The writer and editor of this marvelous reference work, Brewers Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, wrote:
"I have always read with a slip of paper and a pencil at my side, to jot down whatever I think may be useful to me, and these jottings I keep sorted in different lockers. This has been a life-habit with me." No doubt. We notice in the first edition there are:
100 hits for cat,
34 for cats
4 hits for puss
19 for tiger
100 for lion
4 for kitten
2 for kittens
Entries under 'cat' range from fallacious commonplaces,
Cat. Called a "familiar," from the medireval superstition that Satan's favourite form was a black cat. Hence "witches" were said to have a cat as their familiar.
To dubious but interesting notes:
Cat. A symbol of liberty. The Roman goddess of Liberty was represented as holding a cup in one hand, a broken sceptre in the other, and with a cat lying at her feet. No animal is so great an enemy to all constraint as a cat.
and prove how perennial some cat tropes are,
The London Review says the Egyptians worshipped the cat as a symbol of the moon, not only because it is more active after sunset, but from the dilation and contraction of its pupil, symbolical of tho waxing and waning of the night-goddess. {See Puss.)
It is hard to find a boring page in Brewer's masterpiece, even today. His colloquial prose style manages a certain purity while still seeming neighborly.
You can read a free copy at this link
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