Chapter 15

The one with its long plume-like tail, organised for a life among trees, the other with its home in the arctic regions, belong to an order not generally distinguished for intelligence, although, the beaver, once reputed a miracle of mind, belongs to it. The glirine or rodent animals are generally of small or moderate size, though some, like the water-loving capybara, are of considerable dimensions.

The squirrel is a fine subject for a painter. There is a picture by Sir Edwin Landseer, of a squirrel and bullfinch. On an engraving of it, published in 1865, is inscribed "a pair of nut-crackers,"--a happy title, and very apposite.

Jekyll saw in Colman's chambers a squirrel in the usual round cage. "Ah! poor devil," said Jekyll, "he's going the _home circuit_."[159]

If you come upon a squirrel on the ground, he is not long in getting to the topmost branch of the highest tree, so perfectly is he adapted for "rising" at a "bar"!

PETS OF SOME OF THE REVOLUTIONARY BUTCHERS. A SQUIRREL.

Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart., in his novel, "Zanoni,"[160] pictures Citizen Couthon fondling a little spaniel "that he invariably carried in his bosom, even to the Convention, as a vent for the exuberant sensibilities which overflowed his affectionate heart."

In a note the novelist remarks--

"This tenderness for some pet animal was by no means peculiar to Couthon; it seems rather a common fashion with the gentle butchers of the Revolution. M. George Duval informs us ('Souvenirs de la Terreur,' iii. p. 183), that Chaumette had an aviary, to which he devoted his harmless leisure; the murderous Fournier carried, on his shoulders, a pretty little squirrel attached by a silver chain; Panis bestowed the superfluity of his affections upon two gold pheasants; and Marat, who would not abate one of the three hundred thousand heads he demanded, _reared doves_! Apropos of the spaniel of Couthon, Duval gives us a characteristic anecdote of Sergent, not one of the least relentless agents of the massacre of September. A lady came to implore his protection for one of her relations confined in the Abbaye. He scarcely deigned to speak to her. As she retired in despair, she trod by accident on the paw of his favourite spaniel. Sergent, turning round, enraged and furious, exclaimed, '_Madam, have you no humanity?_'"

ARCTIC VOYAGER AND THE LEMMING.

Captain Back, on his arctic land expedition, when returning in September 1835, encountered a severe gale, which forced them to land their boat, and as the water rose they had three times to haul it higher on the bank. He introduces an affecting little incident: "So completely cold and drenched was everything outside, that a poor little lemming, unable to contend with the floods, which had driven it successively from all its retreats, crept silently under the tent, and snuggled away in precarious security within a few paces of a sleeping terrier. Unconscious of its danger, it licked its fur coat, and darted its bright eyes from object to object, as if pleased and surprised with its new quarters; but soon the pricked ears of the awakened dog announced its fate, and in another instant the poor little stranger was quivering in his jaws!"[161]

* * * * *

Mr McDougall?][162] records several amusing anecdotes of the little arctic lemming, named _Arctomys Spermophilus Parryi_, after the great arctic voyager. He says,--"My own experience of those industrious little warriors tended to prove that they possessed a strange combination of sociality and combativeness. Industrious they most certainly are, as is shown by the complicated excavation of their subterranean cities; besides which, every feather and hair of bird and animal found in the vicinity of their dwellings, is made to contribute its iota of warmth and comfort to the interior of their winter quarters.

"I had," continues the master of the _Resolute_, "many opportunities of watching their movements during my detention at Winter Harbour. My tent happened to be pitched immediately over one of their large towns, causing its inhabitants to issue forth from its thousand gates to catch a view of the strangers. Frequently on waking we have found the little animals, rolled up in a ball, snugly ensconced within the folds of our blanket-bags; nor would they be expelled from such a warm and desirable position without showing fight. On several occasions I observed Naps, the dog, fast asleep with one or two lemmings huddled away between its legs, like so many pups."

He says that Lieutenant Mecham noticed an Esquimaux dog, named Buffer, trudging along, nose to the ground, quite unconscious of danger, when a lemming, suddenly starting from its cavern, seized poor Buffer by the nose, inflicting a severe wound. The dog, astounded at such an unsuspected assault, gave a dismal howl, and at length shook the enemy off, after which he became the attacking party, and in less than a minute the presumptuous assailant disappeared between the jaws of the Tartar he had attempted to catch.

FOOTNOTES:

[158] Mitchell's "Popular Guide to the Zoological Gardens," p. 9. (1852.)

[159] Mark Lemon's "Jest Book," p. 180.

[160] Ed. 1845, p. 339.

[161] P. 441. Sir John Richardson told me that the species was _Spermophilus Parryi_.

[162] The Eventful Voyage of H.M. Discovery Ship _Resolute_ to the Arctic Regions, in Search of Sir John Franklin, in 1852-3-4, pp. 314, 315.

RATS AND MICE.

Why should we not, like Grainger, begin this section as the writer of "The Sugar-Cane" does one of his paragraphs--

"Come muse! let's sing of rats."

The "restless rottens" and mice need little introduction. They are a most fertile race, and some species of them seem only to be in human habitations. They are terrible nuisances, and yet rat-skins are said to be manufactured in Paris into gloves.

Sydney Smith's comparison of some one dying like a poisoned rat in a ditch is a powerful one. The same writer, in hunting down an unworthy man, with his cutting criticism, says, that he did it not on account of his power, but to put down what might prove noisome if not settled, much as a Dutch burgomaster might hunt a rat, not for its value, but because by its boring it might cause the water to break through his dikes, and thus flood his native land.

Robert Browning, in one of his poems, "The Pied Piper of Hamelin," has powerfully described an incursion of rats. A few lines may be quoted:--

"Almost five hundred years ago, To see the townsfolk suffer so From vermin, was a pity. "Rats! They fought the dogs and killed the cats, And bit the babies in their cradles, And ate the cheeses out of the vats, And licked the soup from the cook's own ladles, Split open the kegs of salted sprats, Made nests inside men's Sunday hats, And even spoiled the women's chats, By drowning their speaking With shrieking and squeaking In fifty different sharps and flats.

* * * * *

"And ere three shrill notes the pipes had uttered, You heard as if an army muttered; And the muttering grew to a grumbling; And the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling; And out of the houses the rats came tumbling-- Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats, Brown rats, black rats, grey rats, tawny rats; Grave old plodders, gay young friskers, Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins, Cocking tails, and pricking whiskers, Families by tens and dozens, Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives-- Followed the Piper for their lives. From street to street he piped, advancing, And step for step they followed dancing, Until they came to the river Weser Wherein all plunged and perished, Save one."

THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON AND THE MUSK-RAT.

Mr Taylor, in his notes to the artist Haydon's Autobiography, tells us that a favourite expression of the Duke of Wellington, when people tried to coax him to do what he had resolved not to do, was, "The rat has got into the bottle." This not very intelligible expression may refer to an anecdote I have heard of the Duke's once telling, in his later days, how the musk-rats in India got into bottles, which ever after retained the odour of musk. "Either the rats must be very small," said a lady who heard him, "or the bottles very large." "On the contrary, madam," was the Duke's reply, "very small bottles and very large rats." "That is the style of logic we have to deal with at the Horse Guards," whispered Lord ----.

LADY EGLINTOUN AND THE RATS.

Mr Robert Chambers, in his "Traditions of Edinburgh" (p. 191), gives an interesting account of the elegant Susanna, Countess of Eglintoun, who was in her eighty-fifth year when Johnson and Boswell visited her. She died in 1780, at the age of ninety-one, having preserved to the last her stately mien and fine complexion. She is said to have washed her face periodically with sow's milk.

"This venerable woman amused herself latterly in taming and patronising rats. She kept a vast number of these animals in her pay at Auchans, and they succeeded in her affections the poets and artists she had loved in early life. It does not reflect much credit upon the latter, that her ladyship used to complain of never having met with true gratitude except from four-footed animals. She had a panel in the oak wainscot of her dining-room, which she tapped upon and opened at meal times, when ten or twelve jolly rats came tripping forth, and joined her at table. At the word of command or a signal from her ladyship, they retired again to their native obscurity--a trait of good sense in the character and habits of the animals which, it is hardly necessary to remark, patrons do not always find in two-legged _protégés_."

GENERAL DOUGLAS AND THE RATS.

The biographer of this highly-distinguished military engineer-officer relates an anecdote of him when a lieutenant at Tynemouth. The future author of well-known works on Gunnery and Military Bridges, early began to show ability in mechanics. "Lieutenant Douglas occupied a room barely habitable, and had to contest the tenancy with rats, which asserted their claim with such tenacity, that he went to sleep at the risk of being devoured. Their incursions compelled him to furnish himself with loaded pistols and a tinder-box, and he kept watch one night, remaining quiet till there was an irruption, when he started up and struck a light. But his vigilance proved of no avail, for the clink of the flint and steel caused a stampede, and not a rat remained by the time he had kindled the tinder. Their flight suggested to him another device. He looked out all the holes, and covered them with slides, connected with each other by wires, and these he fastened to a string, which enabled him to draw them all with one pull, and thus close the outlets. The contrivance claims to be mentioned as his first success in mechanics, foreshadowing his future expertness. It came into use the same night: he pulled the string without rising from bed, then struck a light, while the rats flew off to the holes to find them blocked, and he shot them at leisure. Two or three such massacres cleared off the intruders, and left him undisturbed in his quarters."[163]

HANOVER RATS.

How amusingly does Mr Waterton show his attachment to the extinct Stuarts in his essays. Go where he may, "a Hanover rat" pops up before him. In his charming autobiography appended to the three series of his graphic essays, whether he be in Rome or Cologne, in York or London, at a farm-house, or on board a steamer on the Rhine, "a Hanover rat" is sure to be encountered. We could cite many amusing illustrations.

Earl Stanhope[164] speaks of the Jacobites after the death of Anne reviling all adherents of the court as "a parcel of Roundheads and Hanover rats." This is the phrase used by Squire Western in Fielding's novel of "Tom Jones." He tells us that the former of these titles was the by-word first applied to the Calvinistic preachers in the civil wars, from the close cropped hair which they affected as distinguished from the flowing curls of the cavaliers. The second phrase was of far more recent origin. It so chanced that not long after the accession of the House of Hanover, some of the brown, that is, the German or Norway rats, were first brought over to this country in some timber, as is said; and being much stronger than the black, or till then, the common rats, they in many places quite extirpated the latter. The word, both the noun and the verb "to rat," was first levelled at the converts to the government of George the First, but has by degrees obtained a wider meaning, and come to be applied to any sudden and mercenary change in politics. The ravages of rats might form the subject of a curious volume. They are not at all literary in their tastes, though they are known to eat through bales of books, should they be placed in the way of their runs. The booksellers in the Row always leave room between the wall and the books in their cellars, to allow room for this predacious vermin.

Mr Cole, when examined before the Committee of the House on the condition of the depositories of the Records some time ago, stated that "six or seven perfect skeletons of rats were found imbedded (in the Rolls); bones of these vermin were generally distributed throughout the mass, and a dog was employed in hunting the live ones."

IRISHMAN EMPLOYED SHOOTING RATS.

Luttrell visited Sydney Smith at his parsonage in Somersetshire. The London wit told some amusing Irish stories, and his manner of telling them was so good. "One: 'Is your master at home, Paddy?' '_No_, your honour.' 'Why, I saw him go in five minutes ago.' 'Faith, your honour, he's not exactly at home; he's only there in the back yard a-shooting rats with cannon, your honour, for his _devarsion_.'"[165]

JAMES WATT AND THE RAT'S WHISKERS.

Mrs Schimmelpenninck in her youth lived at Birmingham, where she often met James Watt. In her autobiography (p. 34), she says, "Everybody practically knew the infinite variety of his talents and stores of knowledge. When Mr Watt entered a room, men of letters, men of science, nay, military men, artists, ladies, even little children thronged round him. I remember a celebrated Swedish artist having been instructed by him that rats' whiskers made the most pliant and elastic painting-brush; ladies would appeal to him on the best means of devising grates, curing smoky chimneys, warming their houses, and obtaining fast colours. I can speak from experience of his teaching me how to make a dulcimer, and improve a Jew's harp."

THE POET GRAY COMPARES THE POET-LAUREATE TO A RAT-CATCHER.

The poet Gray very much despised such offices as that of the poet-laureate, or that held by Elkanah Settle, the last of the city poets whose name is held up to ridicule by Pope in the "Dunciad." In a letter to the Rev. Wm. Mason,[166] he puts this very strikingly:--

"Though I very well know the bland emolient saponaceous qualities both of sack and silver, yet if any great man would say to me, 'I make you rat-catcher to his Majesty, with a salary of £300 a year, and two butts of the best Malaga; and though it has been usual to catch a mouse or two, for form's sake, in public once a year, yet to you, sir, we shall not stand upon these things,' I cannot say I should jump at it; nay, if they would drop the very name of the office, and call me Sinecure to the King's Majesty, I should still feel a little awkward, and think everybody I saw smelt a rat about me: but I do not pretend to blame any one else that has not the same sensations. For my part, I would rather be serjeant-trumpeter or pinmaker to the palace."

JEREMY BENTHAM AND THE MICE.

The biographer of Jeremy Bentham[167] tells us that among the animals he was fond of were mice. They were encouraged "to play" about in his workshop. I remember, when one got among his papers, that he exclaimed, "Ho! ho! here's a mouse at work; why won't he come into my lap?--but then I ought to be writing legislation, and that would not do."

One day, while we were at dinner, mice had got, as they frequently did, into the drawers of the dinner-table, and were making no small noise. "O you rascals," exclaimed Bentham, "there's an uproar among you. I'll tell puss of you;" and then added, "I became once very intimate with a colony of mice. They used to run up my legs, and eat crumbs from my lap. I love everything that has four legs; so did George Wilson. We were fond of mice, and fond of cats; but it was difficult to reconcile the two affections."

Jeremy Bentham records: "George Wilson had a disorder which kept him two months to his couch. The _mouses_ used to run up his back and eat the powder and pomatum from his hair. They used also to run up my knees when I went to see him. I remember they did so to Lord Glenbervie, who thought it odd."[168]

BURNS AND THE FIELD MOUSE.

The history of the origin of this well-known piece of the Scottish poet is thus given by Mr Chambers in that edition of the Life and Works of Robert Burns,[169] which will ever be regarded, by Scotchmen at least, as the most complete and carefully-edited of the numerous editions of that most popular poet.

"We have the testimony of Gilbert Burns that this beautiful poem was composed while the author was following the plough. Burns ploughed with four horses, being twice the amount of power now required on most of the soils of Scotland. He required an assistant, called a _gaudsman_, to drive the horses, his own duty being to hold and guide the plough. John Blane, who had acted as gaudsman to Burns, and who lived sixty years afterwards, had a distinct recollection of the turning-up of the mouse. Like a thoughtless youth as he was, he ran after the creature to kill it, but was checked and recalled by his master, who, he observed, became thereafter thoughtful and abstracted. Burns, who treated his servants with the familiarity of fellow-labourers, soon after read the poem to Blane.

TO A MOUSE, ON TURNING UP HER NEST WITH THE PLOUGH, NOVEMBER 1785.

"Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie, Oh, what a panic's in thy breastie! Thou needna start awa sae hasty Wi' bickering brattle! I wad be laith to rin and chase thee Wi' murd'ring pattle.[170]

"I'm truly sorry man's dominion Has broken nature's social union, And justifies that ill opinion, Which makes thee startle At me, thy poor earth-born companion, And fellow-mortal!

"I doubt na whyles, but thou may thieve; What then? poor beastie, thou maun live! A daimen icker in a thrave[171] 'S a sma' request: I'll get a blessin' wi' the laive, And never miss't.

"Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin! Its silly wa's the win's are strewin"! And naething now to big a new ane O, foggage green, And bleak December's winds ensuin' Baith snell and keen!

"Thou saw the fields laid bare and waste, And weary winter coming fast, And cozie here, beneath the blast, Thou thought to dwell, Till crash! the cruel coulter passed Out through thy cell.

"That wee bit heap o' leaves and stibble, Has cost thee mony a weary nibble! Now thou's turned out for a' thy trouble, But house or hald, To thole the winter's sleety dribble, And cranreuch cauld!

"But, mousie, thou art no thy lane; Improving foresight may be vain; The best-laid schemes o' mice and men Gang aft a-gley, And lea'e us nought but grief and pain For promised joy.

"Still thou art blest, compared wi' me! The present only toucheth thee; But, och! I backward cast my e'e, On prospects drear! And forward, though I canna see, I guess and fear."

It was on the farm of Mossgiel, in the parish of Mauchline, where he resided nearly nine years, that the occurrence took place so pathetically recorded and gloriously commented on in this piece.

DESTRUCTIVE FIELD MICE.

Thomas Fuller, in "The Farewell" to his description of the "Worthies of Essex," says, "I wish the sad casualties may never return which lately have happened in this county; the one, 1581, in the Hundred of Dengy, the other, 1648, in the Hundred of Rochford and Isle of Foulness (rented in part by two of my credible parishioners, who attested it, having paid dear for the truth thereof); when an army of mice, nesting in ant-hills, as conies in burrows, shaved off the grass at the bare roots, which, withering to dung, was infectious to cattle. The March following, numberless flocks of owls from all parts flew thither, and destroyed them, which otherwise had ruined the country, if continuing another year. Thus, though great the distance betwixt a man and a mouse, the meanest may become formidable to the mightiest creature by their multitudes; and this may render the punishment of the Philistines more clearly to our apprehensions, at the same time pestered with mice in their barns and pained with emerods in their bodies."[172]

THE BARON VON TRENCK AND THE TAME MOUSE IN PRISON.

The unfortunate Baron Von Trenck was a Prussian officer, whose adventures, imprisonments, and escape form the subject of memoirs which he wrote in Hungary. He at last settled in France, and there, in 1794, perished by the guillotine.

Before he obtained his liberty, he lost a companion which had for two years helped to beguile the solitude of his captivity. This was a mouse, which he had tamed so perfectly, that the little creature was continually playing with him, and would eat out of his mouth. "One night it skipped about so much that the sentinels heard a noise and reported it to the officer of the guard. As the garrison had been changed at the peace (between Austria and Prussia), and as Trenck had not been able to form at once so close a connexion with the officers of the regular troops as he had done with those of the militia, one of the former, after ascertaining the truth of the report with his own ears, sent to inform the commandant that something extraordinary was going on in the prison. The town-major arrived in consequence early in the morning, accompanied by locksmiths and masons. The floor, the walls, the baron's chains, his body, everything in short, were strictly examined. Finding all in order, they asked the cause of the last evening's bustle. Trenck had heard the mouse, and told them frankly by what it had been occasioned. They desired him to call his little favourite; he whistled, and the mouse immediately leaped upon his shoulder. He solicited that its life might be spared; but the officer of the guard took it into his possession, promising, however, on his word of honour, to give it to a lady who would take great care of it. Turning it afterwards loose in his chamber, the mouse, who knew nobody but Trenck, soon disappeared, and hid himself in a hole. At the usual hour of visiting his prison, when the officers were just going away, the poor little animal darted in, climbed up his legs, seated itself on his shoulder, and played a thousand tricks to express the joy it felt on seeing him again. Every one was astonished, and wished to have it. The major, to terminate the dispute, carried it away, gave it to his wife, who had a light cage made for it; but the mouse refused to eat, and a few days after was found dead."[173]

ALEXANDER WILSON AND THE MOUSE.