It is known that the Kings of England have a private, or rather a notoriously public, mark, whereby they distinguish their property, known to the initiated as the King's Broad Arrow, but vulgarly called the King's Broad R. This mark is held up by all "dealers in marine stores" of these our days to their children as the Scylla of their voyage through life. They are taught never to purloin (if there be any other within reach) any timber, thick stuff, or plank, or iron or copper bolts, belaying-pins, gudgeons, stauncheons, fastenings or sheathing, or any other article having on or about it the King's Broad Arrow by "stamp, brand, or otherwise," and carefully to abstain (as far as possible) from meddling with any cordage of three inches and upwards wrought with a white thread the contrary way (which thread is improperly called the rogue's yarn) or any canvas wrought or unwrought with a blue streak in the middle; or any bewper wrought with one or more streaks of raised white tape, as they believe in and fear the 22 Charles II., cap. 5; the 9 and 10 William III., cap. 41; 9 George I., cap. 8; 17 George II., cap. 40; 39 and 40 George III., cap. 89, sects. 5 and 6 most especially.[32]
Unfortunately, Mr. Whittington early in life formed an intimacy with a man whose name was Joshua, who, for want of proper tuition, had fallen foul, not exactly of the above-named statutes (inasmuch as they were enacted long after his demise, and were therefore, strictly speaking, not applicable to him) but of sundry others, partly confirmed and partly repealed by the 31 of Elizabeth, cap. 4, which unfortunately affected him, since he was detected in the fact of adapting to his own use sundry marked articles appertaining to our then liege sovereign, Edward I. This Joshua was of a very low origin, and was ironically called Joshua the son of none, never having an ostensible father or mother; to which untoward circumstance may be charitably attributed the errors into which he was occasionally betrayed. The first notion of property which a child receives, is from being told, I am your parent; you are my son; this is your milk; that is his bread. The poor innocent who does not receive this early instruction is naturally deficient in this particular; whence it happens that such persons are generally found rather lax in their principles of meum and tuum to the end of their lives; which, however, by an equal dispensation of Providence, are usually shortened by a special interposition of the law.
Matthew's affection, we are led to believe, was less for this man's qualities than for his property; and with that characteristic prudence injuriously called cunning, he resolved to live on good terms with him, so that, although he should never run the risk of engaging actively in the acquirement of capital, he might (knowing how bare of branches Joshua's family tree was) at some future period get possession of whatever this receiver-general might have accumulated: indeed, while quite a lad he continually used to say when shewing Joshua's cellars full of iron to any acquaintance—"I consider that one day or other these will all be mine, Sir;" and so eventually they were.
It was in allusion to these hoards, and the means and times by which they were collected, that in the quaint biblical facetiousness of that age it used to be observed, that if Joshua of old had known how to do his business by night, as well as his modern namesake, he need not have desired the sun to stand still; a witticism which Speed records with great delight.
It is after this era in Matthew's life that all the writers are puzzled; it has been ascertained that he was apprenticed to a trade, but what that trade was, or what affinity it bore to the traffic he subsequently carried on, nobody has yet decided. The incident which drove him from his master's house was, as is generally allowed, a beating (or more technically speaking a basting) which the kitchen wench gave him as a punishment for purloining a sop in the pan, a mode of acquiring, to which his admiration of Joshua's proceedings had probably given him a turn.
It is also added, that Whittington had a sneaking kindness, or what is politely called a tendre for the housemaid of the family, who espoused his cause in this very quarrel, and that he never ceased to retain a feeling of gratitude towards one of his fellow-servants commensurate with his just animosity towards the other.
There is a probability on the face of this fact, which is opposed to the story of his attachment to Miss Alice Fitzwarren, his master's daughter. Affections or antipathies formed in youth, and nurtured through life, always manifest themselves in the more marked peculiarities of age, and certain it is that Mr. Whittington when in very different circumstances, maintained his rooted dislike to a Cook, while his favourite remembrance of the housemaid's kindness evinced itself in the respect he openly professed for a Broom, (however cracked or crazy it might be) wherever he saw one.
Having thus selected such preliminary observations as were necessary by way of introduction in the nature of prolegomena, I now approach with equal awe and interest to the main point, which is, as I said before, to ascertain what the Cat was by which Whittington made himself to be so well remembered, and which is inseparable from him in history and imagination. Who thinks of Whittington without thinking of a Cat? Who with any love of sacred antiquity can see a Cat without thinking of Whittington?
An English author records a speech made by a very erudite orientalist and profound scholar, at a meeting of the Society of Antiquarians, which was preserved in the minutes of that society, through the generous care of Mr. S. Foote, and which I am enabled to lay before my readers, by the favour of Sir Richard Phillips, who, for the trifling sum of fifteen shillings, obliged me with the works of that eminent Grecian, for so I presume he was, from his having acquired the surname of Aristophanes.
"Permit me," says the orator, "to clear up some doubts relative to a material and interesting point of the English History. Let others toil to illumine the dark annals of Greece and Rome; my searches are sacred only to the service of Britain.