246 A BATTLE OF CATS. intil my lug, as I was makin him cosy wi' the cloaks, no to let him sleep ayont eleven. [The SHEPHERD "blows mimic hootings to the silent owl," who, opening his large eyes, cries "toowhit toowhoo!" and sits up on his perch. Tickler. Let us have oysters. Shepherd. Eisters! The eisters 'ill no be ready, sir, for an hour yet. For my ain pairt, I'm no hungry the nicht-and dinna think I'll eat ony eisters. Mr North, will you ? North. No. Shepherd. Dinna fash wi' eisters the nicht, Mr Tickler-for this has been a stormy day, and they're no caller. Was ye dreamin, sir? For you seemed unco restless. Tickler. I was, James. Shepherd. What o'? Tickler. A Battle of Cats. "How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon the slates!" Miss Tabitha having made an assignation with Tom Tortoiseshell, the feline phenomenon, they two sit curmurring, forgetful of mice and milk, of all but love! How meekly mews the Demure, relapsing into that sweet under-song-the Purr ! And how curls Tom's whiskers like those of a Pashaw! The point of his tail—and the point only is alive-insidiously turning itself, with serpent-like seduction, towards that of Tabitha, pensive as a Nun. His eyes are rubies, hers emeralds -as they should be-his lightning, hers lustre for in her sight he is the lord, and in his, she is the lady of Creation. North. "O happy love!—where love like this is found! 'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair, Shepherd. The last line wunna'1 answer "Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale!" But Tickler. Woman or cat-she who hesitates is lost. Diana, shining in heaven, the goddess of the Silver Bow, sees 1 Wunna-will not. A BATTLE OF CATS. 247 the peril of poor Pussy-and interposes her celestial aid to save the vestal. An enormous grimalkin, almost a wild cat, comes rattling along the roof, down from the chimney-top, and Tom Tortoiseshell, leaping from love to war, tackles to the Red Rover in single combat. Sniff-snuff-splutter-squeak -squall-caterwaul, and throttle! North. Where are the following lines? "From the soft music of the spinning purr, When through the house Puss moves with long complaint, When feline legions storm the midnight wall, Shepherd. Wheesht, North-wheesht. Tickler. Over the eaves sweeps the hairy hurricane. Two cats in one—like a prodigious monster with eight legs and a brace of heads and tails-and through among the lines on which clothes are hanging in the back-green, and which break the fall, the dual number plays squelch on the miry herbage. Shepherd. A pictur o' a back-green in fowre words. I see it and them. Tickler. The four-story fall has given them fresh fury and more fiery life. What tails! Each as thick as my arm, and rustling with electricity like the northern streamers. The Red Rover is generally uppermost-but not always-for Tom has him by the jugular like a very bulldog-and his small, sharp, tiger-teeth, entangled in the fur, pierce deeper and deeper into the flesh-while Tommy keeps tearing away at his rival, as if he would eat his way into his windpipe. Heavier than Tom Tortoiseshell is the Red Rover by a good many pounds; but what is weight to elasticity-what is body to soul? In the long tussle, the hero ever vanquishes the ruffian-as the Cock of the North the Gander. North (bowing). Proceed. Tickler. Cats' heads are seen peering over the tops of walls, and then their lengthening bodies, running crouchingly along the copestones, with pricked-up ears and glaring eyes, all attracted towards one common centre-the back-green of the inextinguishable battle. Some dropping, and some leaping 248 A BATTLE OF CATS. down, from all altitudes, lo! a general mêlée! For Tabitha, having through a skylight forced her way down stairs, and out of the kitchen-window into the back-area, is sitting pensively on the steps, “And like another Helen fires another Troy." Detachments come wheeling into the field of battle from all imaginable and unimaginable quarters-and you now see before you all the cats in Edinburgh, Stockbridge, and the suburbs, about as many, I should suppose, as the proposed constituents of our next city member. Shepherd. The Town Council are naething to them in nummers. The back-green's absolutely composed o' cats. Tickler. Up fly a thousand windows from ground-flat to attic, and what an exhibition of nightcaps! Here elderly gentlemen, apparently in their shirts, with head night-gear from Kilmarnock, worthy of Tappytoorie's self-behind them their wives-grandmothers at the least-poking their white faces, like those of sheeted corpses, over the shoulders of the fathers of their numerous progeny-there, chariest maids, prodigal enough to unveil their beauties to the moon, yet, in their alarm, folding the frills of their chemises across their bosoms-and lo! yonder the Captain of the Six Feet Club, with his gigantic shadow frightening that pretty damsel back to her couch, and till morning haunting her troubled dreams! "Fire! Fire!" "Murder! Murder!" is the cry— and there is wrath and wonderment at the absence of the police-officers and engines. A most multitudinous murder is in process of perpetration there-but as yet fire is there none; when lo! and hark! the flash and peal of musketry-and then the music of the singing slugs slaughtering the Catti, while bouncing up into the air, with Tommy Tortoise clinging to his carcass, the Red Rover yowls wolfishly to the moon, and then descending like lead into the stone-area, gives up his nine-ghosts, never to chew cheese more, and dead as a herring. In mid-air the Phenomenon had let go his hold, and seeing it in vain to oppose the yeomanry, pursues Tabitha, the innocent cause of all this woe, into the coalcellar, and there, like Paris and Helen, "When first entranced in Cranae's Isle they lay, Lip pressed to lip, and breathed their souls away," WELSH RABBITS.-PHYSICAL PHILOSOPHY. 249 entitled but not tempted to look at a king, the peerless pair begin to pur and play in that subterranean paradise, forgetful of the pile of cat-corpses that in that catastrophe was heaped half-way up the currant-bushes on the walls, so indiscriminate had been the Strages. All undreamed of by them the beauty of the rounded moon, now hanging over the city, once more steeped in stillness and in sleep! Shepherd. Capital! Talkin' o' cats reminds ane o' miceand mice reminds ane o' toasted cheese. Suppose, Mr Tickler, we hae a Tin-Trencher? Tickler. A Welsh rabbit? Ring the bell. (Enter SIR DAVID GAM and TAPPYTOORIE with Welsh rabbits.) Shepherd. Noo, sirs, indulge me, if you please, wi' some feelosofical conversation. Tickler. Moral or physical? Shepherd. Let me consider. Fizzical. North. Nay, nay, James-remember there are three of us -and that it is share and share alike,―remember, too, that Tickler had no oys Shepherd. Wheesht! Tickler. Physical philosophy, gentlemen, is the most rigorous investigation of truth that the human mind has ever pursued. More than history-more than the legal examination of evidence-more than moral and metaphysical philosophymore than religion. In it the matter of inquiry is more under command, the spirit of inquiry more just and sincere. It would seem that the discipline of truth which the human mind has undergone in its last hundred, one hundred and fifty, two hundred years-since Lord Bacon-of physical study, is the greatest, truest, most effectually fruitful that it has ever proved. Do we not feel the effects in the study of moral science, of history, philosophy? Do we not look now upon them with the purged eyes of Baconian pupils, with habits of thought, lights of examination, canons of judgment, a criticism of truth learnt in the school of physical philosophy? Do we not require other evidence, judge with another sobriety, look for another solidity in knowledge than we did? There were bolder, greater, more capable thinkers, not a stricter rule of thought. The great intellectual feature of the last age has been its success in physical science; not merely 250 MORAL PHILOSOPHY. among the leaders, but among the multitude, so that every one could contribute, and has done. Let us say this is not the end, but a step. Now it is time that the higher thinkers take another step. They do in Germany. The next step is, that they cease to view man's physical as his greatest conquests, and recognise, as they used to do, a mightier field. North. Yes. Let them become again moralists, not physicians. Shepherd. Ay-let them become again moralists, no physicians. A savouryer Welsh rabbit I never pree'd. Tickler. The character of the physical philosophy of the last century is, that it is without hypotheses (comparatively) -a kingdom of facts. Let moral philosophy be so. But first let us recognise the field, its extent, might, fruitfulness;that it is not less than the physical-that it has been lost sight of that it must be seen after again;—and this understood, things will resume their natural proportionate place. And now a change commences, which see. Physical philosophy having exerted its own rectifying, strengthening influence on the higher order of minds, will begin to leave them, to give way to more needed science, and to decline to an under rank of minds-and shall, according to a wonted and known law of society, pass gradually down to the lowest, producing in each rank as it descends, by its temporary activity, a salutary permanent influence-till it reaches the bottom, and at last gives way even from the lowest rank. But it will not, in truth, give way from and leave any rank; but from predominant will become subordinate, and take its due proportioned place in each. North. I suppose, then, that we may bestir ourselves to advance the moral studies of the higher, and need not so much guide the intellectual of the lower. Tickler. But meanwhile, Mr North, the moral studies of the lower classes ought to be wholly involved in religion—as the moral studies of the higher may be safely enough distinct from it, without forgetting it. Shepherd. Eh? North. What is physical study? Consider the difference in the knowledge of the world since the Greek thought the sun a chariot, and the earth a flat circle or oblong, with Hyperboreans, Cyclops, Acephali, &c., a south uninhabited |