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 Rh that a flattering or grateful word is spoken. No pretty compliments here; no charming allusions to her beauty and distinction, as in those flowers of Gallic verse. Chaucer, indeed, aptly compares Pussy, snug and sleek in her soft fur, to a beneficed Canon; but Chaucer had no place in his heart for cats. Perhaps his passionate love for birds prejudiced him against their destroyer; perhaps his frankly masculine temperament debarred him from sympathy with a creature so subtle and seductive. He reproaches her bitterly because her passion for the chase exceeds all other passions in her breast; and this is a just arraignment, for the cat which is, by courtesy, called domestic, is as pure a beast of prey as its wild cousin of the woods and mountains. He also recognizes her beauty, but with a grudging slur,—the slur which masculinity has, during all ages, delighted to cast upon femininity; and in which femininity has, during all ages, failed to feel the sting.

It may be remembered that John Bossewell, honest man, assigns the same trait to the male cat, —