(To the Editor of the Mirror.)
As several of your correspondents have lately interested themselves in the sign of "The Cat and Fiddle;" a few observations may not be thought irrelevant, on the probable origin of the "King's Stag," a description of which, under the signature, Ruris, appeared in the MIRROR, of Saturday, the 30th ult. Its rise may, I conceive, with tolerable certainty, be traced to the stag said to have been taken in the Forest of Senlis, by Charles the Sixth, about whose neck was a collar, with the inscription, "Caesar hoc mihi donavit", which induced a belief that the animal had lived from the reign of some one of the twelve Caesars. This inscription also exists in the following form:—
"Tempore, quo Caesar Româ, dominatus in altâ
Aureolo jussit collum signare moniti;
Ne depascentem quisquis me gramina laedat,
Caesaris heu causâ, periturae parcere vitae."
which has been thus literally translated in nearly the same words quoted by Ruris—
"When Julius Caesar reigned king,
About my neck he put this ring,
That whosoever did me take,