CHAP. XIII. The Biographer returns to the history of his own hero, after a short remark on landing on an enemy’s country.

We would not be understood to reflect any oblique hints, innuendos, or insinuations on our own affairs, by this landing of a single ship’s company on an enemy’s coast, and we desire the politicians to forbear construing the affair of the barrels being taken from the stocks by an army of Monkeys, to the disadvantage of the ministry. Far be it from us to frame any such sly reflections: This landing of forty men, on an unknown island, can bear no analogy to a premeditated plan of harrassing the well-known boast of a well-known enemy. There is so great a disparity between the two incidents, that we hope to be acquitted of this charge, by every wise politician, as it is remote from our purpose to make any such odious comparisons.

We shall resume our respectable history, verily believing, and nearly assured, that when it is read and thoroughly examined by the reviewers, whether monthly, or critical, it will appear, for truth, candor, wit, humour, learning, ingenuity and invention to exceed, either the ancient history of Reynard the Fox, or the modern one of Pompey the little.

Tom the Cat, being rejoiced at his releasement, exerted himself that night in the greatest inactivity, according to the philosophic dream of bis inertiæ. For he slept heartily and had several pleasant dreams, which Artemidorus never dreamed of, as we do not find one of them in his collection of dreams. His fellow servant lately discharged, had ever since her quarrel fell enamoured of Tom’s beauty, and consequently resolved to wheedle him away the first opportunity she could lay hold of. Tom, she knew would follow her all over the world, and she thought it was a thousand pities, so fine a fellow as Tom should spend his days with so despicable a wretch as her late mistress, to which species of women, I think they give the common name of a Brimstone, and others tack that of a dog’s wife to it.

Tom was now a quarter old, being born on the 21st of December 1751, whence some think he was called Tom: However, as his mistress Clotilda was a Methodist, we can give no credit to this surmise. Though he was but three months of age, yet was he gigantic in his stature, being at this age as large, as some old full-grown Cats. His make was of the athletic; his shoulders were brawny, and his hinder parts resembling those of the tyger, but in nothing more did his beauty consist, than in the exteriour, which strikes first, and which saved him from being drowned; for he was beautifully variegated in colour like the leopard, neither two much streaked, nor too much spotted, but finely intermingled on a milk-white ground, the streaks and spots justly proportioned in the most admirable symmetry: His belly and breast were immaculate as the swans, which greatly heightened the characteristic beauty of his face, which looked like that of a fine woman, when she adds half a dozen small patches, disposed with art in such a manner, as to impart an additional strength to each charm. His eyes, which were of the sapphire, had an unspeakable tenderness, mixed with a masculine significancy, and the other appurtenances of his face, his whiskers long and short were of an elegant projection. His constant play-fellow, his tail was of the serpentine spiral, sometimes he would curl it, and then it bore a near resemblance to the streamer of a man of war when the breezes curl it, at the top-mast head. It was tipt with silver, like a verger, when he introduces one into a pew of the Cathedral. His mien and carriage were stately, august, and solemn, except when he ran, and then neither the Hind nor the Panther could vie with him in fleetness.

Thus formed, thus arrayed in robes of ermin, who could have eyes, and not confess the superiour beauties of Tom, in comparison of which all other Cats seemed Rats, either in size or excellence. In genius he was a Mouser, but many and great were his acquired abilities. The boys, who loved him from a kitten, had taught him to play at leap-frog, but he soon exceeded his young masters by leaping over half a dozen of them standing. They used him to leap over a horizontal stick as high as they could hold it up. They had taught him to pick pockets with his mouth, as well as his paw, by putting a bit of meat or cheese therein, and he was able at length to cap a man of six feet high, by jumping at his hat, and pulling it off with admirable dexterity. It would be tedious to enumerate all his parts, natural and acquired, be it sufficient to say, that he was possessed of all those eminent good qualities, which distinguish the monkey.—One evening, his fellow-servant seized a favourable opportunity, and calling to him, Tom, Tom, she turned the corner to be out of sight; he followed the well-known voice, and leapt into her arms; she covered him with her apron, and during the eclipse, he was agreeably entertained with a slice of very fine Glou’ster. When she brought him home, she performed the ceremonies of Extreme Unction, rubbing the soles of his feet with butter. This extreme unction differs from that of the papists, as the feline is purely local, and applied to those extreme parts of the Cat, called the feet, whereas the other is temporal, and applied at the last moments to persons expiring. Those wags, called the casuists, will have it that this temporal application at the hour of death, is in imitation of a heathen custom, common among the Roman Athletæ, or wrestlers, who used to anoint their naked bodies with oyl, the better to slip out of the gripe of their antagonist. But whether this analogy will bear, we leave to those profound theologists, who deal in such learned disquisitions. Tom’s new mistress, the better to endear herself to his affections, poured out a libation of sweet milk to entertain him the longer in lapping, that during his perambulations across the room, he might be induced at every stage to visit the fountain-head, which she liberally supplied. And thus Tom became intimately acquainted with his new appartment, and his new mistress, both of which he was so well satisfied with, that tho’ he had known the way, he had not the least inclination to revisit the place of his Nativity; and thus he absolutely forgot, or neglected all his domal dignities to the great disgrace of judicial Astrology, wherein, however, he very much excelled most of his cotemporaries whether of the feline or human species.