hounds. If we want to see cats,—splendid, pampered, luxurious, quarrelsome cats,—we must look for them in the great glowing canvases of Veronese; in those sumptuous scenes where noble Venetians feast opulently, and which are christened—out of courteous deference to the demands of the Church—the "Marriage at Cana," the "Last Supper," or "Christ in the house of Simon the Pharisee." It is true that the Church, ungrateful for an attention so manifestly insincere, protested from time to time against the purely mundane character of these pictures; but Venice loved her painter too well to suffer him to be unduly harassed. He might receive grave warnings, gently spoken. He might be officially bidden to blot out the offending jesters, dwarfs, and monkeys. But the Republic, albeit deeply and passionately religious from her birth,—when she turned brigand, it was to steal the relics of a saint,—refused to be scandalized by Veronese's art. Nothing was blotted out, not even the cats; and so we see them to-day curled around the water jars on the floor, and padding away vigorously with their soft hind paws; or tranquilly devouring some chance bone under shadow of the table; or spitting at the handsome, spiritless dogs; or blinking and purring in the arms of negro attendants. They are carelessly painted, all of them. It evidently never occurred to the master to make an
