The second half of the original seventh stanza, and the eighth, ninth, and tenth stanzas, are left out.

Immediately before the last stanza the following one is introduced:—­

  “Let all kynde Citizens
    Who do this story read,
  By his example learn
    Always the poor to feed. 
  What is lent to the poor
    The Lord will sure repay,
  And blessings keep in store
    Until the latter day.”

The other alterations are not many, and chiefly consist in transpositions by which the rhymes are varied.  This may be seen by comparing with the original the Roxburghe version of the last stanza which is as follows:—­

  “Lancashire, thou hast bred
    This flower of charity;
  Though he be dead and gone,
    Yet lives his memory. 
  Those bells that call’d him so,
    Turn again, Whittington,
  Would they call may moe
    Such men to fair London.”

At the end of one of the chap-books there is a version of the ballad in which Lancashire is replaced by Somersetshire.

In the same volume of the Roxburghe Ballads (p. 470) is a short version [1710?] containing a few only of the verses taken from the ballad.  It is illustrated with some woodcuts from T. H.’s earlier History.

“An old Ballad of Whittington and his Cat, who from a poor boy came to be thrice Lord Mayor of London.  Printed and sold in Aldermary Church Yard, London.”

There is a copy of this in the Chetham Library.

The following are some of the chief references to Whittington’s story in literature after the publication of Johnson’s ballad, arranged in chronological order:—­

  “As if a new-found Whittington’s rare cat,
  Come to extoll their birth-rights above that
  Which nature once intended.”—­

Stephens’s Essayes and Characters, 1615.

“Faith, how many churches do you mean to build Before you die?  Six bells in every steeple, And let them all go to the City tune, Turn again, Whittington, and who they say Grew rich, and let his land out for nine lives, ’Cause all came in by a cat.”—­

Shirley’s Constant Maid (1640), act ii. sc. 2.

“I have heard of Whittington and his cat, and others, that have made fortunes by strange means.”—­Parson’s Wedding (1664).

Pepys went on September 21, 1668, to Southwark Fair, “and there saw the puppet show of Whittington, which was pretty to see.”  He adds in his Diary “how that idle thing do work upon people that see it, and even myself too.”

In the Tatler of September 13, 1709 (No. 67), is a list of great men to be entered in the Temple of Fame, and in the subsequent No. 78 is printed the following letter from a Citizen:—­