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whittington's advancement. 167 |
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same reign, 1398. He was again Mayor in the 9th year of Henry the Fourth, 1407, and the 8th of Henry the Fifth, 1420.
Keightley has devoted a chapter of his Tales and Popular Fictions (the seventh) to the legend of Whittington and his Cat. He cites two similar stories from Thiele's Danish Popular Traditions, another from the letters of Count Magalotti, a Florentine of the latter half of the 17th century, another from the Facezie of Arlotto, a Tuscan humorist of the 15th century, another, of Venetian origin, from a German chronicle of the 13th century, and finally one from the Persian Tarihh al Wasaf, a work said to have been composed at the end of the 13th or the beginning of the 14th century. Mr. Halliwell adds one more of a Portuguese wrecked on the coast of Guinea, from the Description of Guinea, 1665.
Here must I tell the praise
Of worthy Whitttington, Known to be in his dayes
Thrice Maior of London. But of poor parentage, «
Borne was he, as we heare, And in his tender age
Bred up in Lancashire.
Poorely to London than
Came up this simple lad, 10
Where, with a marehant-man,
Soone he a dwelling had; And in a kitchen plast,
A scullion for to be, |
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