"Coxcomb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a Woman o' Fortune remains unmarry'd, she's a Petty-Queen; Lovers innumerable trace her Steps; each Coxcomb thinks to be the happy Man, and ev'ry were her Presence makes a Court—but when her Reason's once subdu'd by Love, and the fond, foolish Nymph resigns her Pow'r, she's but a meer Appendix to ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... is the bad stamina of the mind, which, like those of the body, are never rectified; once a coxcomb and ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... "This coxcomb says he was sent specially by Sir Henry to obtain from you some papers of great moment, which will ensure his immediate release. He bears Sir Henry's signet, and the knave hath no ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... cried, between praying and swearing, "must this alabaster-box of precious ointment be broken upon the head of an infernal coxcomb?" ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... qualities for being the last hope of revolutionary France. One had known him in his early career in the engineers, another had served along with him in Corsica, a third had met him at the court of Portugal; the concurring report being, that he was a coxcomb of the first water, showy but superficial, and though personally brave, sure to be bewildered when he found himself for the first time working the wheels and springs of that puzzling machine, an army in the field. A caustic old ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... coachmaker's, and, obtaining no satisfaction from the underlings, desired to see the head of the house. He was answered, that Mr. Mordicai was not at home. His lordship had never seen Mr. Mordicai; but, just then, he saw, walking across the yard, a man, who looked something like a Bond Street coxcomb, but not the least like a gentleman, who called, in the tone of a master, for 'Mr. Mordicai's barouche!' It appeared; and he was stepping into it when Lord Colambre took the liberty of stopping him; and, pointing to the wreck of Mr. Berryl's curricle, now standing in the ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... characters of this play are admirably designed, but not so happily finished as the author meant them to be—witness, Bob Handy, who begins a self-conceited coxcomb, and ...
— Speed the Plough - A Comedy, In Five Acts; As Performed At The Theatre Royal, Covent Garden • Thomas Morton
... "Curse on the drunken coxcomb!" said Albert,—"There is a tester for thee, boy, and tell thy master to break his jests on suitable persons, and ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... never cured; it was the bad stamina of the mind, which, like those of the body, were never rectified: once a coxcomb, ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... the most interesting and impressive localities in the Rockies lies around Mt. Wetterhorn, Mt. Coxcomb, and Uncompahgre Peak. Here I have found the birds confiding, and most wild animals so tame that it was a joy to be with them. But this was years ago, and now most of the wild animals are wilder and the birds have found that man will not bear acquaintance. ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... appreciating them so keenly, for liking them so much. It must be, I felt with far less consciousness than my formulation of the feeling expresses, that I was of some finer sort myself to be able to enjoy such a fine sort. No doubt I should have been a coxcomb of some kind, if not that kind, and I shall not be very strenuous in censuring Thackeray for his effect upon me in this way. No doubt the effect was already in me, and he did not so much produce it ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... a little package, and, with preter-careful hands, dropped a long white mantle over the shoulders of the ministerial coxcomb. Is light folds closed around him, and, with an Olympian nod, he turned toward the door, while the valet flew to open it. As soon as the count appeared, the other valets, who, with the hair-dresser, stood on either side of the room, raised each one a long brush dipped in hair-powder, and ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... people, some take their disappointment and meekly bear it. Some hate and hold you their enemy because you could not be their friend. Some, furious and envious, say: "Who is this man who refuses what I offer, and how dares he, the conceited coxcomb, to ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... fervor Palliate, cover, the fault of a superstitious observance? Dear, dear, what have I said? but, alas, just now, like Iago, I can be nothing at all, if it is not critical wholly; So in fantastic height, in coxcomb exaltation, Here in the Garden I walk, can freely concede to the Maker That the works of his hand are all very good: his creatures, Beast of the field and fowl, he brings them before me; I name them; That which I name them, they are,—the bird, the beast, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... directly he had received his commission as an officer. He was much admired in society, and he indulged every whim, even every caprice and every folly, and gave himself airs, but that too was attractive in him. Women went out of their senses over him; men called him a coxcomb, and were secretly jealous of him. He lived, as has been related already, in the same apartments as his brother, whom he loved sincerely, though he was not at all like him. Nikolai Petrovitch was a little lame, he had small, pleasing features of a rather melancholy ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... a new peace may be relied on during the throes of a bloody war, to tranquillize its wounds. Consequently, when the arrogant Louvois carried a war to the credit of his own little account on the national leger of France, this coxcomb well knew that a war was at any rate due about that time. Really, says he, I must find out some little war to exhaust the surplus irritability of this person, or he'll be the death of me. But irritable or not irritable, with a puppy ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... coxcomb," he muttered. "Does he think that being 'top-shearer' gives him a right to make love ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... foreigner," than to the cigar itself. Yet, going on to describe a journey to Hastings, sitting "on the roof in front" beside an acquaintance, he says, notwithstanding the enjoyment of dashing along, anecdote and jest going merrily on, "we had the annoyance of a coxcomb perched on the box, infecting the fresh air which Heaven had sent us, with the smoke of his abominable cigar," which looks as if his real objection ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... "You do well to draw back You are wise to avoid discomfiture. This lady is not for you. When she is won, it will be by some bold and gallant gentleman, and by no mincing squire of dames, no courtly coxcomb, no fop of the Luxembourg, be his experiences of ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... lover himself. The French original has infinitely the superiority; the character of the luckless lover is drawn with an exquisitely finer pencil. Lelie is an inconsequential, light-headed, gentleman-like coxcomb, but Sir Martin Marplot is a fool. In the English drama, the author seems to have considered his hero as so thoroughly stupid, that he rewards the address of the intriguing domestic with the hand of the lady. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... Lindsey ought not to have admitted works into the gallery in which the ill-educated conceit of the artist so nearly approached the aspect of wilful imposture. I have seen and heard much of cockney impudence before now, but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask 200 guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... coxcomb waiters know their trade, Nor mix their sauces[4] with cookey's; When John's no longer chamber maid, And printed well a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 282, November 10, 1827 • Various
... blows that their efforts soon made a visible diversion in Lord Cadurcis' favour. It is difficult, indeed, to convey an idea of the exertions and achievements of Captain Cadurcis; no Paladin of chivalry ever executed such marvels on a swarm of Paynim slaves; and many a bloody coxcomb and broken limb bore witness in Petty France that night to his achievements. Still the mob struggled and were not daunted by the delay in immolating their victim. As long as they had only to fight against men in plain clothes, they were valorous and obstinate enough; but the moment that the ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... fellows went away dreadfully mortified. The unbeliever paid the bet, but he was deeply vexed, called the other a coxcomb, and a week afterwards killed him ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... to give me any serious reasons for having fooled me for a month, I left her in a huff. Fash. Well, well, I'll answer for it she'll soon resume her power, especially as friendship will prevent your pursuing the other too far.—But my coxcomb of a brother is an admirer of Amanda's too, is he? Col. Town. Yes, and I believe is most heartily despised by her. But come with me, and you shall see her and your old friend Loveless. Fash. I must pay ...
— Scarborough and the Critic • Sheridan
... he that loves her best, Durst offer but to touch her in this place! Per Jovem et Junonem! hoc Shall pash his coxcomb such a knock, As that his soul his course shall take To Limbo and Avernus' lake. In vain I watch in this dark hole; Would any living durst my manhood try, And offer to come up the stairs ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... to the time of his matriculation in Chaussee d'Antin, was a romantic-looking sloven. From this to a very dashing coxcomb is but half a step, and, to be rid of the coxcombry and retain a look of fashion, is still within the easy limits of imitation. But—to obtain superiority of presence, with no apparent aid from dress ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... and exchanged some pushes. Seymour was wounded in the neck. The wound was not very serious; but, when his cure was only half completed, he revelled in fruit, ice and Burgundy till he threw himself into a violent fever. Though a coxcomb and a voluptuary, he seems to have had some fine qualities. On the last day of his life he saw Kirke. Kirke implored forgiveness; and the dying man declared that he forgave as he hoped to be forgiven. There ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... threw over the part an air of Spanish loftiness. He looked, spake, and moved like an old Castilian. He was starch, spruce, opinionated, but his superstructure of pride seemed bottomed upon a sense of worth. There was something in it beyond the coxcomb. It was big and swelling, but you could not be sure that it was hollow. You might wish to see it taken down, but you felt that it was upon an elevation. He was magnificent from the outset; but when the decent sobrieties of the character ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... whatever would yield him a little solacement, were it only of a stomachic character, is undeniable enough. That he was vain, heedless, a babbler; had much of the sycophant, alternating with the braggadocio, curiously spiced too with an all-pervading dash of the coxcomb; that he gloried much when the Tailor, by a court-suit, had made a new man of him; that he appeared at the Shakespeare Jubilee with a riband, imprinted "Corsica Boswell," round his hat; and in short, if you will, lived no day of his ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... divine right of my own deep love—of heart which cries out to heart. Do you think there is no magnetic power in true love which can divine the answering love in another? Lesbia, call me an insolent coxcomb if you like, but I know you love me, and that you and I may be utterly happy together. Oh, why—why do you shrink from me, my beloved; why withhold yourself from my arms! Oh, love, let me hold you to my heart—let me seal ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... then it was full of amatory conquests; and, as he was captain in the Cavalry Volunteers, on field days his hair was straight and lank—martial ardour gave him no time to attend to the fripperies of the coxcomb. These are but small particulars, but such are very important in the character of a great man. With his hair curled, he was jocular, even playful; with it lank, he was a great disciplinarian—had military subordination ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... on the Somme, Buckingham ever at the Queen's side. Anne of Austria was attended by her Mistress of the Household, the beautiful, witty Marie de Rohan, Duchess of Chevreuse, and by her equerry, Monsieur de Putange. Madame de Chevreuse had for cavalier that handsome coxcomb, Lord Holland, who was one of Buckingham's creatures, between whom and herself a certain transient tenderness had sprung up. M. de Putange was accompanied by Madame de Vernet, with whom at the time he was over head ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... fop, fine gentleman; swell; dandy, dandiprat|!; exquisite, coxcomb, beau, macaroni, blade, blood, buck, man about town, fast man; fribble, milliner|!; Jemmy Jessamy|!, carpet knight; masher, dude. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... on one corner of the table, and her face had a witch-like loveliness, as though borrowing its pallor and beauty from the moon, source of all magic and necromancy. Her eyes shone with such luster that, seeking their hue, they held the observer's gaze in mocking languor, and cheated the inquisitive coxcomb of his quest, the while the disdainful lips curved laughingly and so bewildered him, he forgot the customary phrases and stood staring like a nonny. Her footstep fell so light, she was so agile and quick, the superstitious dwarf swore she was but ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... his own genius, and in a very amiable frame of mind, altogether. In this mood, he joined the family at dinner; after which meal, a few glasses of brandy added fire to the smouldering element within him, and straightway he blazed forth: a gallant, a coxcomb. In this frame of mind, he always admired himself excessively, took stock of his burly legs and brawny shoulders, and smiled sentimentally before the mirror, at ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... Colonel Brereton,—the beau of my family. Look at him there! Wouldst think the coxcomb was in the charge ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... critic; but his theories were strongly opposed and he was continually in hot water. In his zeal to defend Turner or Millais or Burne-Jones he was rather slashing in his criticism of other artists. The libel suit brought against him by Whistler, whom he described as a coxcomb who flung a pot of paint in the face of the public, is still talked about in England. The jury (fancy a jury wrestling with a question of art!) found Ruskin guilty, and decided that he should pay for the artist's damaged reputation the sum of ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... back. When he has mended what Fluellen calls his 'ploody coxcomb,' he will take out a summons against ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... Fluth, mistrusting his wife, makes Falstaff's acquaintance, under the assumed name of Bach, and is obliged to hear an account of the worthy Sire's gallant adventure with his wife and its disagreeable issue. Fluth persuades Falstaff to give him a rendezvous, swearing inwardly to punish the old coxcomb for his impudence. ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... moonlight glade, having in front the reverend, though ruinous chapel, and the rude hermitage, so well suited to ascetic devotion, Wamba whispered to Gurth, "If this be the habitation of a thief, it makes good the old proverb, The nearer the church the farther from God.—And by my coxcomb," he added, "I think it be even so—Hearken but to the black sanctus which they are singing in ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... was extremely complex; its analysis, I fear, may baffle us. It must have seemed to you—as it certainly seemed to Mistress Winthrop—that he made a mock of her; that in truth he was the impudent, fleering coxcomb she pronounced him, and nothing more. Not so. Mock he most certainly did; but his mockery was all aimed to strike himself on the recoil—himself and the sentiments which had sprung to being in his soul, and to which—nameless ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... upon the point of speaking his mind, but managed to check himself in time. Harkness's personality rasped him to the raw, and he had for days struggled against an utterly absurd but insistent desire to seize the little coxcomb by the throat and squeeze the arrogance out of him as juice is squeezed out of a lemon. There is flesh for which one's ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... the coxcomb Czar,[316] The Autocrat of waltzes[317] and of war! As eager for a plaudit as a realm, And just as fit for flirting as the helm; A Calmuck beauty with a Cossack wit, And generous spirit, when 'tis not frost-bit; ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... John Lockhart. We stopped at Allanton to see a tree transplanted, which was performed with great ease. Sir Henry is a sad coxcomb, and lifted beyond the solid earth by the effect of his book's success. But the book well deserves it.[240] He is in practice particularly anxious to keep the roots of the tree near the surface, and only covers them with about ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... Lennox looked to-day," said she, addressing Mary; "and how perfectly unconscious, at least indifferent, he seems about it. It is quite refreshing to see a handsome man that is neither a fool nor a coxcomb." ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... not trace the tale;—nor the one weakness of his so mighty love; nor the inferiority of his perceptive intellect to that even of the second woman character in the play, the Emilia who dies in wild testimony against his error:—"Oh, murderous coxcomb! What should such a fool Do with so good ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... ignorance—first, of English authors; second, of the 'Dunciad;'—else he would have known that even Dennis, mad John Dennis, was a much cleverer man than most of those alluded to by Voltaire. Cibber, though slightly a coxcomb, was born a brilliant man. Aaron Hill was so lustrous, that even Pope's venom fell off spontaneously, like rain from the plumage of a pheasant, leaving him to 'mount far upwards with the swans of Thanes'—and, finally, let it not be forgotten, that Samuel Clarke Burnet, of the Charterhouse, ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... is the difference between a French and an English dandy: the first is an impertinent, affected coxcomb, who makes love to every woman as a matter of course—it is his vocation. The second is a cold, contemptuous, conceited creature, intrenched in a double armour of selfishness, blase upon ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... acquaintance, and—at the club, let us say prefer the company of a lively, handsome, well-dressed, gentleman like young man, who amuses me, to that of a slouching, ill-washed, misanthropic H-murderer, a ceaselessly prating coxcomb, or what not; has not society—the aggregate you and I—a right to the same choice? Harry was liked because he was likeable; because he was rich, handsome, jovial, well-born, well-bred, brave; because, with jolly topers, he liked a jolly song and a bottle; because, with gentlemen sportsmen, he loved ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... dinner I went in one of the boats with my boy before my Lord, and made shift before night to get my cabin in pretty good order. It is but little, but very convenient, having one window to the sea and another to the deck, and a good bed. This morning comes Mr. Ed. Pickering, like a coxcomb as he always was. He tells me that the King will come in, but that Monk did resolve to have the doing of it himself, or else ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... that book an entirely profitless and monstrous story, in which the principal characters are a coxcomb, an idiot, a madman, a savage blackguard, a foolish tavern-keeper, a mean old maid, and a conceited apprentice,—mixed up with a certain quantity of ordinary operatic pastoral stuff, about a pretty Dolly in ribbons, a lover with a wooden leg, and ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... serjeant-at-law and a member of parliament.' After which he repeated the lines that concerned him with great emphasis; said 'I was mistaken in one thing, for he assured me he was no booby, but owned himself to be a coxcomb.' However, that being a point of controversy wherein I had no concern, I let it drop. As to the verses, he insisted, 'that by his taste and skill in poetry he was as sure I wrote them as if he had seen them ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... to shake, ("A. S. sceac-an, to shake, or shock, or shog.") Shog has nothing whatever to do with shaking, unless when Nym says to Pistol, "Will you shog off?" he may be said to have shaken him off. When the Tinker in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Coxcomb" says, "Come, prithee, let's shog off," what possible allusion to shaking is there, except, perhaps, to "shaking stumps"? The first jog and shog are identical in meaning and derivation, and may be traced, by whosoever ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... always conquered when she called him "Captain Anerley." He took it to point at him as a pretender, a coxcomb fond of titles, a would-be officer who took good care to hold aloof from fighting. And he knew in his heart that he loved to be called "Captain Anerley" by every one who ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... and inexperience make her more attractive? I am not sure, even, that they do not balance her self-reliance and independence, which certainly repel me. All this I did not dream of at first. I am not a scoundrel or a coxcomb. It came to me the other afternoon all at once, when she threw her arms about my neck. I have been selfish, and perhaps stupid. "Why not marry her?" you say. I have asked myself that question, and this is my answer: No passion in the world ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... for beer," cried the major radiantly. "Bedad, it's just the time for a quart of fourpinny. I remimber ould Gilder, when he was our chief in India, used to say that a man who got beyond enjoying beer and a clay pipe at a pinch was either an ass or a coxcomb. He smoked a clay at the mess table himself. Draper, who commanded the division, told him it was unsoldier-like. 'Unsoldier-like be demned,' he said. Ged, they nearly court-martialled the ould man for it. He got the V.C. at ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... stages of man's life during both eras are here contrasted in every gradation. Thus we have the child as he was, the child as he is, commencing his education, and his entry into manhood; the coxcomb and dissipated man of former times, and the man of the present era, following the road leading to his own happiness and the good of others; middle age—the man struggling to draw the load up the hill with painful efforts, the other ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... governments might be disliked, neither the Austrian soldier, nor the Prussian, nor even the Russian, made himself abhorred, employed his study in vexing the feelings of the people, had a perpetual sneer on his visage, or exhibited in his habits a perpetual affectation of that coxcomb superiority to all other human beings, that pert supremacy, that grotesque and yet irritating caricature, which makes the Moi, je suis Francais, a demand for universal adoration, the concentrated essence of absurdity, the poison-drop ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... hardly showed any real intimacy between them. And it was easy to see where the real authority lay. As for himself he had lately begun to ask himself seriously how much he was interested in Pamela. For in truth, though he was no coxcomb, he could not help seeing—all the more because of Pamela's variable moods towards him—that she was at least incipiently interested in him. If so, was it fair to her that they should correspond?—and that he ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... ladies' maids, who thought themselves far handsomer, and saw themselves infinitely better clad, and wondered how people could be so vulgar. A shuddering came over Emilius; he looked round for Roderick, but the latter had already run away from him again. An impertinent coxcomb, with a head pilloried in his high starched neck-cloth, a servant to one of the visitors, eager to show his wit, pressed up to Emilius, giggling, and cried: 'Now, your honour, what says your honour to this grand couple? They can neither of them ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... great man, flattery and envy are killing you; if you be poor, every one is trampling upon and despising you; after having become an inventor, if you exalt your head and seek for praise, you will be called a boaster and a coxcomb; if you lead a godly life and resort to the church and the altar, you will be called a hypocrite; if you do not, then you are an infidel or a heretic; if you be merry, you will be called a buffoon; if you are ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... accidents will happen,— suppose he makes a false step: down he comes on the middle of the stage, and the audience roars with laughter. For there is his mask, crumpled up, diadem and all, and his own bloody coxcomb showing underneath it; his legs are laid bare to the knees, and you see the dirty rags inside his fine robe, and the great lumbering buskins. Ha, ha, friend cock, have I learnt to turn a simile already? Well, there are my views on ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... "Trivia, or the Art of Walking the Streets of London," published in 1716, advises in passing a coxcomb— ...
— At the Sign of the Barber's Pole - Studies In Hirsute History • William Andrews
... to you, sufficiently, not to be suspicious and captious yourself, nor to suppose that things, because they may be, are therefore meant at you. The manners of well-bred people secure one from those indirect and mean attacks; but if, by chance, a flippant woman or a pert coxcomb lets off anything of that kind, it is much better not to seem to understand, than to reply ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... vanity; on this account he determined on a journey to Paris, when Paris was the center of politeness; he there learnt to dress, to dance, and to move his hands gracefully in conversation; and returned a most consummate coxcomb. But after a very few years he relapsed into rusticity ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... to the ambassador of Cappadocia. The imperial ambassador was not in waiting, but they found for Austria a good Judean representation. With great judgment his highness the Grand Duke had sent the most atheistic coxcomb to be found in Florence to represent, at the bar of impiety, the house of apostolic majesty, and the descendants of the pious, though high-minded, Maria Theresa. He was sent to humble the whole race of Austria before those grim ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... say that L'Isle is an impudent coxcomb. The most presumptuous fellow I know. I will find or make an occasion to give him ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... the man to books confined, Who from his study rails at human kind; Though what he learns he speaks, and may advance Some general maxims, or be right by chance. The coxcomb bird, so talkative and grave, That from his cage cries c**d, w**e, and knave, Though many a passenger he rightly call, You hold him no philosopher at all. And yet the fate of all extremes is such, Men may be read as well as books, too much. To observations which ourselves ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... not, You shall not have so much will to be wicked. I am more tender of your honour, Lady, And of your Age, you took me for a shadow; You took me to gloss over your discredit, To be your Fool, you had thought you had found a Coxcomb; I am innocent of any foul dishonour I mean to ye. Only I will be known to be your Lord now, And be a fair one too, or I ...
— Rule a Wife, and Have a Wife - Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (3 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... husband had hitherto looked on with seeming indifference, while lover after lover succeeded each other in his wife's favour. But even the Earl's long forbearance had its limits; and these were reached when he saw the insolent coxcomb, Buckingham, a man whom he had always detested, usurp his place. He screwed up his laggard manhood to the pitch of challenging the Duke to a duel, which took place one January morning in 1667, and of which Pepys tells ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... foolish, and naturally angry with Clarence for having led her into it, though he was quite without blame in the matter. She looked at him in his corner—he had taken the best corner, without consulting her inclinations—and thought him a vulgar coxcomb, which perhaps he was. But she would not have been so indignant except for that little bit of injured feeling, for which really, after all, he ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... need more trivial ills to quote, The freshly-furnished house that shines, The coxcomb's fashionable coat, Both brushed and polished "to the nines," Both yielding to some fatal flaw; A crack; a fiend who plays the flute; Both, both examples of the law ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 3, 1892 • Various
... traceable to Brougham's spite. Macaulay and Brougham met in a London street. The great Whig historian praised the Report. Brougham belittled it. 'The matter,' he averred, 'came from a felon, the style from a coxcomb, and the Dictator furnished only six letters, D-u-r-h-a-m.' The whole question has been carefully discussed by Stuart J. Reid in his Life and Letters of the First Earl of Durham, and the myth has been given its quietus. Even if direct external evidence ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan
... — N. fop, fine gentleman; swell; dandy, dandiprat^; exquisite, coxcomb, beau, macaroni, blade, blood, buck, man about town, fast man; fribble, milliner^; Jemmy Jessamy^, carpet knight; masher, dude. fine lady, coquette; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... have we here, villain?" and clutching at his victim, he raised the cane. Whereupon, with a serene and cheerful countenance, up rose the mighty form of Amyas Leigh, a head and shoulders above his tormentor, and that slate descended on the bald coxcomb of Sir Vindex Brimblecombe, with so shrewd a blow that slate and pate cracked at the same instant, and the poor pedagogue dropped to the floor, and ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... sent by the governor to conduct us to Chaco. This young man was the governor's son, by which means he obtained a command next in authority, upon this island, to his father. He ought to have been kept at school, for he was a vain empty coxcomb, much disliked by the people upon the island. After taking leave of the Jesuits, who, I imagine, were not sorry to be rid of us, after finding their expectations baulked, we set out, having about thirty soldiers on horseback to attend us. We rode about eight miles that night, when we came to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... meaning, who, being glad of so good an occasion of mirth, instead of a cup of sack and sugar for digestion, these men of little wit began to make inquiry and to search for the aforesaid fool, thinking it a deed of charity to ease him of so great a burden as his motley coxcomb was, and because such weak brains as are now resident almost in every place, might take benefit hereat. In ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... futilities. He chose to lay aside his hat and wear a scarlet fez of her embroidering; but by superficial observers this was necessarily liable to be interpreted less as a compliment to Lucy than as a mark of coxcombry. "Guest is a great coxcomb," young Torry observed; "but then he is a privileged person in St. Ogg's—he carries all before him; if another fellow did such things, everybody would say he made a fool ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... stores his memory with Taste and Grace, Purity and Delicacy, Manners and Unities, sounds which having been once uttered by those that understood them, have been since re-echoed without meaning, and kept up to the disturbance of the world by constant repercussion from one coxcomb to another. He considers himself as obliged to show by some proof of his abilities, that he is not consulted to no purpose, and therefore watches every opening for objection, and looks round for every opportunity to propose some specious alteration. Such opportunities a very ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... is confirmed, however, by the learned Spanheim, with the authority of medals, (see Commentaire, p. 156, 299, 397, 459.) Eusebius (Orat. c. 5) alleges, that Constantine dressed for the public, not for himself. Were this admitted, the vainest coxcomb could never ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... camelina.—The singular name of Coxcomb Prominent, was given to this moth from the crest on its thorax, which resembles that of a cock. The specific name was bestowed in consequence of two lobes on its upper wings, which it ...
— The Emperor's Rout • Unknown
... and never had. So much did Richard love his wife and so anxious was he to find her guiltless that he magnified every virtue and excused every error until the verdict rendered was in her favor, and Frank alone was the delinquent—Frank, the vain, conceited coxcomb, who thought because a woman was civil to him that she must needs wish to marry him; Frank, the wretch who had presumed to pity his cousin, and called her husband a clown! How Richard's fingers tingled with a desire to thrash ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... the beautiful Claudia was the envy of all the women, the handsome Vincent was not less the envy of all the men present. "Puppy"; "coxcomb"; "Jackanape"; "swell"; "Viscount, indeed! more probably some foreign blackleg or barber"; "It is perfectly ridiculous the manner in which American girls throw themselves under the feet of these titled foreign paupers," were some of the low-breathed blessings bestowed upon young ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... from the shore, it only appears that the shore also recedes; in life it is truly thus. He who retires from the world will find himself, in reality, deserted as fast, if not faster, by the world. The public is not to be treated as the coxcomb treats his mistress; to be threatened with desertion, in order ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... two or three adjuncts, as Peter Kipperson, a "march of intellect" man, Erpingham, one of Spoonbill's companions in debauchery, Ellen Fitzpatrick, one of his victims, Dr. Greendale's successor, Charles Pringle; and Zephaniah Pringle, a literary coxcomb of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Volume 12, No. 329, Saturday, August 30, 1828 • Various
... of the unfeminine folly of which fashionable society showed him many samples. Jo knew that 'young Laurence' was regarded as a most eligible parti by worldly mamas, was much smiled upon by their daughters, and flattered enough by ladies of all ages to make a coxcomb of him, so she watched him rather jealously, fearing he would be spoiled, and rejoiced more than she confessed to find that he still believed in modest girls. Returning suddenly to her admonitory tone, she said, ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... a way that implied to him a thorough recognition of its intention, made me believe, by the subtlest looks and phrases—feminine nothings which could never be quoted against her—that he was really the object of her secret ridicule; that she thought him, as I did, a coxcomb, whom she would have pleasure in disappointing. Me she openly petted in my brother's presence, as if I were too young and sickly ever to be thought of as a lover; and that was the view he took of me. But I believe she must inwardly ...
— The Lifted Veil • George Eliot
... the English residents who bring their horses to Venice. Giotto gives Stultitia a feather, cap, and club. In early manuscripts he is always eating with one hand, and striking with the other; in later ones he has a cap and bells, or cap crested with a cock's head, whence the word "coxcomb." ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... mistress is such that nothing but the evidence of my own senses can avail to shake it, I am fain to own circumstances appear fully to warrant them)—should these suspicions not prove unfounded, it is her falsehood alone that will darken the sunshine of my future life. Fleming, or any other coxcomb who had taken advantage of her fickleness, would be equally beneath my notice. But enough of this; where shall I be most likely to ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... forgive me!—my jealous wrath broke bounds and I cursed him for a beardless coxcomb who must needs think he stood alone in the eye of every woman he should meet. "She needs a man!" I raged, lost now to every sense of decent justice, "a man, I say! And to whom would she send if not ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... of a waltz. The English girl herself can hardly be blamed for this state of things. She has been brought up to think that marriage is the be-all and end-all of her existence. "For my part," writes the author of "Cecil, the Coxcomb," "I never blame them when I see them capering and showing off their little monkey-tricks, for conquest. The fault is none of theirs. It is part of an erroneous system." Lady Jeune expresses the orthodox English position when she asserts ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... Genius to grasp at too much. "A certain Magistrate (says Bruyere) arriving, by his Merit, to the first Dignities of the Gown, thought himself qualified for every Thing. He printed a Treatise of Morality, and published himself a Coxcomb." Universal Genij and universal Scholars are generally excellent at nothing. He is certainly the wisest Man, who endeavours to be perfectly furnished for some Business, and regards other Matters as no more ...
— 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation • Aaron Hill
... let us beware of applying to Macaulay himself that tone of exaggeration and laborious antithesis which he so often applied to others. Boswell, he says, was immortal, "because he was a dunce, a parasite, and a coxcomb." It would be a feeble parody to retort that Macaulay became a great literary power "because he had no philosophy, little subtlety, and a heavy hand." For my part, I am slow to believe that the judgment of the whole English-speaking race, a judgment maintained over more than ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... taken with his name and standing. But with all his quickness of feeling, his manners were easy and courteous, simply because his nature was warm and kindly, and with all his natural fastidiousness there was nothing of the coxcomb about him. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... of what they wear, Put off at night, with Lady B——'s hair. What bodily fatigue is half so bad? With anxious care they labour to be glad. What numbers, here, would into fame advance, Conscious of merit, in the coxcomb's dance; The tavern! park! assembly! mask! and play! Those dear destroyers of the tedious day! That wheel of fops! that saunter of the town! Call it diversion, and the pill goes down. Fools grin on fools, and, ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... occasion? Now, she appears affected, and then again, she is the most unmindful woman in the world in spite of all you do to please her. She listens willingly and replies gaily to the gallant speeches and bold conversation of a certain Chevalier, a professional coxcomb, but to you she speaks seriously and with a preoccupied air. If you take on a tender and affectionate tone, she replies flippantly, or perhaps changes the subject. All this intimidates you, troubles you, and drives ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... coxcomb; but held myself in, and asked to see La Valentinois, adding that my affair was of vital import. At this Crequy began to hum and haw, and I had to humour him, telling him that madame would give him but small thanks for denying me, as my business concerned ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... applause. Now, warmed with malice, envy, spite, Their most obliging friends they bite; And, fond to copy human ways, Practise new mischiefs all their days. Thus the dull lad, too tall for school. With travel finishes the fool: Studious of every coxcomb's airs, He gambles, dresses, drinks, and swears; O'er looks with scorn all virtuous arts, For vice is fitted to ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... an answer so little to his mind, was almost bursting with rage. "Proceed with caution!" he cried. "You talk as if the thing could be entertained, or as if I had cause to fear the coxcomb! On the contrary, I intend to teach him a lesson a little confinement will cool his temper. You must give me a letter, my friend, and we will clap him in the Bastille for ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... wanting to him. He had, indeed, a quick observation and a retentive memory. These qualities, if he had been a man of sense and virtue, would scarcely of themselves have sufficed to make him conspicuous; but, because he was a dunce, a parasite, and a coxcomb, they ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... Phlox Drummondii, Double Petunias, Pansies, Double Sweet Alyssum, Double White Pyrethrum, Dwarf Ageratum, Verbenas, Salvias, Double Stocks, Celosias (Coxcomb). ...
— Your Plants - Plain and Practical Directions for the Treatment of Tender - and Hardy Plants in the House and in the Garden • James Sheehan
... are an impertinent young coxcomb, sir," cried the doctor indignantly. "Hideous, indeed! ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... the reader suppose that he was either a superannuated coxcomb or a driveling dotard. He was a man of sense and feeling, but his passion for Julia had, for the time, changed all his manner and habits.—He saw that she was a young and lovely woman, about to give herself to the arms of a man thrice ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... bade him begone. Faulkner, perceiving the error he had committed, instantly returned home, and resuming his usual dress, again went to the Dean, when he was very cordially received. "Ah, George," said he, "I am so glad to see you, for here has been an impudent coxcomb, bedizened in silks and gold lace, who wanted to pass himself off for you; but I soon sent the fellow about his business; for I knew you to be always a plain dressed and honest man, just as ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... that he can't believe. 'For my part, child, I have made myself easy in those points.' The character of a free-thinking exquisite is drawn from life without exaggeration, but with more than a touch of the bitter contempt Addison felt for the atheistic coxcomb, with whom he was too ready to confound the sincere questioner of orthodox opinion. The only passages of his in the 'Spectator' that border on intolerance are those in which he deals with the free-thinker; ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... Murther's a horrible Sin Of one Handsome without, tho' a Coxcomb within; For not being a Beau, the sad Fate of poor Crab, Tho' himself hang'd for Love, was a Jest to each Drab; Then may Jering live long, And may Risby among The Fair with Jack Barkley, and Culpepper throng: May no Ruffin whose Heart as hard as a Stone ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... no man is less a coxcomb with regard to women than I am," Lord Mowbray modestly began; "but if I were inclined to boast, I believe it is pretty generally allowed in town, by all who know any thing of these things, that my practice in gallantry has been somewhat successful—perhaps ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... me a totally different personage, and I marvelled at the power of transformation owned by a few yards of cloth cut after a certain pattern. The spirit of my costume penetrated my very skin and within ten minutes more I had become something of a coxcomb. ...
— Clarimonde • Theophile Gautier
... is there they will not choose, If only you will but oppose their choice?) Till Beppo should return from his long cruise, And bid once more her faithful heart rejoice, A man some women like, and yet abuse— A Coxcomb was he by the public voice; A Count of wealth, they said as well as quality, And in his pleasures of ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... "The prim coxcomb with an enormous bag, whose favours, like those of Hercules between Virtue and Vice, are contended for by two rival orange girls, gives an admirable idea of the dress of the day; when, if we may judge ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... dedication of his poems to the Duke of Dorset; Johnson's Life of Dorset; Dryden's Essay on Satire, and Dedication of the Essay on Dramatic Poesy. The affection of Dorset for his wife and his strict fidelity to her are mentioned with great contempt by that profligate coxcomb Sir George Etherege in his letters from Ratisbon, Dec. 9/19 1687, and Jan. 16/26 1688; Shadwell's Dedication of the Squire of Alsatia; Burnet, i. 264.; Mackay's Characters. Some parts of Dorset's character are well touched in his ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... extravagant Coxcomb, that will spend his Fortune before he comes to't; but he shall pay swinging Interest, and so let the Fool go on—Well, what do's ...
— The Busie Body • Susanna Centlivre
... ejaculated she. A beautiful but silly woman complained to her of the persistency of her lovers. "You have only to open your mouth and speak, to get rid of their importunities," was the pungent answer. She effectually silenced a coxcomb, who aimed to annoy her by saying, "Oh! wit runs in the street nowadays," by the retort, "Too fast for fools to catch it, however." Of Madeleine Guimard, the fascinating dancer, who was exceedingly thin, Sophie said one ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... familiarity of our equals disgusted us—our potentiality was gone, and we were so much degraded that a puppy of a fellow had the impertinence to ask Jenny if she was going to one of the Old Ship balls. "Of course," said the coxcomb, "I don't mean the 'Almacks,' for they ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 380, July 11, 1829 • Various
... anything about it?'inquired the old lady indignantly. 'Miller's a conceited coxcomb, and you may tell him I said so.' Saying which, the old lady, quite unconscious that she had spoken above a whisper, drew herself up, and looked carving-knives ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... but little amends that they will be beauties."—"Madam," answered Adams, "with the utmost submission to your ladyship, I have been informed by lawyer Scout that any person who serves a year gains a settlement in the parish where he serves."—"Lawyer Scout," replied the lady, "is an impudent coxcomb; I will have no lawyer Scout interfere with me. I repeat to you again, I will have no more incumbrances brought on us: so I desire you will proceed no farther."—"Madam," returned Adams, "I would obey your ladyship in everything that is lawful; but surely the parties being poor is ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... him in the sand shall vouchsafe to take notice of him; then they rise unwillingly, and giving back enlarge the coffee-circle to receive him. But if there arrive a sheykh, a coffee-host, a richard amongst them of a few cattle, all the coxcomb companions within will hail him with their pleasant adulation taad ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... the act of a true friend to Rossetti's memory to pretend that these drawings, of which for the next ten or fifteen years he continued to produce a great number, were without faults of a nature which any coxcomb could perceive, or without eccentricities which an untrained eye might easily mistake for faults; but this does not in the least militate against the fact that in two great departments of the painter's faculty, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... secret insinuations, and make them known with equal certainty as by the open discovery of them, it is certain that their influence is not equally strong and powerful. One who lashes me with concealed strokes of satire, moves not my indignation to such a degree, as if he flatly told me I was a fool and coxcomb; though I equally understand his meaning, as if he did. This difference is to be attributed to the influence of ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... ago, his lordship, walking into a coffee-house, and taking up the evening paper, began poring over its paragraphs. A coxcomb in an adjoining box, who had frequently called to the waiter for the paper, walked over to Lord Camelford's box, and, seeing him lay down the paper for the moment while he was sipping his coffee, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... gone, when my thoughts reverted to Emily Bingham. I was not such a coxcomb as to fancy her in love with me; yet certainly there was something in the affair which looked not unlike it; and though, by such a circumstance, every embarrassment which pressed upon me had become infinitely greater, I could not dissemble from ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... I shall not be considered an overweening coxcomb for saying that, on the whole, I found more favor with the ladies than with the gentlemen; especially ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... Solmes is a coarse man. He is not delicate enough for your niceness; because I suppose he dresses not like a fop and a coxcomb, and because he lays not himself out in complimental nonsense, the poison of female minds. He is a man of sense, that I can tell you. No man talks more to the purpose to us: but you fly him so, that he has no opportunity given him, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... heartless; for, suppose Jules 45 a coxcomb as much as you choose, still, for this mere coxcombry, you will have brushed off—what do folks style it?—the ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... she? Ask the son of Job. She's an adulteress. Married but a few weeks ago to the brave old son of Job, her parents' friend, she deceives him with a young coxcomb, the hussy!" ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... all this was in agitation, there enters a solicitor from Newgate, desiring Lord Peter would please to procure a pardon for a thief that was to be hanged to-morrow. But the two brothers told him he was a coxcomb to seek pardons from a fellow who deserved to be hanged much better than his client, and discovered all the method of that imposture in the same form I delivered it a while ago, advising the solicitor to put his friend upon obtaining a pardon from the king. ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... touched up the newest stranger—the lion of the day, the gorgeous journeyman tailor from Quincy. He was a simpering coxcomb of the first water, and the "loudest" dressed man in the State. He was an inveterate woman-killer. Every week he wrote lushy "poetry" for the Journal, about his newest conquest. His rhymes for my week were headed, "TO MARY IN H—L," meaning to Mary in Hannibal, of course. But ...
— Editorial Wild Oats • Mark Twain
... suffered him to be so much with her if he had conceived the least suspicion of the kind. The King persisted, and told him he was wrong to endeavour to conceal a fact which was unquestionable. It was rumoured, also, that the Abbe de Bernis had been a favoured lover of hers. The said Abbe was rather a coxcomb; he had a handsome face, and wrote poetry. Madame de Pompadour was the theme of his gallant verses. He sometimes received the compliments of his friends upon his success with a smile which left some room for conjecture, although he denied ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... 'Sure, of all blockheads, scholars are the worst.' BOSWELL. Johnson's meaning, however, is, that a scholar who is a blockhead must be the worst of all blockheads, because he is without excuse. But Bramston, in the assumed character of an ignorant coxcomb, maintains that all scholars are blockheads on account of their scholarship. J. BOSWELL, JUN. There is, I believe, a Spanish proverb to the effect that, 'to be an utter fool a man must know Latin.' A writer in Notes and Queries (5th S. xii. 285) suggests that ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... people in favour of things, persons, and wares of all kinds that come from England. The printer tells his hawkers that he has got "an excellent new song just brought from London." I have somewhat of a tendency that way myself; and upon hearing a coxcomb from thence displaying himself with great volubility upon the park, the playhouse, the opera, the gaming ordinaries, it was apt to beget in me a kind of veneration for his parts and accomplishments. 'Tis not many years, since I remember a person who by his style and literature seems ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... the enemy is an ass, and a fool, and a prating coxcomb, is it meet, think you, that we should also, look you, be an ass, and a fool, and a prating coxcomb, in your own ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... heiress, once, of Bowdale Hall, A lovely lass, I knew— A Dandy paid his morning call, All dizen'd out to woo. I heard his suit the Coxcomb ply; I heard her answer—"No;" A true love knot he ne'er could tie, Who could not ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 184, May 7, 1853 • Various
... was something else; By the Lord Harry I can't forbear laughing at the Coxcomb, Ha, ha, ha; He told me, Ha, ha, ha, that one Summerfield, a very honest Fellow as ever liv'd, is grown exceeding familiar ...
— The City Bride (1696) - Or The Merry Cuckold • Joseph Harris
... answered, "such a villain helps but for absurd benefits. Mr. Gering might have stayed with Monsieur Iberville in honour and safety at least. And why a coxcomb? You thought different once; and you cannot doubt his bravery. Enemy of our country though he be, I am surely bound to speak him well—he saved ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... conquests. With this view he frequented public walks, concerts, and assemblies, became remarkably rich and fashionable in his clothes, gave entertainments to the ladies, and was in the utmost hazard of turning out a most egregious coxcomb. ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... He had nourished his experience on French novels; he had corrected it by various friendships; he had crowned it with the confession that one could never tell what the sex meant one way or the other. But this fact remained—he was a coxcomb, and, whenever he owned himself puzzled, it was on a single ground only—how seriously was the lady at stake affected by his charms? Feeling, as he did, the infinite inequality that existed between men, and conscious of his own reputation as a leader ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... in looking back over the book of my memory, that I can find no page therein which is not overwritten with the name of some pretty girl. And though I will not be such a coxcomb as to assert that I was always favored by any fair upon whom it might please me to cast an approving eye, yet I must needs admit that I found a great deal of favor. This I attribute largely to a merry disposition and a ready desire to please, together with a very genial indifference if, by ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... irregular; Where woods and palaces at once surprise, Gardens on gardens, domes on domes arise, And endless beauties tire the wand'ring eyes; So sooth my wishes, or so charm my mind, As this retreat secure from human kind. No knave's successful craft does spleen excite, No coxcomb's tawdry splendour shocks my sight; No mob-alarm awakes my female fear, No praise my mind, nor envy hurts my ear, Ev'n fame itself can hardly reach me here: Impertinence with all her tattling train, Fair-sounding flattery's delicious bane; Censorious folly, noisy party-rage The ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... for him, and three hundred and sixty-five suits of clothes: so many suits, all pictured in a Book; a valet enters every morning, proposes a suit, which, after deliberation, with perhaps amendments, is acceded to, and worn at dinner. Vainest of human clothes-horses; foolishest coxcomb Valori has seen: it is visibly his notion that it was he, Bruhl, by his Saxon auxiliaries, by his masterly strokes of policy, that checkmated Friedrich, and drove him from Bohemia last Year; and, for the rest, that Friedrich is ruined, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... were scarce, The raw, unpractised authors could, with ease, A young and unexperienced audience please: No single character had e'er been shown, But the whole herd of fops was all their own; Rich in originals, they set to view, In every piece, a coxcomb that was new. But now our British theatre can boast Drolls of all kinds, a vast, unthinking host! 10 Fruitful of folly and of vice, it shows Cuckolds, and cits, and bawds, and pimps, and beaux; Rough country knights are found of every shire; Of every fashion gentle fops appear; And ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville |
