The Council Held by the Rats

Old Rodilard,[1] a certain cat, / Such havoc of the rats had made, / 'Twas difficult to find a rat / With nature's debt unpaid. / The few that did remain, / To leave their holes afraid, / From usual food abstain, / Not eating half their fill. / And wonder no one will / That one who made of rats his revel, / With rats pass'd not for cat, but devil. / Now, on a day, this dread rat-eater, / Who had a wife, went out to meet her; / And while he held his caterwauling, / The unkill'd rats, their chapter calling, / Discuss'd the point, in grave debate, / How they might shun impending fate. / Their dean, a prudent rat, / Thought best, and better soon than late, / To bell the fatal cat; / That, when he took his hunting round, / The rats, well caution'd by the sound, / Might hide in safety under ground; / Indeed he knew no other means. / And all the rest / At once confess'd / Their minds were with the dean's. / No better plan, they all believed, / Could possibly have been conceived, / No doubt the thing would work right well, / If any one would hang the bell. / But, one by one, said every rat, / 'I'm not so big a fool as that. ' / The plan, knock'd up in this respect, / The council closed without effect.

[1]: _Rodilard_. -- The name no doubt taken from the famous cat Rodilardus (bacon-gnawer), in Rabelais, _Pantagruel_, IV., ch. LXVII.