n of Leyden is more strictly a portion of
American than of English history, and its suitable exhibition demands
the best abilities that can be summoned to such service in this country,
where, hitherto, the popular declamation of Puritan celebrations, it
must be confessed, has evinced but a superficial acquaintance with
Puritan intelligence, doctrine, or character.]

FOOTNOTES:

[18] The works of John Robinson, Pastor of the Pilgrim Fathers; with a
Memoir and Annotations. By Robert Ashton, Secretary of the
Congregational Board, London. Three volumes. London; 1851.

From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal.

A CHAPTER ON CATS.

The newspapers have recently been chronicling, as a fact provocative of
especial wonder, the enterprise of some speculative merchant of
New-York, who has just been dispatching a cargo of one hundred cats to
the republic of New Granada, in which it would appear the race, owing,
as we may believe, to the frequently disturbed state of the country, has
become almost extinct.

Your cat is a domestic animal, and naturally conservative in its
tastes--averse, therefore, to uproar, and to all those given to change.
Its propensities are to meditation and contemplative tranquillity, for
which reason it has been held in reverence by nations of a similar staid
and composed disposition, and has been the favorite companion and
constant friend of grave philosophers and thoughtful students. By the
ancient Egyptians cats were held in the highest esteem; and we learn
from Diodorus Siculus, their "lives and safeties" were tendered more
dearly than those of any other animal, whether biped or quadruped. "He
who has voluntarily killed a consecrated animal," says this writer, "is
punished with death; but if any one has even involuntarily killed a cat
or an ibis, it is impossible for him to escape death: the mob drags him
to it, treating him with every cruelty, and sometimes without waiting
for judgment to be passed. This treatment inspires such terror, that, if
any person happen to find one of these animals dead, he goes to a
distance from it, and by his cries and groans indicates that he has
found the animal dead. This superstition is so deeply rooted in the
minds of the Egyptians, and the respect they bear these animals is so
profound, that at the time when their king, Ptolemy, was not yet
declared the friend of the Roman people--when they were paying all
possible court to travellers from Italy, and their fears