Georgian Cats

 

As some of my readers may have guessed from the cover of A Peculiar Enchantment, I am extremely fond of cats. When I began writing Adelaide’s story, making a cat her only friend and confidante was irresistible, and my favorite cat, Meret, served as the inspiration for Tabby. Meret, like Adelaide’s Tabby, sucks on my chin.

 Most historical fiction set in the Georgian period concentrates on dogs and horses as the characters’ animal companions, giving the impression that cats were held in low esteem. But they were not without their human friends. 

Many paintings of domestic scenes include felines: cats with their prey, kittens being dressed by little girls, children playing with cats. Edward Bird depicted a woman taking tea with her cat, who is on the table and appears to have a saucer of milk. 

A 1747 - 1748 painting by J-B Perronneau shows a lady (possibly Marie Antoinette) holding a large blue (i.e. gray, like a Russian Blue cat) in her arms. 

Sometimes the portrait is of the cat, like Jean-Jacques Bachelier's 1761 painting of an Angora cat. 

 

James Boswell, in his Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) described Dr. Johnson’s fondness for one of his cats:

I never shall forget the indulgence with which he treated Hodge, his cat: for whom he himself used to go out and buy oysters, lest the servants having that trouble should take a dislike to the poor creature…I recollect him one day scrambling up Dr. Johnson's breast, apparently with much satisfaction, while my friend smiling and half-whistling, rubbed down his back, and pulled him by the tail; and when I  observed he was a fine cat, saying, “Why yes, Sir, but I have had cats whom I liked better than this;” and then as if perceiving Hodge to be out of countenance, adding, “but he is a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed.” This reminds me of the ludicrous account which he gave…of the despicable state of a young Gentleman of good family. "Sir, when I heard of him last, he was running about town shooting cats." And then in a sort of kindly reverie, he bethought himself of his own favourite cat, and said, “But Hodge shan't be shot; no, no, Hodge shall not be shot.”

 The good doctor’s remarks to Hodge sound eerily like any modern cat devotee’s conversation when no other human is present. 

 Meret, please don’t suck on my chin while I’m typing.