“Desultory Notes on Cats” (1844) by Edgar Allen Poe.

… what is the reason that cats which have that within them which contains such divine melody, should make such execrable music themselves? The answer to this, perhaps, is simple. Cats are modest. They make no show of accomplishments. You never hear of a learned cat. … A cat pretends to no knowledge, not even to that of the piano and singing.

This ‘Notes on Cats’ project was, so far as I can discover, never expanded by Poe beyond being “Desultory”. Nor does it appear to have been accompanied by later essays on or around the topic. But the idea was later magnificently fluffed up to purring perfection by Lovecraft, in his own essay on cats.