Child's Guide.
Giovanni Batista Casti, in his book, "Tre Giuli" (1762), likens the cat to one who lends money, and suddenly pounces on the debtor:
Thus sometimes with a mouse, ere nip,
The cat will on her hapless victim smile,
Until at length she gives the fatal grip.
Again, John Philips, in the latter part of the seventeenth century, in his poem of "The Splendid Shilling," referring to debtors, writes:
Grimalkin to Domestick Vermin sworn
An everlasting Foe, with watchful Eye
Lies nightly brooding o'er a chinky Gap
Protending her fell Claws, to thoughtless Mice
Sure Ruin.
HERALDRY, ETC.
A cat (hieroglyphically) represents false friendship, or a deceitful, flattering friend.
The cat (in heraldry) is an emblem of liberty, because it naturally dislikes to be shut up, and therefore the Burgundians, etc., bore a cat on their banners to intimate they could not endure servitude.
"It is a bold and daring creature and also cruel to its enemy, and never gives over till it has destroyed it, if possible. It is also watchful, dexterous, swift, pliable, and has good nerves—thus, if it falls from a place never so high, it still alights on its feet; and therefore may denote those who have much forethought, that whatsoever befalls them they are still on their guard."
"In coat armour they must always be represented as full-faced, and not showing one side of it, but both their eyes and both their ears. Argent three cats in pale sable is the coat of the family of Keat of Devonshire."