tington 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