Herrick, as might be imagined, was the first of English poets to feel the charm of her presence by his hearth. In that pleasant Devonshire vicarage where each season brought its appropriate joys; which, in fancy, we see decked with the hawthorn boughs of May, and with the holly and mistletoe of Christmas tide; where the Bride-cake and the wassail-bowl,
"Spiced to the brink,"
passed cheerfully around in the glittering firelight; where the "little buttery" and "little bin" were well stocked with more than pulse and water-cress;—surely this sweet old manse, sunshiny, rose-covered, cowslip-scented, was the fitting Paradise for a cat. One envies the happy puss who spent her days amid such pastoral plenty.
"A cat
I keep, that plays about my house,
Grown fat
With eating many a miching mouse,"
writes Herrick when counting up his "private wealth;" and when he urges the pleasures of a country life—which none knew better than he—upon his town-bred brother, this is one of the allurements he has to offer:
"Yet can thy humble roof maintaine a quire
Of singing crickets by thy fire;
And the brisk mouse may feast herselfe with crumbs,
Till that the green-eyed kitling comes."
