The several particulars of his life upon which the old Chronicles are at variance, and which in my large work I think I may--_absit invidia_--say, I have reconciled and explained, are these:-- 1. His political principles. 2. His trade, and what it really was. 3. The quality of his intellect. 4. The quantity[31] of his intellect. 5. Whether the bells did preternaturally ring his recall to London; or, whether it were merely the force of his own vanity which gave this favourable meaning to an idle sound. 6. Whether he really was maltreated, as tradition reports, by a kitchen-maid. 7. What sort of company he kept. 8. What the Cat was by which he rendered himself chiefly notorious, and whether his famous expedition to catch the Cat was undertaken prior, or subsequently, to his second Mayoralty. 9. And lastly, whether he died a natural or disgraceful death. All these are points at issue, and will probably so continue till the publication of my great work, except one, namely, the 8th, which relates to his memorable Cat, upon which it is my intention to offer in this _opusculum_ some lights and solutions. History cannot perhaps be impartially written during the lives of those to whom it relates, and the nine-fold term of existence assigned to the feline species has probably been the cause of much of the misrepresentation which we are, alas! doomed to deplore; but sufficient time has now elapsed since Whittington, and even since his Cat, left the world, to have destroyed every particle of prejudice, and it is a great satisfaction to me to be able to speak plainly upon the subject, without the fear of an imputation of any feeling, other than a strict love of truth and justice, tempered and directed by that candid resolution which I have avowed, of not saying a harsh thing even of a dead Cat. As some of the hypotheses upon the very intricate subject of the Cat, suppose her to have been a human female, it seems proper, _in limine_, to satisfy the fair sex, by setting at rest the disputes which have hitherto existed as to Matthew's personal appearance. We always feel more interested in a hero after he has been described to us, even if (as it is in this case) his _tout-ensemble_ should happen not to be particularly engaging; indeed, who can be so extravagant and preposterous as to look for personal beauty in an alderman? It is therefore not derogating from his great character to confess that Matthew Whittington, to judge of him by a woodcut (the only genuine likeness extant), had one of those hard and vulgar faces which resemble the heads of certain clumsily-carved walking-sticks, or tobacco-stoppers, in which a fixed smile relaxes (by the mere comicality of its brisk and vulgar self-satisfaction) the muscles of the beholders. Mr. W. seemed to smile eternally at himself, and the smile was so contagious, that few could look at him without laughing.