An extract from the Register of Cat's Eden has got abroad, whereby it appears that the Laureate, Dr. Southey, who is known to be a philofelist, and confers honours upon his Cats according to their services, has raised one to the highest rank in peerage, promoting him through all its degrees by the following titles, His Serene Highness the Arch-Duke Rumpelstilzchen, Marquis Macbum, Earl Tomlemagne, Baron Raticide, Waowlher and Skaratchi.
The first of these names is taken from the German Collection of Kinder und Haus-Märchen. A Dwarf or Imp so called was to carry off the infant child of the Queen as the price of a great service which he had rendered her, but he had consented to forego his right if in the course of three days she could find out what was his name. This she never could have done, if the King had not on the first day gone hunting, and got into the thickest part of the wood, where he saw a ridiculous Dwarf hopping about before a house which seemed by its dimensions to be his home, and singing for joy; these were the words of his song,
Heute back ich, morgen brau ich,
Ubermorgen hohl ich der Frau Konigin ihr kind,
Ach wie gut ist, das niemand weiss
Dass ich Rumpelstilzchen heiss.
I bake to-day, and I brew to-morrow,
Mrs. Queen will see me the next day to her sorrow,
When according to promise her child I shall claim,
For none can disclose, because nobody knows
That Rumpelstilzchen is my name.
Now if Rumpelstilzchen had had as many names as a Spanish Infante, the man must have a good memory who could have carried them away upon hearing them once.
“The Cats of Diorigi are celebrated all over Greece, for nowhere are to be found cats so pretty, so vigilant, so caressing and well-bred as at Diorigi. The Cats of the Oasis in Egypt, and of Sinope are justly renowned for their good qualities, but those of Diorigi are particularly fat, brilliant, and playing different colours. They are carried from here to Persia, to Ardebeil where they are shut up in cages, proclaimed by the public criers and sold for one or two tomans. The Georgians also buy them at a great price, to save their whiskers which are commonly eaten up by mice. The criers of Ardebeil, who cry these cats have a particular melody to which they sing their cry in these words,
O you who like a Cat
That catches mouse and rat,
Well-bred, caressing, gay
Companion to sport and play,
Amusing and genteel,
Shall never scratch and steal.
Singing these words they carry the cats on their head and sell them for great prices, because the inhabitants of Ardebeil are scarce able to save their woollen cloth from the destruction of mice and rats. Cats are called Hurre, Katta, Senorre, Merabe, Matshi, Weistaun, Wemistaun, but those of Diorigi are particularly highly esteemed. Notwithstanding that high reputation and price of the Cats of Diorigi, they meet with dangerous enemies in their native place, where sometimes forty or fifty of them are killed secretly, tanned, and converted into fur for the winter time. It is a fur scarce to be distinguished from Russian ermelin, and that of the red cats is not to be distinguished from the fox that comes from Ozalov.”1
1 EVLIA EFFENDI.
A labouring man returning to his cottage after night-fall, passed by a lone house in ruins, long uninhabited. Surprized at the appearance of light within, and strange sounds issuing from the desolate interior, he stopt and looked in through one of the broken windows, and there in a large old gloomy room, quite bare of furniture except that the cobwebs hung about its walls like tapestry, he beheld a marvellous spectacle. A small coffin covered with a pall stood in the midst of the floor, and round and round and round about it with dismal lamentations in the feline tongue, marched a circle of Cats, one of them, being covered from head to foot with a black veil, and walking as chief mourner. The man was so frightened with what he saw that he waited to see no more, but went straight home, and at supper told his wife what had befallen him.