Cat Epitaphs

In the mid 17th century, epitaphs for pet cats, usually in the form of poems, begin to appear in various newspapers and magazines.

This one was published anonymously in the London Magazine of 1733, obviously by a poet:

Oppressed with grief, in heavy strains I mourn

The partner of my studies from me torn.

How shall I sing? What numbers shall I choose?

For in my favourite cat I’ve lost my muse . . .

. . . She in the study was my constinate;

There we together many evenings sate.

Whene’er I felt my towering fancy fail,

I stroked her head, her ears, her back and tail;

And, as I stroked, improved my dying song

From the sweet notes of her melodious tongue.

Her purrs and mews so evenly kept time,

She purred in metre and she mewed in rhyme . . .

Here's another from the Gentleman’s Magazine 1769:

Here lies beneath this verdant hill

Tom, a favourite cat,

Who when alive, did never spill

The blood of mouse or rat.

Read more: Pen and Pension