jeremy bentham chats on cats....and a pig

thanks british library flickr (PD)

Remember me noting yesterday how Jeremy Bentham seems to have been a great source of copy?  Here's what purports to be an account of the gentleman talking as he pleases, and what pleases him is recalling cats - and one particular swine:

'I had a cat,' he said, ' at Hendon, which used to follow me about even in the street. George Wilson was very fond of animals too. I remember a cat following him as far as Staines. There was a beautiful pig at Hendon, which I used to rub with my stick. He loved to come and lie down to be rubbed, and took to following me like a dog. . . From my youth I was fond of cats, as I am still. I was once playing with one in my grandmother's room. I had heard the story of cats having nine lives, and being sure of falling on their legs ; and I threw the cat out of the window on the grass-plot. When it fell it turned towards me, looked in my face and mewed. "Poor thing!" I said, "thou art reproaching me with my unkindness." I have a distinct recollection of all these things. Cowper's story of his hares had the highest interest for me when young; for I always enjoyed the society of tame animals. Wilson had the same taste so had Romilly, who kept a noble puss, before he came into great business. I never failed to pay it my respects. I remember accusing Romilly of violating the commandment in the matter of cats. My fondness for animals exposed me to many jokes.'

It must have been quite a project to keep up with his conversation.  George Wilson was a close frend of Bentham's; Samuel Romilly was a fellow legal reformer.  Again from White, Adam, 1817-1879. Heads And Tales, Or, Anecdotes And Stories of Quadrupeds And Other Beasts Chiefly Connected With Incidents In the Histories of More Or Less Distinguished Men. London: J. Nisbet, 1870. pp. 151-52.