AIR....SPIRITUOSI. Cats I scorn, who, sleek and fat, Shiver at a Norway rat; Rough and hardy, bold and free, Be the cat that's made for me! If the treacherous swain should prove My scorn the vengeful paw shall dart, Shall tear his fur, and pierce his heart. CHORUS. Qu-ow wow, quall, wawl, moon. Deign, most adorable charmer, to pur your assent to this my request, and beleive me to be with the profoundest respect, your true admirer. SNOW.* * The cat, to whom the above letter was addressed, had been broken of her propensity to kill birds, and lived several years without molesting a dove, a tame lark, and a redbreast, all which used to fly about the room where the cat was daily admitted. The dove frequently sat on pussey's back, and the little birds would peck fearlesely from the plate in which she was eating. Answer Palace, Lichfield, Sept. 8, 1780. I am but too sensible of the charms of Mr. Snow; but while I admire the spotless whiteness of his ermine, and the tyger-strength of his commanding form, I sigh in secret, that he, who sucked the milk of benevolence and philosophy, should yet retain the extreme of that fierceness, too justly imputed to the Grimalkin race. Our hereditary violence is perhaps commendable when we exert it against the foes of our protectors, but deserves much blame when it annoys their friends. The happiness of a refined education was mine; yet dear Mr. Snow my advantages in that respect were not equal to what yours might have been but, while you give unbounded indulgence to you carnivorous desires, I have so far subdued mine, that the lark pours his mattin song, the canary-bird warbles wild and loud, and the robin pipes his farewell song to the setting sun, unmolested in my presence'; nay, the plump and temping dove has reposed securely upon my soft back, and bent her glossy neck in graceful curves as she walked around. me. But let me hasten to tell thee how my sensibilities in thy favour were, last month, unfortunately repressed. Once, in the noon of one of its most beau tiful nights, I was invited abroad by the serenity of the amorous hour, secretly stimulated by the hope of meeting my admired Persian. With silent steps I paced around the dimly-gleaming leads of the palace. I had acquired a taste for scenic beauty and poetic imagery by listening to ingenious observations upon their nature from the lips of thy own lord, as I lay purring at the feet of my mistress. I admired the lovely scene, and breathed my sighs for thee to the listening moon. She threw the long shadows of the majestic cathedral upon the silvered lawn. I beheld the pearly meadows of Stow Valley, and the lake in its bosom, which, reflecting the lunar rays, seemed a sheet of diamonds. The trees of the Dean's Walk, which the hand of Dulness had been restrained from torturing into trim and detestable regularity, met each other in a thousand various and beautiful forms. Their liberated boughs danced on the midnight gale, and the edges of their leaves were whitened by the moon beams. I desended to the lawn, that I might throw the beauties of the valley into perspective through the graceful arches, formed by their meeting branches. Suddenly my ear was startled, not by the voice of my lover, but by the loud and dissonant noise of the war-song, which six black grimalkins were raising in honor of the numerous victories obtained by the Persian, Snow; compared with which, they acknowledged those of English cats had little brilliance, eclipsed, like the unim portant victories of the Howes, by the puissant Clinton and Arbuthnot, and the still more puissant Cornwallis. It sung that though didst owe thy matchless might to thy lineal descent from the invincible Alexander, as he derived his more than mortal valour from his mother Olympia's illicit commerce with Jupiter. They sung that, amid the renowned siege of Persepolis, while Roxana and Statira were contending for the honor of his attentions, the conqueror of the world deigned to bestow them upon a large white female cat, thy grandmother, warlike Mr. Snow, in the ten thousandth and ninety-ninth ascent. Thus far their triumphant din was music to my ear; and even when it sung that lakes of milk ran curdling into whey, within the ebon concave of their pancheons, with terror at thine approach; that mice squealed from all the neighbouring garrets; and that whole armies of Norway rats, crying out amain, "the devil take the hindmost," ran violently into the minster-pool, at the first gleam of thy white mail through the shrubs of Mr. Howard's garden. But O! when they sung, or rather yelled, of larks warbling on sunbeams, fascinated suddenly by the glare of thine eyes, and falling into thy remorseless talons; of robins, warbling soft and solitary upon the leafless branch, till the pale cheek of winter dimpled into joy; of hundreds of those bright breasted songsters, torn from their barren sprays by thy pitiless fangs!.... Alas! my heart died within me at the idea of so preposterous a union! Marry you, Mr. Snow, I am afraid I cannot; since, though the laws of our community might not oppose our connection, yet those of principle, of delicacy, of duty to my mistress, do very powerfully oppose it. As to presiding at your concert, if you extremely wish it, I may perhaps grant your request; but then you must allow me to sing a song of my own composition, applicable to our present situation, and set to music by my sister Sophy at Mr. Brown's the organist's, thus, AIR ....AFFETTUOSO. He, whom Pussy Po detains A captive in her silken chains, |