Hodge (cat)

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Hodge was one of Samuel Johnson's cats, immortalized in a characteristically whimsical passage in James Boswell's Life of Johnson:

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 am, unluckily, one of those who have an antipathy to a cat, so that I am uneasy when in the room with one; and I own, I frequently suffered a good deal from the presence of this same Hodge. 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 Mr. Langton, 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 favorite cat, and said, 'But Hodge shan't be shot; no, no, Hodge shall not be shot.'¹

The latter paragraph is used as the epigraph to Vladimir Nabokov's acclaimed poem/novel Pale Fire.

The popularity of this anecdote may stem, in part, from a long and fruitful association between poets and cats that can be traced across a variety of cultures. Christopher Smart wrote a paean to his cat entitled "My Cat Jeoffry" (excerpted from Jubilate Agno) in which he opined, amongst other things, that "he is a mixture of gravity and waggery". [1] Mallarmé's cat Lilith was the daughter of Banville's cat, and the granddaughter of Gautier's². T. S. Eliot wrote a volume of feline children's verse, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, which was later adapted into the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Cats. Baudelaire, Hardy and Poe all wrote "with cats, for cats, and (quite possibly) in spite of cats". [2]

The story also captures the irony of Boswell's character in his "novel" (Life of Johnson has long been both criticized and praised for its inaccuracy and invention): even in the face of frivolity and domestic tomfoolery, Boswell struggles to impress his subject, whose sense of humour apparently exceeds that of his self-unaware biographer, with his gravitas. This theme is developed further in Pale Fire.

Note also that Johnson bought oysters for his cat. In modern England, oysters are an expensive food for the well-to-do, but in the 18th century oysters were plentiful around the coasts of England and so cheap that they were a staple food of the poor.

The anthropomorphism of Hodge ("and then as if perceiving Hodge to be out of countenance") remains a popular comic topos to this day, much beloved of such contemporary purveyors of waggery as Gary Larson and Eddie Izzard.

On his death, Hodge's life was celebrated by an elegy by Percival Stockdale. Today he is remembered by a bronze statue, unveiled by the Lord Mayor of London in 1997, outside the house he and Johnson once shared.