MONODY ON THE DEATH OF DICK, AN ACADEMICAL CAT. -MI-CAT inter omnes.-Hor. Carm. lib. i. ode 12. Ye Rats, in triumph elevate your ears! Mortals, and mortal Cats, in Charon's boat: Fate, who Cats, Dogs, and Doctors makes his prize That grace Great Britain's Universities. Where were ye, nymphs,-when to the silent coast Of gloomy Acheron DICK travell❜d post? Where were ye, Muses, in that deathful hour?— Where Science sends her sons in stockings blue Where learning sleeps on Bodley's groaning shelves; While venal Cats (leagued with degenerate curs, Of faded prudes the four-legg'd pensioners) On the soft sofa rang'd in order due, For eleemosynary muffin mew, Regardless of the meed that Fame bestows, Their tail a feather for each wind that blows; Thee, generous DICK, the Cat-controlling powers Ordain'd to mouse in academic bower's: Bade thee the sacred stream of sapience sip, And in Piërean cream thy whiskers dip! Enshrin'd celestial cateries among, The sable matron, from whose loins he sprung, Who traced her high descent through ages dark "Let Cats and Catlings of ignoble line "Slumber in bee-hive chairs, in dairies dine; "Shun thou the shades of Cat-enfeebling ease! "Watch o'er the weal of Rhedycinian cheese; "The melting marble of collegiate brawn "For heads of houses guard, and lords in lawn; "And keep each recreant rat and mouse in awe "That dares to shew his nose in Golgotha.* Golgotha," the place of a scull," a name ludicrously appropriated to the place in which the Heads of Colleges assemble. "So may the brightest honours of the gown "Say, shall not cats, fraught with ethereal fire,* "Caligula a consul made his steed; "What though the beast could neither write nor read, "Yet could he talents negative display, "And silence Opposition with his neigh. "If Charles of Sweden swore he would depute, "The senate to control, his old jack boot; "If modern taste a LEARNED PIG reveres, "And pigs unlearn'd keep company with peers;† "If erst Rome's papal crown a gossip wore, "Then, DICK, thou may'st become Vice-chancellor. "Might I but live, though crazy, old, and sick, "Hear thee, e'er I explore my latest home, * Electrical sparks may be elicited by friction from a cat's back. + The social porker here alluded to, is well known to have been the assiduous companion of Lord M-t Edg's excursions. See thee in scarlet robe encase thy fur, "And at Saint Mary's venerably purr!— "Then let me be translated to the skies, "And close in welcome death these gooseb'ry eyes! "Yet think not, darling DICK, that fame allows "Her glorious palm, unearn'd, to grace thy brows: "By toil Herculean, and profound research, "Expect to thrive in politics or church! "The herd who worship at preferment's shrine "Mark the career of Rhedycina's bard ;"Not such his toil, not such his vast reward. |