in the face of such interesting and cumulative evidence!
It is a matter for endless regret that Shakespeare, in whose plays we find so many allusions to the cat, never once mentions it with admiration or esteem. That tepid phrase of Shylock's,
"a harmless necessary cat,"
which might have been written by Joanna Baillie, is about the kindest word vouchsafed to a creature whose beauty alone should have won warmer praise. And this chillness of comment is the more trying to our souls because it is impossible to read any of these allusions without knowing that Shakespeare had looked closely at a number of cats, had noticed their habits and characteristics, and had felt the subtlety of their association with the supernatural.
"Thrice the brinded cat hath mewed,"
says the Witch in "Macbeth," and this simplest and commonest of statements is fraught with dire significance of evil. Falstaff knows whereof he speaks when he declares he is "as vigilant as a cat to steal cream;" and so does Antonio, in "The Tempest," when he uses the admirable similitude:—
"For all the rest,
They'll take suggestion as a cat laps milk."
How full of stealthy horror these two lines in "Pericles":—
