Smell a rat.

Ray's Proverbs; Middleton, The Family of Love, Act iv. Sc. 2;
Ben Jonson, Tale of a Tub, Act iv. Sc. 3; Butler, Hudibras,
Part i. Canto i. Line 281; Farquhar, Love and a Bottle.

Sober as a judge.

Fielding, Don Quixote in England, Sc. 14; Lamb, Letter to Mr. and Mrs. Moxon.

Spare the rod, and spoil the child.

Ray's Proverbs; Butler, Hudibras, Part ii. Canto i. Line 844. Speech is silvern, Silence is golden; Speech is human, Silence is divine.

A German proverb.

Speech is like cloth of Arras, opened and put abroad, whereby the imagery doth appear in figure; whereas in thoughts they lie but as in packs. Plutarch, Life of Themistocles; from Bacon, Essays, On Friendship.

Spick and span new.

Ray's Proverbs; Middleton, The Family of Love, Act v. Sc. 3; Ford, The Lover's Melancholy, Act i. Sc. 1; Farquhar, Preface to his Works.

Strike while the iron is hot.

Rabelais, Book ii. Ch. xxxi.; Heywood's Proverbs, 1546; John
Webster, Westward Hoe, Act ii. Se. 1, 1607; Tom A Lincolne;
Farquhar, The Beaux' Stratagem, Act iv. Sc. 1.

Tell truth, and shame the Devil.

Shakespeare, Henry IV., Part i. Act iii. Sc. 1; Beaumont and
Fletcher, Wit without Money, Act iv. Sc. 1; Swift, Mary the
Cookmaid's Letter.

That is a stinger.

Middleton, More Dissemblers besides Women, Act iii. Sc. 2.

This is a sure card.

Thersytes, circa 1550.

The lion is not so fierce as they paint him.

Herbert, Jacula Prudentum; Fuller, On Expecting Preferment.

They laugh that win.

Shakespeare, Othello, Act v. Sc. 1; Lockhart's Translation of
Don Quixote, Part ii. Ch. i.

This story will not go down.

Fielding, Tumble Down Dick.

Though I say it that should not say it.

Beaumont and Fletcher, Wit at several Weapons, Act ii. Sc. 2;
Fielding, The Miser, Act iii. Sc. 2; Cibber, The Rival Fools,
Act ii.; The Fall of British Tyranny, Act iv. Sc. 2.

Through thick and thin.

Spenser, Faerie Queene, Book iii. Canto i. St. 17; Drayton, Nymphidia; Middleton, The Roaring Girl, Act iv. Sc. 2; Kemp, Nine Days' Wonder; Butler, Hudibras, Part i. Canto ii. Line 369; Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel, Part ii. Line 414; Pope, Dunciad, Book ii.; Cowper, John Gilpin.

To be in the wrong box.

Heywood's Proverbs, 1546; Fox, Book of Martyrs, vi.

To make a virtue of necessity.

Rabelais, Book i. Ch. xi.; Chaucer, Knightes Tale, Line 3044;
Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act iv. Sc. 2;
Matthew Henry, Commentaries, Psalm xxxvii.; Dryden,
Palamon and Arcite.

In the additions of Hadrianus Junius to the Adages of Erasmus,
he remarks, under the head of Necessitatem edere, that a very
familiar proverb was current among his countrymen, viz.
"Necessitatem in virtutem commutare."

Laudem virtutis necessitate damus.
Quintilian, Inst. Orat., i. 8. 14.

Too much of a good thing.

Don Quixote, Part i. Book i. Ch. vi.; Shakespeare, As You Like
It, Act iv. Sc. 1.

To run with the hare and hold with the hound.

Humphrey Robert, Complaynt for Reformation, 1572; Lyly,
Euphues, 1580, Arber's reprint, p. 107.

To see and to be seen.

Chaucer, Wif of Bathes Prologue, Line 552; Ben Jonson,
Epithalamion, St. iii. Line 4; Dryden, Ovid's Art of Love,
Book i. Line 109; Goldsmith, Citizen of the World, Letter 71.

Turn over a new leaf.

Middleton, Anything for a Quiet Life, Act iii. Sc. 3; A Health to the Gentl. Prof. of Servingmen, 1598; Burke, Letter to Mrs. Haviland.

Twinkling of a bed-post.

Shadwell, Virtuoso, 1676; Ben Jonson, Every Man in his
Humour; Colman, Heir at Law.

Two of a trade seldom agree.

Ray's Proverbs; Gay, The Old Hen and the Cock; Murphy,
The Apprentice, Act iii.

Two strings to his bow.

Heywood's Proverbs, 1546; Letter of Queen Elizabeth to James
VI., June, 1585; Hooker's Polity, Book v. Ch. lxxx.; But-
ler, Hudibras, Part iii. Canto i. Line 1; Churchill, The Ghost,
Book iv.; Fielding, Love in Several Masques, Sc. 13.

Up to the times, clever fellows.

Sidney, Discourses on Government, Vol. i. Ch. ii.

Virtue a reward to itself.

Walton, Angler, Part i. Ch. 1.

Virtue is her own reward.

Dryden, Tyrannic Love, Act iii. Sc. 1.

Virtue is to herself the best reward.

Henry More, Cupid's Conflict.

Virtue is its own reward.

Prior, Imitations of Horace, Book iii. Ode 2; Gay, Epistle to
Methuen; Home, Douglas, Act iii. Sc. 1.

Ipsa quidem Virtus sibimet pulcherrima merces.
Silius Italicus, Punica, Lib. xiii. Line 663.

Where God hath a temple, the Devil will have a chapel.

Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, Part iii. Sec. iv. Wherever God erects a house of prayer, The Devil always builds a chapel there.

De Foe, The True-born Englishman, Part i. Line 1.

God never had a church but there, men say,
The Devil a chapel hath raised by some wyles.
I doubted of this saw, till on a day

I westward spied great Edinburgh's Saint Gyles.
Drummond, Posthumous Poems.

No sooner is a temple built to God, but the Devil builds

a chapel hard by.

George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum.

Whistle and she 'll come to you.

Beaumont and Fletcher, Wit without Money, Act iv. Sc. 4.

What the dickens.

Heywood, King Edward IV., Act iii. Sc. 1; Shakespeare,
Merry Wives of Windsor, Act iii. Sc. 2.

Will for the deed.

Cibber, Rival Fools, Act iii.

Within one of her.

Cibber, Rival Fools, Act v.

Wrong sow by the ear.

Heywood's Proverbs, 1546; Ben Jonson, Every Man in his
Humour, Act ii. Sc. 7; Butler, Hudibras, Part ii. Canto iii.
Line 580; Colman, Heir at Law, Act i. Sc. 1.

Word and a blow.

Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act iii. Sc. 1; Dryden, Amphitryon, Act i. Sc. 1; Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress, Part i.

But me no buts.

Fielding, Rape upon Rape, Act ii. Sc. 2; Aaron Hill, Snake in the Grass, Sc. 1.

Cause me no causes.

Massinger, A New Way to Pay Old Debts, Act i. Sc. 3.

Clerk me no clerks.

Scott, Ivanhoe, Ch. xx.

Diamond me no diamonds! prize me no prizes.

Tennyson, Idylls of the King, Elaine.

End me no ends.

Massinger, A New Way to Pay Old Debts, Act v. Sc. 1.

Fool me no fools.

Bulwer, Last Days of Pompeii, Book iii. Ch. vi.

Front me no fronts.

Ford, The Lady's Trial, Act ii. Sc. 1.

Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle.
Shakespeare, Richard II., Act ii. Sc. 3.

Madam me no madam.

Dryden, The Wild Gallant, Act ii. Sc. 2.

Map me no maps.

Fielding, Rape upon Rape, Act i. Sc. 5.

Midas me no Midas.

Dryden, The Wild Gallant, Act ii. Sc. 1.

O me no O's.

Ben Jonson, The Case is Altered, Act v. Sc. 1.

Parish me no parishes.

Peele, The Old Wive's Tale.

Petition me no petitions.

Fielding, Tom Thumb, Act i. Sc. 2.

Play me no plays.

Foote, The Knight, Act ii.

Plot me no plots.

Beaumont and Fletcher, The Knight of the Burning Pestie, Act
ii. Sc. 5.

Thank me no thanks, nor proud me no prouds.
Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act iii. Sc. 5.

Virgin me no virgins.

Massinger, A New Way to Pay Old Debts, Act iii. Sc. 2.

Vow me no vows.

Beaumont and Fletcher, Wit without Money, Act iv. Sc. 4.