving to ourselves the honour of having said nothing but was necessary to introduce our hero into the world.

CHAP. IV.

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.

CHAP. V.

_Tom_’s Education.—His Manner of Life with his Mistress, whose History is introduced here in a short Narrative.

It was Tom’s peculiar beauty, and size that saved his life, for his Mistress had Eyes, and chose him out of ten, so that he was a kind of tythe Cat, and survived the unhappy fate of his brothers, and sisters by decimation, proving to the disgrace of Methodists, that even among Cats, one in ten may be saved, though according to their illustrious tenets, that will not be the portion of one in ten of themselves. However Tom grew up and gave earnest of being a most promising youth, having gone thro’ all the gambols and feats of childhood, peculiar to those of his kind, and to the great satisfaction of all who knew him, or had the honour of his acquaintance.—His Mistress, however was inexcuseable in point of tenderness, who not being sufficiently pleased with his beauty, thought the cutting off his Ears would be an abundant addition to that article; a barbarous instance of her love for him, but in consequence of her resolution Tom lost his Ears, for having done no crime to deserve amputation, when thousands walk the Streets with their ears on, who have a thousand times deserved to lose them. His mistress, whose name was Mrs. Clotilda-Skin-Flint, began to take another more cruel thought into her head, and that was to deprive him of his manhood, by equipping him for the Opera, and was advised to put this dreadful scheme into execution by a female neighbour of hers, called Rugana, but as this was as troublesome as it was expensive, she permitted him to keep his pebbles, as marks of that virility, which he afterwards testified to several young Cats of his acquaintance.—Whether Tom ever came to the knowledge of this sanguinary intent of his Mistress, we never could learn, if he did, he must no doubt be sensibly affected with delight to find, that by its being laid aside, he found himself in possession of that treasure which entitled him to the honourable appellation of Ram-Cat. His mistress, after having bred him up to feed himself, and to provide for his own sustenance, left him to shift for the necessaries of life, by all those means, which most of his kind make use of to get a livelyhood, namely by Mouseing, and having before he was half a year old, rid not only her house, but that neighbourhood of the rats and mice which infested them, he bore the credit of being an excellent mowser, for he got no other reward, and was forced for sometime to live upon that empty saying, Virtue is its own Reward, verifying that fine anecdote of Juvenal, Ladatum Virtus et alget, which for the sake of our English Reader, we will suppose to signify, that a good or a wise man may starve in the midst of Fleet-Market, for any thing he is likely to get from either fools or knaves. Mrs. Clotilda-Skin-Flint, was one of those admirable ladies, who go in quest of obsolete robes, and had raised a tolerable sum by levying contributions on the necessitous, who where glad to part with their vestments for the tenth part of their intrinsic value: she had, to make her own employment more lucrative, wedded an old taylor, whom she married purely on the account of his dexterity and skill in, or repairing the breaches of old clothes, and making them pass for new: by this profitable business she was enabled to keep a very sightly shop in the purlieus of Monmouth-Street, and was by her lending out small sums of money to the butchers, who dealt with her at an extravagant usury, in possession of five hundred pounds in money and stock.