Page:The fireside sphinx.djvu/182

 156 That sound scholar and true lover of animals, Archbishop Whately, he who "ignored metaphysics and minimized theology," was wont to say that only one English noun had a true vocative case. "Nominative, cat. Vocative, Puss." And it is a happy circumstance which gives us this soft and pretty appellation, this endearing diminutive, so well suited to the little animal it summons. The French are less fortunate, and all their loving efforts to provide the cat with a permanent vocative serve only to show the greater fitness and sweetness of the English word; in frank recognition of which superiority, M. Taine drops Moumoutte and Mimi, and fits "Puss" prettily into his loving tribute of verse.

We could ill spare this ancient patronymic, since a somewhat ponderous Saxon humour is wont to wax sportive over the naming of cats. Instead of studying simplicity, as in Hodge and Hinse, or grace, as in Selima and Fatima,—on such points Walpole could not go astray,—we find too often either sheer stupidity, like Canon Liddon's Tweedledum and Tweedledee, or the fantastic foolishness