The cat and dog may kiss, but are none the better friends. Policy is one thing, friendship 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, Catesby, Ratcliffe, 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."