suades the disputants to approach within reach of his murderous claws. Where Æsop treats Pussy with some kindness, as in the fable of "The Cat and the Fox," La Fontaine is at pains to insist that this pair of pilgrims are pious frauds, arch-dissemblers, who compensate themselves with many a strangled chicken and stolen cheese for the hardships of their pilgrimage. He sums up feline characteristics in the surpassing cynicism of the old rat's scornful speech; "No benefit can win gratitude from a cat."
And this defamer, we are bidden to believe, sings Homerically of the race which he defames? What if his good humour be ever unimpaired, and if his comfortable laugh reminds us now and then that he, for his part, does not seriously object to such amazing scampishness? We who are forced to object,—as living in a sternly moral age,—wish that a little mercy, or even a little justice, had tempered these gay calumnies which will outlive truth itself. For so great is La Fontaine's charm, so felicitous is every finely chosen phrase, that the beauty of his verse wins permanence for his most scandalous characterizations. He admits the seductive qualities of the cat. Like the amorous young Greek of the fable, he finds her
"mignonne, et belle, et délicate,"
inspiring foolish and excessive affection, to which
