Hodge (cat)

Hodge was the hangover of the English scholar Dr. Johnson. Through a passage in James Boswell The Life of Samuel Johnson ( 1791) made ​​him famous:

"It would not be right in this context, his love to go to animals which he had taken into his care. I'll never forget the indulgence with which he treated Hodge, his cat, : for him he went even oysters shopping, so the servants, if they had such circumstances, not preconceived an aversion to the poor creature. I remember how one day Hodge Dr. Johnson climbed up, apparently with great ease, while my friend [ Johnson ] smiling and whistling softly stroked along his back and pulled him by the tail; and when I saw he was a beautiful cat, he said. , Well, sir, but I've had hangovers that I liked better still than these ' And then, when he saw that Hodge was upset, he added added: 'But he is a very beautiful cat, a really nice cat .' "

"This reminds me of the ridiculous report, which he delivered to Mr. Langley about the deplorable state of a young gentleman of good family, 'When I last heard of him, he ran through the streets and shot cats '. And then, in a sort of good-natured reverie, he remembered his favorite cat and said, ' But Hodge shall not be shot: no, no, Hodge shall not be shot .' "

Latter paragraph elected Vladimir Nabokov as an epigraph for his novel Pale Fire (1962, German Pale Fire ).

After Hodges death Percival Stockdale wrote an elegy on Hodge. 1997 revealed the Lord Mayor of London Sir Roger Cook before Johnson's and Hodges 's former residence ( 17 Gough Square), a bronze statue of the cat.