"Mahomet avoit beaucoup d'égards pour son Chat.—Ce vénérable animal s'était un jour couché sur la manche pendante de la veste du Prophète, et semblait y mediter si profondément que Mahomet pressé de se rendre à la Prière, et n'osant le tirer de son extase, coupa la manche de sa veste. A son retour, il trouva son chat qui revenait de son assoupissement extatique, et que s'appercevant de l'attention de son maître à la vue de la manche coupée, se leva, pour lui faire la revérénce, dressa la queue, et plia le dos en arc, pour lui témoigner plus de respect. Mahomet qui comprit à merveille ce que cela signifiait, assura au saint homme de chat une place dans son Paradis. Ensuite lui passant trois fois la main sur le dos, il lui imprima, par cet attouchement, la vertu de ne jamais tomber que sur ses pates."
Hence the Marquis argues, that his favourite Enchantress did by no means degrade or bemean herself by the abandonment of her character as a woman, if it were to answer any sufficient purpose she assumed that of a Cat.
The accounts which tradition brought down to the Marquis's time, and has even to our own, would naturally have spread from mouth to mouth all through Europe, at the time when facts so surprising occurred; and Whittington was one of those men who are disposed to believe every thing they do not rightly comprehend, the consequence of which disposition was his almost boundless credulity, and after inflaming his mind with the descriptions of the Enchantress, and the implied restraint under which she laboured, he resolved (from what motive nobody has completely succeeded in discovering) to induce her to visit England.
It is concluded, that a desire for notoriety had no weight with him in this resolution, for never did any man of his time shrink from the applause of the vulgar with such delicate sensibility as Whittington. Hearing his own name spoken aloud in the streets, caused him the greatest uneasiness, and he was moved to anger if any wandering minstrels who were singing his praises, chanced to pass near his residence.
This is stated by Ibbotson (before quoted), and is highly satisfactory, inasmuch as the general impression upon the minds of all those versed in the history, was that most of the little songs of which he was the hero were written either in his house or at least at his suggestion. The friend who favoured me with the copy of the ballad quoted above has furnished me with two stanzas of another, which he found in the same volume, and which proves that Ibbotson's account of Matthew's modesty is perfectly just, for his indifference about, not to say dislike to, popularity (as it is called) was so strong, that such of his partisans as chose to celebrate him in poetry were, in compliance with his scrupulous wishes, compelled to designate him by the initials of his name.
Serche Englonde round, naye all the Erthe,
Itte myghtelie would trouble you
To find a manne so ryche in worthe,
As honest Matthewe W.