For me, however, till now, has been reserved the important, the enviable task of unravelling all the mysteries in which this subject has been hitherto involved. To me it is granted to reconcile all contending opinions, and to simplify all the difficulties which have baffled my predecessors in the attainment of truth. I am enabled, as I firmly believe, beyond the power of contradiction, to declare to the world _who_ the Cat was, and _what_ she was. I am competent to display in its true colours the character of Mr. Matthew Whittington, to illustrate and make clear his views, his motives, and the other eight points which I have before noticed to be in dispute, even to the cause and nature of his death, an event hitherto equally obscure with his birth. Gifted as I am with this power to illuminate the literary world, is it not natural that I should feel anxious to make use of it for their advantage? One consideration alone checks me in my desire to afford the purchasers of this Tentamen all the information I possess; that consideration I trust I shall not be censured for attending to. I confess it is a prudential one, inasmuch as were I in this small specimen to give my readers all the details, narratives, and general information I possess, I am apprehensive that the work itself would not meet with that encouragement which is at present promised, and which alone can repay me for the labour of years, and that ceaseless anxiety which an undertaking so diffusely elaborate naturally has entailed upon its author. [Illustration: (end of section icon)] MISCELLANIES, IN VERSE AND PROSE. MISCELLANIES. MR. WARD'S ALLEGORICAL PICTURE OF WATERLOO.[47] We have the highest respect for the arts and for artists; we are perfectly aware of the numerous qualifications requisite for a painter--we know and feel the difficulty, and duly consider the quantity of talent necessary to the painting even of a bad picture. The years of probationary labour expended before even the palette comes into use, the days and nights of watching, and toil after it is assumed, and the variety of chemical, mechanical, and scientific knowledge which must be brought to bear upon a subject before the idea of the painter can be transferred to the canvas. These feelings, and this respect for the art, and professors of painting, make us slow to censure; and, although we have long had our eyes upon some of the public exhibitions of the season, we have refrained from commenting upon them till the common curiosity of the town had repaid, in some measure, the care and anxiety of those in whose studies they had their origin.