R. S.'"
In a letter from Leyden to his son Cuthbert, then in his seventh year, he says—"I hope Rumpelstiltzchen has recovered his health, and that Miss Cat is well; and I should like to know whether Miss Fitzrumpel has been given away, and if there is another kitten. The Dutch cats do not speak exactly the same language as the English ones. I will tell you how they talk when I come home."[134]
Archbishop Whately's Anecdote of the Cat that used to Ring the Bell.
Archbishop Whately[135] records a case of an act done by a cat, which, if done by a man, would be called reason. He says—"This cat lived many years in my mother's family, and its feats of sagacity were witnessed by her, my sisters, and myself. It was known, not merely once or twice, but habitually, to ring the parlour bell whenever it wished the door to be opened. Some alarm was excited on the first occasion that it turned bell-ringer. The family had retired to rest, and in the middle of the night the parlour-bell was rung violently; the sleepers were startled from their repose, and proceeded down-stairs, with pokers and tongs, to interrupt, as they thought, the predatory movement of some burglar; but they were agreeably surprised to discover that the bell had been rung by pussy; who frequently repeated the act whenever she wanted to get out of the parlour."
A friend (D. D., Esq., Edinburgh) tells me of a cat his family had in the country, that used regularly to "tirl at the pin" of the back door when it wished to get in to the house.
TIGER AND LION.
These most ferocious of the Carnivora have afforded interesting subjects to many a traveller. An extensive volume of truly sensational adventure might be compiled about them, adding a chapter for the jaguar and the leopard, two extremely dangerous spotted cats, that can do what neither tigers nor lions are able to do—namely, climb trees. Having once asked a friend, who was at the death of many a wild beast, which was the most savage animal he had ever seen, he replied, "A wounded leopard." It was to such an animal that Jacob referred when he saw Joseph's clothes, and said—"Some evil beast hath devoured him." Colonel Campbell's work, from which the first paragraph is derived, contains much about the pursuit of the tiger. Dr Livingstone's travels and Gordon Cumming's books on South Africa, neither of which we have quoted, have thrilling pages about the lordly presence of "the king of beasts." Mr Joseph Wolf and Mr Lewis are perhaps the best draughtsmen of the lion among recent artists. The public admire much Sir Edwin Landseer's striking bronze lions on the pedestal of the Nelson Monument. That artist excels in his pictures of the lion. On the Assyrian monuments in the British Museum are many wonderfully executed lion hunts, as perfectly preserved as if they had been chiselled in our day. Parts of these bas-reliefs were certainly designed from actual sketches made from the lions and dogs, which took the chief part in the amusements of some "Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord." Even our Scottish kings kept a lion or lions as ornaments of their court. At Stirling Castle and Palace, a room which we saw in 1865, still bears the name of the "Lion's Den." The British lion is an old emblem of both Scotland and England, and it is not twenty-five years ago since we, in common with every visitor to the Tower, were glad to see "the Royal Lion." Dr Livingstone's experience, we have not the slightest wish to prove its accuracy, shows that the lion has a soothing, or rather paralysing power over his prey, when he has knocked it down or bitten it.