Frank J. Wilstach, comp. A Dictionary of Similes. 1916.

George Farquhar

Changeable as a woman’s whims.

The theatre is like a Turkish seraglio: The critics are the eunuchs.

Crouching about like a cat a-mousing.

Dead as a salmon in a fishmonger’s basket.

Inseparable as finger and thumb.

Light as the light.

Like hungry guests, a sitting audience looks:
Plays are like suppers; poets are the cooks.
The founder’s you: the table is this place:
The carvers we: the prologue is the grace.
Each act a course; each scene, a different dish,
Though we’re in Lent, I doubt you’re still for flesh.
Satire’s the sauce, high-seasoned, sharp, and rough.
Kind masks and beaux, I hope you’re pepper-proof?
Wit is the wine; but ’tis so scarce the true
Poets, like vintners, balderdash and brew.
Your surly scenes, where rant and bloodshed join,
Are butcher’s meat, a battle’s a sirlorn.
Your scenes of love, so flowing, soft and chaste,
Are water-gruel without salt or taste.

Strong as brandy.

The Theatre is like a Turkish seraglio: the critics are the eunuchs.

Unbecoming as grace after meat.

Whizzes like a hot iron.

Women are like pictures; of no value in the hands of a fool, till he hears men of sense bid high for the purchase.

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