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

William Wycherley

A beauty masked, like the sun in eclipse, gathers together more gazers than if it shined out.

Censorious … as a superannuated sinner.

Dull as a country squire.

Fortune as well as women must be taken in the humor.

Friends, like mistresses, are avoided for obligations past.

Great ladies, like great merchants, set but the higher prizes upon what they have, because they are not in necessity of taking the first offer.

Marrying to increase love is like gaming to become rich.

Mistresses are like books. If you pore upon them too much, they doze you, and make you unfit for company; but if used discreetly you are the fitter for conversation by ’em.

For plays, like women, by the world are thought,
When you speak kindly of ’em, very naught.

Reputation, like other mistresses, is never true to a man in his absence.

Sweet as the head of your cane.

Troublesome … as a young coxcomb-rhyming lover.

Unmerciful as the physician who with new arts keeps his miserable patient alive and in hopes, when he knows the disease is incurable.

Vain as a Frenchman newly returned from a campaign.

Our wives, like their writings, are never safe except when under lock and key.

Women, like old soldiers, more nimbly execute than they resolve.

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