At the coronation of Elizabeth there is an account given, in the Hatton correspondence, of an effigy of the Pope being carried through the streets and afterwards burnt with several live cats, which, we are told, "squalled in a most hideous manner" as soon as they felt the fire.

After a famous French trial in the seventeenth century, a woman condemned as a murderess was hung in an iron cage over a slow fire, and fourteen poor unoffending cats were made to share the same fate. It is difficult to conceive by what train of thought civilised beings could arrive at such a pitch of wicked and horrible cruelty. Why should a gentle, shrinking, graceful little creature be thus made the savage sport of devils in human form?

There seems, however, to have been one haven of rest for poor persecuted pussy during the Middle Ages, and that was in the nunneries. Here, at least, she would be kindly treated, let us hope. It is said that this fact has something to do with the cat's traditional association with old maids.

And now let us quit this dark page of history, where the shameful treatment of an innocent race makes the lover of the poor pussies sorrowful and indignant. It was in France that, after the period when the cat was given over to the ways of the witch and the sorcerer, we find her yet again taking her proper place in the home and the heart of the highest in the land. Writers of natural history and others frequently denounce the cat as an animal incapable of personal attachment, yet puss has wooed and won the friendship and affection of many notable men.

Cats, the most politic, the most polite, and in proportion to their size the most powerful of beasts - realising almost literally Napoleon's favourite maxim, "Iron hand in velvet glove" - have the permanent fame of being loved by that most eminent of Frenchmen, Cardinal Richelieu, who delighted to watch the frolics of a number of kittens by which he was generally surrounded in his leisure hours. In this tendresse he resembled a still more famous Churchman! A cat went to sleep once, we are told, on the sleeve of Mahomet's robe. The hour of prayer arrived, and he chose rather to cut away his sleeve than to disturb the slumbers of his beloved Muezza.

Chateaubriand makes frequent mention of the cat in his "Memoires." He received a present of a cat from the Pope. Moncrieff wrote a series of quaintly worded letters on cats, and the book has some curious illustrations. In this we read of the pussies of many grand dames of the French Court of that day. We give an illustration taken from this book, which represents the tomb of a cat which belonged to Madame Lesdiguieres, and bears this inscription:Une Chatte Jolie. Sa maitresse qui n'aima rien L'aima jusques a la folie. Pourquoi le dire ? On le voit bien.

Tomb Of A Cat Which Belonged To Madame De Lesdiguieres

Moncrieff had to suffer an immense amount of ridicule on account of his charming "Lettres sur les Chats," which the author himself calls "a gravely frivolous book. "

Victor Hugo had a favourite cat he called "Chanoine," and Gautier's cat slept in his bed, and always kept him company at meals. Petrarch loved his cat as he loved his Laura. Dr. Johnson used to indulge his cat Hodge with oysters, which he would go out himself to purchase. Chestei-field provided for his cat in his will. Sir Walter Scott's love of dogs did not prevent him delighting in the company of a "conversable cat," and Hunse, of Hunsefield, seems to have possessed a large share of the great man's affection, and when he died his master wrote thus to Richardson: "Alack-a-day! my poor cat, Hime, my acquaintance, and in some sort my friend of fifteen years, was snapped at even by that paynim, Nimrod. What could I say to him, but what Brantome said to some ferrailleur who had been too successful in a duel: 'Ah, mon grand ami, vous avez tue mon autre grand ami.'" Amongst famous French novelists several have been cat lovers, especially Dumas, who in his "Memoires" makes notable mention of "Le Docteur." Cowper, Shelley, Wordsworth, Swinburne, and Matthew Arnold all wrote lovingly of cats. But Shakespeare, although he makes forty-four distinct mentions of cats, never has a good word for poor pussy. In "All's Well that Ends Well" he gives vent to his dislike.

Bertram rages forth: "I could endure anything before me but a cat, and now he's cat to me."

In "Cymbeline" occurs this passage: - "In killing creatures vile as cats and dogs"; and in "Midsummer Night's Dream" Lysander is made to exclaim: - "Hang off, thou cat, thou burr, thou vile thing."

Romeo cries out: " Every cat and dog And little mouse, every unworthy thing. "

From these quotations alone we may infer that, at any rate, dogs and cats were not favourites with the great bard. There is only one mention of cats in Dante. He compares to cats the demons who, with their hooks, claw the "barterers" (i. e. abusers of their office as magistrates), when these sinners try to emerge from the hot pitch wherein they are punished. He says of one of these wretches: - " Tra male gatte era venuto il sorco." (Inf. XXII., 58. ) Translation: - "Among wicked cats the mouse came."

In the "Westlosthcher Divan" of Goethe, written in his old age, but full of youthful spirit and of the freshest allusions to Eastern things, the cat is called one of the four" favoured beasts," i. e. animals in a state of grace, admitted into Paradise, in a verse very near the end of the poem, which being literally translated, reads thus: "This cat of Abuherriras" (a friend of the prophet Mahomet) "purrs about the Lord, and coaxes. Since he is ever a holy beast whom the Prophet stroked."