Part 94
I am a poor wronged _Day_. I appeal to you as the general patron of the family of the _Days_. The candour with which you attended to the expostulations of a poor relative of ours--a sort of cousin thrice removed[250]--encourages me to hope that you will listen to the complaint of a _Day_ of rather more consequence. I am the _Day_, Sir, upon which it pleased the course of nature that your gracious Sovereign should be born. As such, before his Accession, I was always observed and honoured. But since that happy event, in which naturally none had a greater interest than myself, a flaw has been discovered in my title. My lustre has been eclipsed, and--to use the words of one of your own poets,--
“I fade into the light of common _day_.”
It seems, that about that time, an Impostor crept into Court, who has the effrontery to usurp my honours, and to style herself the _King’s-birth-Day_, upon some shallow pretence that, being _St. George’s-Day_, she must needs be _King-George’s-Day_ also. _All-Saints-Day_ we have heard of, and _All-Souls-Day_ we are willing to admit; but does it follow that this foolish _Twenty-third of April_ must be _All-George’s-Day_, and enjoy a monopoly of the whole name from George of Cappadocia to George of Leyden, and from George-a-Green down to George Dyer?
It looks a little oddly that I was discarded not long after the dismission of a set of men and measures, with whom I have nothing in common. I hope no whisperer has insinuated into the ears of Royalty, as if I were any thing Whiggishly inclined, when, in my heart, I abhor all these kind of Revolutions, by which I am sure to be the greatest sufferer.
I wonder my shameless Rival can have the face to let the Tower and Park Guns proclaim so many big thundering fibs as they do, upon her Anniversary--making your Sovereign too to be older than he is, by an hundred and odd _days_, which is no great compliment one would think. Consider if this precedent for ante-dating of Births should become general, what confusion it must make in Parish Registers; what crowds of young heirs we should have coming of age before they are one-and-twenty, with numberless similar grievances. If these chops and changes are suffered, we shall have _Lord-Mayor’s-Day_ eating her custard unauthentically in May, and _Guy Faux_ preposterously blazing twice over in the Dog-_days_.
I humbly submit, that it is not within the prerogatives of Royalty itself, to be born twice over. We have read of the supposititious births of Princes, but where are the evidences of this first Birth? why are not the nurses in attendance, the midwife, &c. produced?--the silly story has not so much as a Warming Pan to support it.
My legal advisers, to comfort me, tell me that I have the right on my side; that I am the true Birth-_Day_, and the other _Day_ is only kept. But what consolation is this to me, as long as this naughty-_kept creature_ keeps me out of my dues and privileges?
Pray take my unfortunate case into your consideration, and see that I am restored to my lawful Rejoicings, Firings, Bon-Firings, Illuminations, &c.
And your Petitioner shall ever pray,
_Twelfth Day of August_
* * * * *
THE EDITOR’S ANSWER.
Madam,
You mistake my situation: I am not the “patron,” but a poor servant of the _Days_--engaged to attend their goings out and comings in, and to teach people to pay proper respect to them. Mine is no trifling post, Madam; for without disrespect to you, many of your ancient family were spoiled long ago, by silly persons having taken undue notice of them; and in virtue of my office, I am a sort of judge in their court of claims, without authority to enforce obedience to my opinions. However, I shall continue to do my duty to the _Days_, and to their friends, many of whom are mere hangers-on, and, in spite of their pretended regard, grossly abuse them:--but this only verifies the old saying, “Too much familiarity breeds contempt:” such liberties must not be allowed, nor must the antiquity of the _Days_ be too much insisted on. It is said, “there’s reason in every thing,” but there’s very little in some of the OLD _Days_--excuse me, Madam, _you_ are a _young_ one; and I have something to excuse in you, which I readily do, on account of your inexperience, and of your bringing up.
That you are “the _King’s-birth-Day_” is undisputed: you are stated so to be in the almanac; as witness this line in _August_, 1825:--
“12. F. ~K. Geo.~ IV. ~b.~”
Can any thing be plainer than the ~b.~ or more certain than that it stands for ~born~? So much then for your rank in the _Day_ family, and at Court, where you are acknowledged, and received as the birth-_Day_ once a year, and “kept” as well as His Majesty _can_ keep you. A king represents the majesty of the public welfare, and maintains the dignity of the throne whereon he is placed by promoting the interests of the people. His present Majesty regards your, and their, and his own, interest by remembering you, when you are not entitled to especial recollection with another day in the almanac, and this remembrance stands in April 1825, thus--
23. S. ~St. Geo. K. b. d. k.~
St. George’s-Day does not _supersede_ you; it is not called the _King’s-birth-Day_; the almanac by ~K. b. d. k.~ denotes that you, the _King’s-birth-Day_, are kept with all the honours due to your _August_ quality on _St. George’s-Day_. If it had not “pleased the course of nature,” you would only have been distinguished as the first _Day_ after the _Day_ whereon the almanac says “Dog-_Days end_”--a fine distinction!
“It looks a little oddly” you say that you should have been “discarded not long after the dismission of a set of men and measures with whom _you_ have nothing in common;” and you “hope,” that “no whisperer has insinuated” that you are “whiggishly inclined.” Allow me to tell you, Madam, that if the family of the _Days_ had not been “whiggishly inclined” in the year 1688, you might still have been a “common _Day_.” I know not how you incline now, and it is of very little consequence; for all “parties” are busy in promoting the happiness of the commonwealth, and I hope, in my lifetime at least, that no _Day_ will be dishonoured by dissensions about trifles at home, or war upon any pretence abroad. And now, Madam, after this indispensable notice of your little flaunt, let me add, that the prorogation of parliament during that season when “in the course of nature” you arrive, and the king’s attention to the manufacturing and trading of the country, are obvious reasons for keeping the _King’s-birth-Day_, in customary splendour on the 23d _Day_ of April, instead of the 12th _Day_ of August. You are honoured again in your own season at the palace; and your complaint amounts to no more than this, that having received your honours in the presence of a full court circle before you are entitled to them, they are not all repeated to a semicircle:--how childish! Then, you talk about the “ante-dating of births” and “Parish Registers” as if you were the daughter of a parish clerk--remember _yourself_, Madam.
St. George’s-_Day_ has far more cause for vexation than you. The little respect usually paid to _her_ celebration is eclipsed by the uproar of yours. “The Tower and Park guns proclaim so many big thundering fibs upon _her_ anniversary” for _you_; and _you_ call _her_, your elder sister, a “naughty kept creature;” poor thing! How eloquent is her silence compared with your loquacity! how dignified! yet _she_ has _antiquity_ to boast of--the antiquity of many generations, while _you_ at the utmost, are only of sixty-three years standing; indeed, as the KING’S-_birth_-_Day_, you are not halfway to your teens. A quarrel among the _Days_ would be odious; this would be detestable. Happily the _Day_-family is saved from this disgrace by the prudence of your more experienced sister, who will no doubt decline provocation even under your spiteful collocation of George of Leyden with George of Cappadocia--she understands the taunt well enough; and can see through the whimsical association of George-a-Green with George Dyer. The dead George-a-Green no one can harm, and the living George Dyer is as harmless. This is pitiful work, and if you were not the _King’s-birth-Day_ you would be made to suffer for it. “However,” as my friend Dyer would say, “let that pass:” he is a good creature, and maintains his innocence spite of his union--with George-a-Green.
On the presentation of your petition I had some doubt whether I ought to entertain such a petition for a moment; but on reconsideration I doubted whether the justice of the case would not be better answered by dealing with it in another way; and I give you the benefit of that doubt: the petition is dismissed.
THE EDITOR.
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FLORAL DIRECTORY.
Great Sowthistle. _Sonchus palustris._ Dedicated to _St. Clare_.
[250] Twenty-ninth _Day_ of February.
~August 13.~
_St. Hippolytas_, A. D. 252. _St. Cassian_. _St. Rudegundes_, queen of France, A. D. 587. _St. Wigbert_, Abbot, A. D. 747.
~Cats.~
Once upon a time--on or about the 13th of August, 1819; it might have been a few or many days before or after that day, or a month or so before or after that month--the day or month is of less consequence to the reader, than to the editor, who desires to “bring in” an interesting anecdote or two on the 13th day of August. Once upon a time, a cat--it is a fact--for it is in _The Scotsman_ newspaper of the 23d of October, 1819--once upon a time, a cat, belonging to a shipmaster, was left on shore, by accident, when his vessel sailed from the harbour of Aberdour, Fifeshire, which lies about half a mile from the village. The vessel was absent about a month, and, on her return, to the astonishment of the shipmaster, puss came on board with a fine stout kitten in her mouth, apparently about three weeks old, and went directly down to the cabin. Two others of her young were afterwards caught, quite wild, in a neighbouring wood, where she must have remained with them till the return of the vessel. The shipmaster did not allow her again to go on shore, otherwise it is probable she would have brought the whole litter on board. What is more remarkable, vessels were daily entering and leaving the harbour, none of which she ever thought of visiting till the one she had left returned.[251] This extraordinary instance of feline sagacity, on the day before mentioned or imagined, is paralleled by another:--
A lady lately living at Potsdam, when a child of six years, ran a splinter into her foot, sat down upon the floor, and cried most violently. At first her cries were not regarded, as they were considered to be more the effect of a pettish and obstinate temper, than of any great pain which the accident could have occasioned her. At length the elder sister of the child, who had been lying asleep in bed, was roused by her cries, and as she was just about to get out of bed, in order to quiet her sister, she observed a cat, who was a favourite playmate of the children, and otherwise of a very gentle disposition, leave her seat under the stove, go to the crying girl, and having given her with one of her paws so smart a blow upon the cheek as to draw blood, walk back again with the utmost gravity to her place under the stove. As this cat was by no means of a malicious disposition, for she had grown up together with the younger children of the family, and never designedly scratched any of them, it seems that her intention upon this occasion was to chastise the pettish girl, and put an end to her troublesome cries, in order that she might herself be able to finish her morning nap without further interruption.[252]
In the “Orleans Collection” of pictures there was a fine painting of a “_Concert of Cats_,” by F. Breughel, from whence there is a print, among the engravings of that gallery, sufficiently meritorious and whimsical to deserve a place here; and therefore it is represented in the sketch on the present page. In justice, to the justice done to it, Mr. Samuel Williams must be mentioned as the artist who both drew and engraved it. The fixed attention of the feline performers is exceedingly amusing, and by no means unnatural; for it appears by the notes that mice is their theme, and they seem engaged in a _catch_.
Ye rats, in triumph elevate your ears! Exult, ye mice! for fate’s abhorred shears Of Dick’s nine lives have slit the cat-guts nine; Henceforth he mews midst choirs of cats divine!
So sings Mr. Huddesford, in a “Monody on the Death of Dick, an Academical Cat,” with this motto,--
“MI-CAT inter omnes.”
Hor. Carm. Lib. i. Ode 12.
He brings his cat Dick from the Flood, and consequently through Rutterkin, a cat who was “cater-cousin to the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother of Grimalkin, and first cat in the caterie of an old woman, who was tried for bewitching a daughter of the countess of Rutland in the beginning of the sixteenth century.” The monodist connects him with cats of great renown in the annals of witchcraft; a science whereto they have been allied as closely as poor old women, one of whom, it appears, on the authority of an old pamphlet entitled “Newes from Scotland,” &c. printed in the year 1591, “confessed that she took a cat and christened it, &c. and that in the night following, the said cat was conveyed into the middest of the sea by all these witches sayling in their RIDDLES, or CIVES, and so left the said cat right before the towne of Leith in Scotland. This done, there did arise such a tempest at sea as a greater hath not been seen, &c. Againe it is confessed, that the said christened cat was the cause of the kinges majestie’s shippe, at his coming forthe of Denmarke, had a contrarie winde to the rest of the shippes then being in his companie, which thing was most straunge and true, as the kinges majestie acknowledgeth, for when the rest of the shippes had a fair and good winde, then was the winde contrarie, and altogether against his majestie,” &c.
All sorts of cats, according to Huddesford, lamented the death of his favourite, whom he calls “premier cat upon the catalogue,” and who, preferring sprats to all other fish,--
“Had swallow’d down a score without remorse, And three fat mice slew for a second course, But, while the third his grinders dyed with gore, Sudden those grinders clos’d--to grind no more! And, dire to tell! commissioned by Old Nick, A catalepsy made an end of DICK.
“Calumnious cats who circulate faux pas, And reputations maul with murd’rous claws; Shrill cats whom fierce domestic brawls delight, Cross cats who nothing want but teeth to bite, Starch cats of puritanic aspect sad, And learned cats who talk their husbands mad; Confounded cats who cough, and croak, and cry, And maudlin cats who drink eternally; Fastidious cats who pine for costly cates, And jealous cats who catechise their mates; Cat-prudes who, when they’re ask’d the question, squall, And ne’er give answer categorical; Uncleanly cats, who never pare their nails, Cat-gossips full of Canterbury tales, Cat-grandams vex’d with asthmas and catarrhs, And superstitious cats who curse their stars; Cats of each class, craft, calling, and degree Mourn DICK’S calamitous catastrophe!
“Yet, while I chant the cause of RICHARD’S end, Ye sympathizing cats, your tears suspend! Then shed enough to float a dozen whales, And use, for pocket-handkerchiefs, your tails!--
“Ah! tho’ thy bust adorn no sculptur’d shrine, No vase thy relics rare to fame consign, No rev’rend characters thy rank express, Nor hail thee, DICK! D.D. nor F.R.S. Tho’ no funereal cypress shade thy tomb For thee the wreaths of Paradise shall bloom. There, while GRIMALKIN’S mew her RICHARD greets, A thousand cats shall purr on purple seats: E’en now I see, descending from his throne, Thy venerable cat, O Whittington! The kindred excellence of RICHARD hail, And wave with joy his gratulating tail! There shall the worthies of the whisker’d race Elysian mice o’er floors of sapphire chase, Midst beds of aromatic marum stray, Or raptur’d rove beside the Milky Way. Kittens, than eastern houris fairer seen, Whose bright eyes glisten with immortal green, Shall smooth for tabby swains their yielding fur, And to their amorous mews assenting purr.-- There, like Alcmena’s, shall GRIMALKIN’S SON In bliss repose,--his mousing labours done, Fate, envy, curs, time, tide, and traps defy, And caterwaul to all eternity.”
_Huddesford._
Cats neither like to be put out of their way, nor to be kept out of their food:--
In cloisters, wherein people are immured in Roman catholic countries, to keep or make them of that religion, it is customary to announce the hours of meals by ringing a bell. In a cloister in France, a cat that was kept there was used never to receive any victuals till the bell rung, and she therefore never failed to be within hearing of it. One day, however, she happened to be shut up in a solitary apartment, and the bell rang in vain, as far as regarded her. Being some hours after liberated from her confinement, she ran, half famished, to the place where a plate of victuals used generally to be set for her, but found none this time. In the afternoon the bell was heard ringing at an unusual hour, and when the people of the cloister came to see what was the cause of it, they found the cat hanging upon the bell-rope, and setting it in motion as well as she was able, in order that she might have her dinner served up to her.[253]
* * * * *
There is a surprising instance of the sensibility of cats to approaching danger:--
In the year 1783, two cats, belonging to a merchant at Messina, in Sicily, announced to him the approach of an earthquake. Before the first shock was felt, these two animals seemed anxiously to endeavour to work their way through the floor of the room in which they were. Their master observing their fruitless efforts, opened the door for them. At a second and third door, which they likewise found shut, they repeated their efforts, and on being set completely at liberty, they ran straight through the street, and out of the gate of the town. The merchant, whose curiosity was excited by this strange conduct of the cats, followed them into the fields, where he again saw them scratching and burrowing in the earth. Soon after there was a violent shock of an earthquake, and many of the houses in the city fell down, of which the merchant’s was one, so that he was indebted for his life to the singular forebodings of his cats.[254]
* * * * *
Few who possess the faculty of hearing, and have heard the music of cats, would desire the continuance of their “sweet voices,” yet a concert was exhibited at Paris, wherein cats were the performers. They were placed in rows, and a monkey beat time to them. According as he beat the time, so the cats mewed; and the historian of the fact relates, that the diversity of the tones which they emitted produced a very ludicrous effect. This exhibition was announced to the Parisian public by the title of _Concert Miaulant_.[255]
* * * * *
Cats were highly esteemed by the Egyptians, who under the form of a cat symbolized the moon, or Isis, and placed it upon their systrum, an instrument of religious worship and divination. Count Caylus engraved a cat with two kittens, which, while he supposes one of the kittens to be black and the other white, he presumes to have represented the phases of the moon.
Cats are supposed to have been brought into England from the island of Cyprus, by some foreign merchants who came hither for tin. In the old Welsh laws, a kitten from its birth till it could see was valued at a penny; when it began to mouse at twopence; and after it had killed mice at fourpence, which was the price of a calf. Wild cats were kept by our ancient kings for hunting. The officers who had the charge of these cats seem to have had appointments of equal consequence with the masters of the king’s hounds; they were called _catatores_.
Gray’s elegy on a cat drowned in a globe of water with gold fishes is well-known. Dr. Jortin wrote a Latin epitaph on a favourite cat.
JORTIN’S EPITAPH ON HIS CAT
_Imitated in English_
Worn out with age and dire disease, a cat, Friendly to all, save wicked mouse and rat: I’m sent at last to ford the Stygian lake, And to the infernal coast a voyage make. Me PROSERPINE receiv’d, and smiling said, “Be bless’d within these mansions of the dead; Enjoy among thy velvet-footed loves, Elysium’s sunny banks and shady groves.” “But if I’ve well deserv’d, (O gracious queen,) If patient under sufferings I have been, Grant me at least one night to visit home again Once more to see my home, and mistress dear, And purr these grateful accents in her ear. Thy faithful cat, thy poor departed slave, Still loves her mistress ev’n beyond the grave.”[256]
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FLORAL DIRECTORY.
Marsh Grounsel. _Senecio paludotus._ Dedicated to _St. Radigundes_.
[251] Zoological Anecdotes.
[252] Ibid.
[253] Ibid.
[254] Ibid.
[255] Ibid.
[256] Star, Nov. 3, 1736
~August 14.~
_S. Eusebius_, 3rd Cent. _St. Eusebius_, Priest.
It is stated in _The Times_, on the authority of an “Evening Paper,” that two beautiful old trees in Nottingham park during the hot weather (of July and August, 1825,) shed all their leaves, and were as completely stripped as they are usually in November. Their appearance afterwards was more surprising. Wet weather came, they put forth new leaves and were as fully clothed in August as they were before the long season of the dry hot weather.
THE WITHERED LEAF.
Sever’d from thy slender stalk, Wither’d wand’rer! knowest thou? Would’st thou tell, if leaves might talk, Whence thou art?--Where goest thou?
Nothing know I!--tempests’ strife From the proud oak tore me; Broke my every tie to life, Whelm’d the tree that bore me.
Zephyr’s fickle breath,--the blast From the northern ocean, Since that day my lot have cast By their varying motion.
From the mountain’s breezy height To the silent valley, From the forest’s darksome night To the plain I sally.
Wheresoever wafts the wind, Restless flight constraining, There I wander unconfin’d, Fearless, uncomplaining.
On I go--where all beside Like myself are going; Where oblivion’s dreamless tide Silently is flowing.
There like beauty, frail and brief, Fades the pride of roses; There the laurel’s honour’d leaf-- Sear’d and scorn’d-reposes.
_Bernard Barton._
About the middle of August, the viper brings forth her young. She produces from twelve to twenty-five eggs, from which, when hatched, her offspring come forth nearly of the size of earthworms.[257]
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FLORAL DIRECTORY.
Elegant Zinnia. _Zinnia elegans._ Dedicated to St. _Eusebius._
“He gives me the motions.”
_Shakspeare._
Mr. George Cruikshank’s pencil has been put in requisition for a fantoccini, and his drawing, engraved by Mr. Henry White, appears above.