No Dolphin came, no Nereid stirred,
Nor cruel Tom, nor Susan heard;
A Favourite has no friend!
"From hence, ye Beauties, undeceived,
Know one false step is ne'er retrieved,
And be with caution bold.
Not all that tempts your wandering eyes
And heedless hearts is lawful prize;
Nor all that glisters, gold."
Mr. Edmund Gosse, in his notes on this poem, objects to Gray's use of the word "tabby," "as if it were synonymous with female cat." "Selima," he says, "cannot have been a tabby, if, as we presently read, she was a tortoise-shell. Tabby cats are those whose fur is of a cold brindled grey, like the surface of the rich watered silk from Bagdad, called attäbi, and, in English, tabby." Mr. Harrison Weir, however, who is an excellent authority upon cats, points out conclusively that the word tabby, though derived from ribbed or watered silk, refers to the markings only, and does not designate any especial colour. He quotes, to prove his words, two lines of English verse, dating from 1682,
"Her petticoat of satin,
Her gown of crimson tabby."
A brindled or brinded cat,
"Thrice the brinded cat hath mewed,"
is the same as a tabby, and in Norfolk and Suffolk
