Our Cats and All About Them Part 22

_How can the cat help it when the maid is a fool?_ Often things lost, given, or stolen, are laid to the cat.

_If thou 'scap'st, thou hast cat's luck_, in Fletcher's _Knight of Malta_, alluding to the activity and caution of the cat, which generally stands it in good stead.

_I'll not buy a cat in a poke._ F., _Chat en Poche_. See what you buy; bargain not on another's word.

_Just as quick as a cat up a walnut-tree._--D'URFEY. To climb well and easily. To be alert and sudden.

_Let the cat wink, and let the mouse run._ For want of watching and care much is lost.--HAZLITT'S "Dodsley," i. 265. The first portion is in the interlude of "The World and the Child," 1522.

_Like a cat he'll fall on his legs._ To succeed, never to fail, always right.

_Like a cat round hot milk._ Wait and have; all things come to those who wait.

_Little and little the cat eateth the stickle._--HEYWOOD. Constant dropping weareth a stone.

_Long and slender like a cat's elbow._--HAZLITT. A sneer at the ill-favoured.

_Love me, love my cat._--This refers to one marrying; in taking a wife he must take her belongings. Or, where you like, you must avoid contention.

_Never was cat or dog drowned that could see the sh.o.r.e._ To know the way often brings a right ending.

_None but cats and dogs are allowed to quarrel here._ All else agree.

_No playing with a straw before an old cat._--HEYWOOD, 1562. Every trifling toy age cannot laugh at.--"Youth and Folly, Age and Wisdom."

_Rats walk at their ease if cats do not them meese._--WODROEPHE, 1623.

Rogues abound where laws are weak.

_Send not a cat for lard._--GEORGE HERBERT. Put not any to temptation.

_So as cat is after kind._ Near friends are dearest. Birds of a feather flock together.

_Take the chestnuts out of the fire with the cat's paw._ Making use of others to save oneself.

_That comes of a cat will catch mice._ What is bred in the bone comes out in the flesh. Like father, like son.

_The cat and dog may kiss, but are none the better friends._ Policy is one thing, friends.h.i.+p another.

_The cat invites the mouse to her feast._ It is difficult for the weak to refuse the strong.

_The cat is in the cream-pot._ Any one's fault but hers. A row in the house (Northern).

_The cat is hungry when a crust contents her._ Hunger is a good sauce.

_The cat is out of kind that sweet milk will not lap._ One is wrong who forsakes custom.--"History of Jacob and Esau," 1568.

_The cat, the rat, and Lovel the dog, rule England under one hog._--"A Myrrour for Magistrates," edition 1563, fol. 143. This couplet is a satire on Richard III. (who carried a boar on his escutcheon) and his myrmidons, _Cat_esby, _Rat_cliffe, and Lovell.

_The cat would eat fish, and would not wet her feet._--HEYWOOD, 1562.

"Fain would the cat fish eat, But she is loth to wet her feet."

"What cat's averse to fish?"--GRAY.

Dr. Trench has pointed out the allusion to this saying in _Macbeth_, when Lady Macbeth speaks of her husband as a man,

"Letting I dare not, wait upon I would, Like the poor cat i' the adage."

_The cat sees not the mouse ever._--HEYWOOD. Those that should hide, see more than they who seek. The fearful eye sees far.

_The liquorish cat gets many a rap._ The wrong-doer escapes not.

_The more you rub a cat on the back, the higher she sets her tail._ Praise the vain and they are more than pleased. Flattery and vanity are near akin.

_The mouse lords it where the cat is not._--MS., 15th century. The little rule, where there are no great.

_The old cat laps as much as the young._--CLARKE. One evil is much like another.

_They agree like two cats in gutter._--HEYWOOD. To be less than friends.

_They argue like cats and dogs._ That is to quarrel.

_Thou'lt strip it, as Stack stripped the cat when he pulled her out of the churn._ To take away everything.

_Though the cat winks awhile, yet sure he is not blind._ To know all and pretend ignorance.

_To grin like a Ches.h.i.+re cat._ Said to be like a cheese cat, often made in Ches.h.i.+re; but this is not very clear, and the meaning doubtful.

_To go like a cat on a hot bake-stone._ To lose no time. To be swift and stay not.

_To keep a cat from the tongs._ To stop at home in idleness. It is said of a youth who stays at home with his family, when others go to the wars abroad, in "A Health to the Gentlemanly Profession of Serving Men,"

1598.

_Too late repents the rat when caught by the cat._ Shun danger, nor dare too long.

_To love it as a cat loves mustard._ Not at all. To abhor.

_Two cats and a mouse, two wives in one house, two dogs and one bone, never agree._ No peace when all want to be masters, or to possess one object.

_Well might the cat wink when both her eyes were out._

"Sumwhat it was sayeth the proverbe old, That the cat winked when here iye was out."

_Jack Juggler_, edit. 1848, p. 46.

Those bribed are worse than blind.

"_Well wots the cat whose beard she licketh._"--SKELTON'S _Garlande of Laurel_, 1523.

"Wel wot nure cat whas berd he lickat."--WRIGHT'S _Essays_, vol. i. p.