The reason, however, is to be found in
the French language, and Beechey Head is the present guide of the old
_beau chef_, whereby this point was once known. The _Spectator_ also, if
I remember right, declared the old sign of the _Cat and the Fiddle_ to be
quite beyond his comprehension. In truth, no two objects in the world
have less to do with each other than a cat and a violin, and the only
explanation ever given of this wonderful union, appears to be, that once
upon a time, a gentleman kept a house with the sign of a Cat, and a lady
one, with the sign of a Fiddle, or _vice versa_. That these two persons
fell in love, married, and set up an Inn, which to commemorate their
early loves, they called the Cat and the Fiddle. Such reasoning is
exceedingly poetical, and also (mind, _also_, not _therefore_)
exceedingly nonsensical. No, Sir, the Cat and the Fiddle is of greater
antiquity. Did you ever read the History of Rome? Of Rome! yes, of Rome.
Thence comes the Cat and the Fiddle, in somewhat a roundabout way
perhaps, but so it is:
Vixtrix causa Diis placuit, sed victa Catoni.
Cato was faithful to the sacred cause of liberty, and disdained to
survive it; and now for the fiddle. In the days of good Queen Bess, when
those who had borne the iron yoke of Mary, ventured forth and gloried in
that freedom of conscience which had lately been denied them, a jolly
innkeeper having lately cast off the shackles of the old religion,
likened himself to the old Roman, and wrote over his door _l'Hostelle du
Caton fidelle_.
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