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THE SEER;

OR

COMMON-PLACES REFRESHED.

THE CAT BY THE FIRE.

BLAZING fire, a warm rug, candles lit and curtains drawn, the kettle on for tea (nor do

the “first circles" despise the preference of a kettle to an urn, as the third or fourth may do), and finally, the cat before you, attracting your attention,— it is a scene which everybody likes, unless he has a morbid aversion to cats; which is not common. There are some nice inquirers, it is true, who are apt to make uneasy comparisons of cats with dogs, -to say they are not so loving, that they prefer the house to the man, &c. But agreeably to the good old maxim, that "comparisons are odious," our readers, we hope, will continue to like what is likable in any thing, for its own sake, without trying to render it unlikable from its inferiority to something else; a process by which we might ingeniously contrive to put

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soot into every dish that is set before us, and to reject one thing after another, till we were pleased with nothing. Here is a good fireside, and a cat to it; and it would be our own fault, if, in removing to another house and another fireside, we did not take care that the cat removed with us. Cats cannot look to the moving of goods, as men do. If we would have creatures considerate towards us, we must be so towards them. It is not to be expected of everybody, quadruped or biped, that they should stick to us in spite of our want of merit, like a dog or a benevolent sage. Besides, stories have been told of cats very much to the credit of their benignity; such as their following a master about like a dog, waiting at a gentleman's door to thank him for some obligation over night, &c. And our readers may remember the history of the famous Godolphin Arabian, upon whose grave a cat that had lived with him in the stable went and stretched itself, and died.

The cat purrs, as if it applauded our consideration ; and gently moves its tail. What an odd expression of the power to be irritable and the will to be pleased there is in its face, as it looks up at us! We must own, that we do not prefer a cat in the act of purring, or of looking in that manner. It reminds us of the sort of smile or simmer (simper is too weak and fleeting a word) that is apt to be in the faces of irritable people when they are pleased to be in a state of satisfaction. We prefer, for a general expression, the cat in a quiet, unpretending state; and the human countenance with a look indicative of habitual grace and composure, as if it were not necessary to take

any violent steps to prove its amiability, - the "smile without a smile," as the poet beautifully calls it.*

Furthermore (in order to get rid at once of all that may be objected to poor Pussy, as boys at school get down their bad dumpling as fast as possible, before the meat comes), we own we have an objection to the way in which a cat sports with a mouse before she kills it, tossing and jerking it about like a ball, and letting it go, in order to pounce upon it with the greater relish. And yet what right have we to apply human measures of cruelty to the inferior reflectibility of a cat? Perhaps she has no idea of the mouse's being alive, in the sense that we have: most likely she looks upon it as a pleasant movable toy, made to be eaten, a sort of lively pudding, that oddly jumps hither and thither. It would be hard to beat into the head of a country squire, of the old class, that there is any cruelty in hunting a hare; and most assuredly it would be still harder to beat mouse-sparing into the head of a cat. You might read the most pungent essay on the subject into her ear, and she would only sneeze at it.

As to the unnatural cruelties, which we sometimes read of, committed by cats upon their offspring, they are exceptions to the common and beautiful rules of nature; and, accordingly, we have nothing to do with them. They are traceable to some unnatural circumstances of breeding or position. Enormities as monstrous are to be found among human beings, and argue nothing against the general character of the

Knowles, in the "Beggar of Bethnal Green."

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