Page images
PDF
EPUB

Confounded cats who cough and croak and cry;
And maudlin cats who drink eternally;
Prim cats of countenance and mien precise,
Yet oftener hankering for men than mice;
Curst cats whom nought but castigation checks;
Penurious cats who pine for costly cates;
And jealous cats who catechise their mates;
Cat-prudes, who, when they're asked the ques-
tion, 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 who their favours barter for a bribe;
And canting cats, the worst of all the tribe!
And faded virgin-cats, and tabbies old,
Who at quadrille remorseless mouse for gold;
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!
Fame says (but Fame a slanderer stands con-
fess'd),
[dress'd:
Dick his own sprats, like Bamber Gascoyne,
But to the advocates of truth 'tis known
He neither staid for grace nor gridiron.

Raw sprats he swore were worth all fish beside, Fresh, stale, stew'd, spitchcock'd, fricaseed or fried;

Then swallow'd down a score without remorse, And three fat mice slew for his second course:

But, while the third his grinders dyed with gore,
Sudden those grinders closed-to grind no more!
And (dire to tell) commission'd by old Nick,
A catalepsy made an end of Dick.

Thus from the pasty's furious escalade,

Where blood, to gravy turn'd, embrown'd his blade (That all encountering blade which scorn'd to fear Broil'd gizzards charged with Cayenne gunpowder),

From raised crust level'd, never more to rise, From ducks dispatch'd, and massacred mincedpies,

From turkey-pouts transfix'd and sirloins slash'd,
From marrow-puddings maul'd, and custards
Crimpt cod, and mutilated mackarel, [quash'd,
And desolation of the turtle's shell,
Some alderman, of giant appetite,
A surfeit sweeps to everlasting night:
Imbibing claret with his latest breath,
And brandishing his knife and fork in death,
Downward a gormandizing ghost he goes,
And bears to hell fresh fuel on his nose;
For Calipash explores the infernal scene*,
And wishes Phlegethon one vast terrene.

O paragon of cats, whose loss distracts
My soul, and turns my tears to cataracts,
Nor craft nor courage could thy doom prorogue!
Dick, premier cat upon the catalogue

Of cats that grace a caterwauling age,
Scared by Fate's cat-call quits this earthly stage;

-Petit Ille dapes

Oraque vana movet, dentemque indente fatigat:
Ex certeque cibo delusum guitur inani,

Proque epulis tenues nequicquam devorat auras.

VOL. V.

D D

Ovid. Met. lib. 8.

Dire fled the arrow that laid Richard flat,
And sickening Glory saw Death shoot a cat.
Ah! though thy bust adorn no sculptured shrine,
No vase thy relics, Dick, to fame consign,
No reverend characters thy rank express,
Nor hail thee, Dick, D. D. or F. R. S.,
For thee, midst golden groves of Paradise,
Shall bloom the deathless wreath that earth denies.
There, while Grimalkin's mew her Richard greets,
A thousand cats shall purr on purple seats:
Even now I see, descending from his throne,
Thy venerable cat, O Whittington,

The kindred excellence of Richard hail,
And curl 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 raptured 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.

THE COLUBRIAD.

'CLOSE by the threshold of a door, nail'd fast, Three kittens sat. Each kitten look'd aghast. I, passing swift and inattentive by,

At the three kittens cast a careless eye:

Not much concern'd to know what they did there,
Nor deeming kittens worth a poet's care.
But presently a loud and furious hiss

Caused me to stop, and to exclaim- What's this?'
When, lo! upon the threshold met my view
With head erect and eyes of fiery hue
A viper, long as Count de Grasse's queue.
Forth from his head a forked tongue he throws,
Darting it full against a kitten's nose;
Who, having never seen in field or house
The like, sat still and silent as a mouse.
Only, projecting with attention due

Her whisker'd face,she ask'd him-Who are you?"
On to the hall went I with pace, not slow,
But swift as lightning, for a long Dutch hoe:
With which, well arm'd, I hasten'd to the spot,
To find the viper. But I found him not;
And, turning up the leaves and shrubs around,
Found only, that he was not to be found.
But still the kittens, sitting as before,
Sat, watching close the bottom of the door.
'I hope (said I) the villain I would kill
Has slipt between the door and the door's sill
And if I make dispatch and follow hard,
No doubt, but I shall find him in the yard :'
For long ere now it should have been rehearsed,
'Twas in the garden that I found him first.
E'en there I found him. There the full-grown cat
His head with velvet paw did gently pat,
As curious as the kittens erst had been
To learn what this phenomenon might mean.
Fill'd with heroic ardour at the sight,
And fearing every moment he would bite

And rob our household of our only cat
That was of age to combat with a rat,
With outstretch'd hoe I slew him at the door,
And taught him never to come there no more.

COWPER.

MOLLY MOG:

OR,

THE FAIR MAID OF THE MILL*.

SAYS my uncle, ' I pray you discover
What hath been the cause of your woes,
That you pine and you whine like a lover?'
-'I have seen Molly Mog of the Rose.'
'O nephew! your grief is but folly,
In Town you may find better prog;
Half-a-crown there will get you a Molly,
A Molly much better than Mog.'

'I know that by wits 'tis recited
That women at best are a clog;
But I'm not so easily frighted

From loving of sweet Molly Mog.

'The schoolboy's desire is a play day,
The schoolmaster's joy is to flog;
The milk-maid's delight is on May-day,
But mine is on sweet Molly Mog.

This Ballad was written on an innkeeper's daughter at Oakingham in Berkshire, who in her youth was a celebrated beauty and toast; she lived to a very advanced age, and until the month of March, 1766,

« PreviousContinue »