The History of Sir Richard Whittington | Page 5

and who they say
Grew rich, and let his land out
for nine lives,
'Cause all came in by a cat."--
Shirley's Constant Maid (1640), act ii. sc. 2.
"I have heard of Whittington and his cat, and others, that have made
fortunes by strange means."--Parson's Wedding (1664).
Pepys went on September 21, 1668, to Southwark Fair, "and there saw
the puppet show of Whittington, which was pretty to see." He adds in
his Diary "how that idle thing do work upon people that see it, and

even myself too."
In the Tatler of September 13, 1709 (No. 67), is a list of great men to
be entered in the Temple of Fame, and in the subsequent No. 78 is
printed the following letter from a Citizen:--
"Mr. Isaac Bickerstaff, Sir, Your Tatler of September 13 I am now
reading, and in your list of famous men desire you not to forget
Alderman Whittington, who began the world with a cat, and died worth
three hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling, which he left to an
only daughter three years after his mayoralty. If you want any further
particulars of ditto Alderman, daughter, or cat, let me know, and per
first will advise the needful, which concludes, Your loving Friend,
LEMUEL LEGER."
"I am credibly informed that there was once a design of casting into an
opera the story of Whittington and his Cat, and that in order to it there
had been got together a great quantity of mice; but Mr. Rich, the
proprietor of the playhouse, very prudently considered that it would be
impossible for the cat to kill them all, and that consequently the princes
of the stage might be as much infested with mice as the prince of the
island was before the cat's arrival upon it; for which reason he would
not permit it to be acted in his house."--Spectator (No. 5, March 6,
1711).
The Rev. Samuel Pegge brought the subject of Whittington and his Cat
before a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries in 1771, but he could
make nothing at all of the cat. There is no record of the inquiry in the
Archaeologia, but it is mentioned in a letter from Gough to Tyson, 27
Dec. 1771 (Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, vol. viii. p. 575). Horace
Walpole was annoyed at the Society for criticising his "Richard III."
and in his Short Notes on his Life he wrote--"Foote having brought
them on the stage for sitting in council, as they had done on
Whittington and his Cat, I was not sorry to find them so ridiculous, or
to mark their being so, and upon that nonsense, and the laughter that
accompanied it, I struck my name out of their book."
Foote brought out his comedy of The Nabob at the Haymarket Theatre

in 1772. Sir Matthew Mite, the hero of the piece, is elected a member
of the Society of Antiquaries, and delivers an address on Whittington
and his Cat in which he gave the following solution of the
difficulty:--"The commerce this worthy merchant carried on was
chiefly confined to our coasts. For this purpose he constructed a vessel
which for its agility and lightness he aptly christened a cat. Nay, to this
our day, gentlemen, all our coals from Newcastle are imported in
nothing but cats. From thence it appears that it was not the whiskered
four-footed, mouse-killing cat that was the source of the magistrate's
wealth, but the coasting, sailing, coal-carrying cat; that, gentlemen, was
Whittington's cat."
We may now pass from the fictitious to the real Richard Whittington,
and although this is not the place for a life of the distinguished citizen,
which may be found elsewhere, it will be convenient to set down in
order the chief incidents of his career.
Richard Whittington was the third son of Sir William Whittington,
knight, of Pauntley, Gloucestershire, and it is assumed, by some writers,
that he was born in or about the year 1360. We must, however, place
his birth at an earlier date, for his name appears in the city Letter Book_,
H, fol. 110_a, (as Richard Whyttingdone), in the second year of
Richard II. (A.D. 1379), as a contributor of five marks towards a loan
to the city authorities; about four-fifths of the subscribers contributing
the same, which is the lowest figure among the contributions.[2] This is
the first appearance of Whittington's name in the city books. William,
the eldest son, succeeded to the family property of Pauntley, but, dying
without issue, the estate went to Robert, the second son, who became
high sheriff of the county in 1402, and again in 1407. Pauntley
remained in the family as late as 1546.
Nothing is known of Richard's early life, either as to when or how he
came to London. He appears to have