Note 56 — W. CAREW HAZLITT.

A proverbial expression, of which it is difficult to give a satisfactory explanation, though the meaning of it is sufficiently obvious. A gentleman, who formerly wrote in The Gentleman’s Magazine under a feigned name, supposes the word cat should be changed to cate; “an old word for a cake or other aumalette, which being usually fried, and consequently turn’d in the pan, does therefore very aptly express the changing of sides in politics or religion, or, as we otherwise say, the turning one’s coat. Gentleman’s Magazine, 1754, p. 66. Another writer, however, gives the following [very absurd] explanation of it:— “Capitan, to turn capitan, from a people called Catipani, in Calabria and Apulia, who got an ill name by reason of their perfidy; very falsely by us called Cat in pan.”—Ibid. p. 172.