Hodge (cat)
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Hodge (fl. c.1769) was one of
Samuel Johnson Samuel Johnson ( – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary critic, sermonist, biographer, editor, and lexicographer. The ''Oxford ...
's cats, immortalised in a characteristically whimsical passage in
James Boswell James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck (; 29 October 1740 ( N.S.) – 19 May 1795), was a Scottish biographer, diarist, and lawyer, born in Edinburgh. He is best known for his biography of the English writer Samuel Johnson, '' Life of Samuel ...
's 1791 book '' Life of Johnson''. Although there is little known about Hodge, such as his life, his death, or any other information, what is known is Johnson's fondness for his cat, which separated Johnson from the views held by others of the eighteenth century.


Life

Most of the information on Hodge comes from Boswell's account. It is in this passage that Johnson is claimed to have an affection for animals: The latter anecdote is used as the epigraph to
Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov ( ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian and American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Born in Imperial Russia in 1899, Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Rus ...
's acclaimed poem/novel ''
Pale Fire ''Pale Fire'' is a 1962 novel by Vladimir Nabokov. The novel is presented as a 999-line poem titled "Pale Fire", written by the fictional poet John Shade, with a foreword, lengthy commentary and index written by Shade's neighbor and academic co ...
''. Johnson bought
oyster Oyster is the common name for a number of different families of salt-water bivalve molluscs that live in marine or brackish habitats. In some species, the valves are highly calcified, and many are somewhat irregular in shape. Many, but no ...
s 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. Johnson refused to send Francis Barber to buy Hodge's food, fearing that it would be seen as degrading to his servant, so he would personally buy the food for Hodge. Boswell also noted how Johnson went out to purchase valerian to ease Hodge's suffering as death approached. Although Hodge was not Johnson's only cat, it was Hodge whom he considered his favourite. Hodge was remembered in various forms, from biographical mentions during Johnson's life to poems written about the cat. On his death, Hodge's life was celebrated in ''An Elegy on The Death of Dr Johnson's Favourite Cat'' by Percival Stockdale (published 1778). In this poem the phrase "sable fur" indicates that Hodge was a black cat; also, the fact that Stockdale was Johnson's neighbour from 1769 onwards suggests that Hodge was alive at that time: "Who, by his master when caressed, warmly his gratitude expressed, and never failed his thanks to purr, whene'er he stroked his sable furr ic.


''Hodge'' statue

Today Hodge is remembered by a bronze statue, unveiled in 1997 by Sir Roger Cook, the then-
Lord Mayor of London The Lord Mayor of London is the Mayors in England, mayor of the City of London, England, and the Leader of the council, leader of the City of London Corporation. Within the City, the Lord Mayor is accorded Order of precedence, precedence over a ...
, outside the house in Gough Square he shared with Johnson and Barber, Johnson's black manservant and heir. The statue shows Hodge sitting next to a pair of empty oyster shells atop a copy of Johnson's famous dictionary, with the inscription "a very fine cat indeed". It has become customary for visitors that walk past the statue to place coins in the oyster shells as tokens of good luck. To mark special occasions and anniversaries a pink piece of counsel's ribbon may be seen tied to one of the oyster shells or around Hodge's neck. Sculptor Jon Bickley perceived a kinship with Johnson, noting, "It seems Dr. Johnson and I were meant to come together . . . He was born in Lichfield, in the Midlands, and I was brought up just outside it. I can close my eyes and picture his birth house." Bickley modelled the cat on his own pet, Thomas Henry, and carefully selected the sculpture's height for maximum accessibility: "I made Hodge about shoulder height for the average adult, which is just about right for putting an arm around."


Popular culture

The cat Hodge—along with Dr. Johnson's second favourite cat, Lily—are the subjects of a book by Yvonne Skargon (Johnson is also given authorial credit) entitled ''Lily and Hodge and Dr. Johnson''. The book consists of quotations from Johnson's ''
Dictionary A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged Alphabetical order, alphabetically (or by Semitic root, consonantal root for Semitic languages or radical-and-stroke sorting, radical an ...
'', accompanied by Skargon's wood engravings of the two cats, contextually associated with the dictionary entries. Susan Coolidge's ode "Hodge, the Cat" celebrates Samuel Johnson's affection for Hodge; it appears in a collection of feline-focused poems and anecdotes published in 1912, and edited by Agnes Repplier. Hodge also appears in Charlie Fletcher's "Silvertongue" as a brave and fearless cat. Hodge also appears in
Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish writer of novels, plays, short stories, and poems. Writing in both English and French, his literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and Tragicomedy, tra ...
's early dramatic fragment '' Human Wishes''. In M. C. Beaton's '' Agatha Raisin'' novel series, the heroine's cats are named Hodge and Boswell. The English critic, essayist and poet
Leigh Hunt James Henry Leigh Hunt (19 October 178428 August 1859), best known as Leigh Hunt, was an English critic, essayist and poet. Hunt co-founded '' The Examiner'', a leading intellectual journal expounding radical principles. He was the centre ...
wrote an essay entitled "The Cat by the Fire" which features an imaginary description of how some of Samuel Johnson's friends and acquaintances would have related to Hodge the cat. In December 2020, Southwark Cathedral named its newly-adopted cat Hodge, as Gough Square is nearby, and Johnson is depicted in one of the cathedral's stained glass windows.


See also

* List of public art in the City of London *
List of individual cats This is a list of individual cats who have achieved some degree of popularity or notability. Before the modern era * Nedjem or Nojem (Egyptian language, Egyptian: ''nḏm'' "Sweet One" or "Sweetie"), 15th century BC. The cat of Puimre, second p ...


References


Further reading

* *


External links


Samuel Johnson and his Cat Hodge
of Hodge's life

of Hodge's legacy *
Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg (PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital li ...
abridged e-text of Boswell's
Life of Johnson
'

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20041205082029/http://www.oldandsold.com/articles02/cats35.shtml Literary Catsbr>Atlas Obscura: Monument to Hodge the Cat
{{Authority control Cat monuments Individual cats in England Samuel Johnson