![Hodgecat flickr](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/Hodgecat_flickr.jpg)
Hodge (fl. c.1769) was one of
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, critic, 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 (New Style, N.S.) – 19 May 1795), was a Scottish biographer, diarist, and lawyer, born in Edinburgh. He is best known for his biography of his friend and older contemporary the Englis ...
's 1791 book ''
Life of Johnson
Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energy transf ...
''.
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 in general, or at least the ones that he kept:
The latter anecdote is used as the
epigraph to
Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (russian: link=no, Владимир Владимирович Набоков ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian-American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Bo ...
'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 col ...
''.
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 not al ...
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
Francis Barber ( – 13 January 1801), born Quashey, was the Jamaican manservant of Samuel Johnson in London from 1752 until Johnson's death in 1784. Johnson made him his residual heir, with £70 () a year to be given him by Trustees, express ...
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
A black cat is a domestic cat with black fur that may be a mixed or specific breed, or a common domestic cat of no particular breed. The Cat Fanciers' Association (CFA) recognizes 22 cat breeds that can come with solid black coats. The Bombay b ...
; 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 mayor of the City of London and the leader of the City of London Corporation. Within the City, the Lord Mayor is accorded precedence over all individuals except the sovereign and retains various traditional powe ...
, 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 alphabetically (or by radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies ...
'', accompanied by Skargon's wood engravings of the two cats, contextually associated with the dictionary entries. Susan Coolidge
Sarah Chauncey Woolsey (January 29, 1835 – April 9, 1905) was an American children's author who wrote under the pen name Susan Coolidge.
Background
Woolsey was born on January 29, 1835 into the wealthy, influential New England Dwight famil ...
'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 novelist, dramatist, short story writer, theatre director, poet, and literary translator. His literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal and tragicomic expe ...
's early dramatic fragment '' Human Wishes''. In M. C. Beaton's ''Agatha Raisin
Agatha Raisin is a fictional detective in a series of humorous mystery novels, originally written by Marion Chesney using the pseudonym M. C. Beaton. Chesney's friend Rod W. Green took over as writer with ''Hot to Trot''. The books are published ...
'' 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 centr ...
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
Southwark Cathedral ( ) or The Cathedral and Collegiate Church of St Saviour and St Mary Overie, Southwark, London, lies on the south bank of the River Thames close to London Bridge. It is the mother church of the Anglican Diocese of Southwark. ...
named its newly-adopted cat Hodge, as Gough Square is nearby, and Johnson is depicted in one of the cathedral's stained glass windows.
On 15 February 2021, miaows attributed to Hodge appeared in a bonus episode of The Family Histories Podcast, with host Andrew Martin explaining that Hodge had been stolen from 18th Century London by the Hungarian poet Sándor Petőfi
Sándor Petőfi ( []; né Petrovics; sk, Alexander Petrovič; sr, Александар Петровић; 1 January 1823 – most likely 31 July 1849) was a Hungarian poet of Serbian origin and liberal revolutionary. He is considered Hungary's ...
, via the use of a time machine that features in the episode. Again, Boswell's account is quoted, with Hodge being described as "a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed".S02EP08 The Present (Bonus)
The Family Histories Podcast, 2021, Series Two, Episode 8
See also
* List of public art in the City of London
This is a list of public art in the City of London, including statues, busts, commemorative plaques and other memorials.
The City of London is the historic nucleus of London as well as its modern financial centre. The City of London Corporati ...
*List of individual cats
This is a list of famous cats which achieved some degree of popularity either in their own right or by association with someone famous.
Before the modern era
* Nedjem or Nojem (Egyptian: ''nḏm'' "Sweet One" or "Sweetie"), 15th century BC. The ...
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 Virtual volunteering, 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 ...
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