ing with fixed attention on something
which lay on the threshold of a door nailed up. I took but little notice
of them at first, but a loud hiss engaged me to attend more closely,
when behold--a viper! the largest that I remember to have seen, rearing
itself, darting its forked tongue, and ejaculating the aforesaid hiss at
the nose of a kitten, almost in contact with his lips. I ran into the
hall for a hoe with a long handle, with which I intended to assail him,
and, returning in a few minutes, missed him; he was gone, and I feared
had escaped me. Still, however, the kitten sat, watching immovably, on
the same spot. I concluded, therefore, that, sliding between the door
and the threshold, he had found his way out of the garden into the yard.

I went round, and there found him in close conversation with the old
cat, whose curiosity, being excited by so novel an appearance, inclined
her to pat his head repeatedly with her fore foot, with her claws,
however, sheathed, and not in anger, but in the way of philosophic
inquiry and examination. To prevent her falling a victim to so laudable
an exercise of her talents, I interposed in a moment with the hoe, and
performed on him an act of decapitation which, though not immediately
mortal, proved so in the end.

Had he slid into the passages, where it is dark, or had he indeed, when
in the yard, met with no interruption from the cat, and secreted himself
in any of the out-houses, it is hardly possible but that some member of
the family must have been bitten.

_To the Same_

Olney, _November_ 4, 1782. You tell me that John Gilpin made you laugh
to tears, and that the ladies at court are delighted with my poems. Much
good may they do them! May they become as wise as the writer wished
them, and they will be much happier than he. I know there is in the book
that wisdom that cometh from above, because it was from above that I
received it. May they receive it too! For whether they drink it out of
the cistern, or whether it falls upon them immediately from the
clouds--as it did on me--is all one. It is the water of life, which
whosoever shall drink it shall thirst no more. As to the famous horseman
above mentioned, he and his feats are an inexhaustible source of
merriment. At least we find him so, and seldom meet without refreshing
ourselves with the recollection of them. You are at liberty to deal with
them as you please.

_To Mrs. Newton_

Olney, _November_ 23, 1782. Acc