Page:The fireside sphinx.djvu/178

 152 been too successful in a duel? 'Ah! mon grand ami, vous avez tué mon autre grand ami.'"

To have been, even "in some sort," Sir Walter's friend for fifteen happy years was as enviable a lot as to have shared Dr. Johnson's London lodgings. "Canonized pets of literature!" Why, here are two who may lord it in Elysium through all the centuries to come.

When Scott was absent from Abbotsford, he was not insensible to the charms of other cats who assiduously sought his society. "There are no dogs in the hotel where I live," he wrote on one occasion from London; "but a tolerably conversable cat, who eats a mess of cream with me in the morning." While at Naples, he visited the Archbishop of Taranto,—"a most interesting old man, whose foible is a passion for cats,"—and was delighted with the ecclesiastical pets. "One of them," he noted in his journal, "is a superb brindled Persian, a great beauty, and a particular favourite. I remember seeing at Lord Yarmouth's house a Persian cat, but not so fine as the Bishop's." These pussies were famous in their day, and Scott was not the only traveller to sing their praises. Sir Henry Holland scarcely knew which he admired the more,—the prelate or his cat. Each was the exact picture of what each should be; and, as they sat side by side, the cat seemed