There were wise men and self-deluded fools, manly, well-bred men, and effeminate, conceited coxcombs, who wore stays and did up their back hair, used paint, and daubed their cheeks with violet powder.

There are 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 first order.

Sir Thomas was a weak, vain, conceited coxcomb, who delighted in boasting of his conquests over women, and what was often owing to his fortune, and station in life, he imputed to his address, and the elegance of his manner, of both which he was totally destitute.

But the experience of centuries should likewise have taught men, that the said father-confessors are no objects of envy; that their temptations to become spiritual coxcombs (the worst species of all coxcombs), if not intriguers, bullies, and worse, are so extreme, that the soul which is proof against them must be either very great, or very small indeed.

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.

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.

Not many years ago, with all of them; not many months ago, with some; those brilliant and titled coxcombs were adventurers like yourself, having barely a Jacobus in their purses, and scarce credit for board and lodging with their respective landladies.

[1023] In like manner Wesley said of Rousseau:'Sure a more consummate coxcomb never saw the sun....

In this play he is said to have drawn, or to use the modern cant, taken off, some of the cotemporary coxcombs; and Mr. Dryden, in an Epilogue to it, has endeavoured to remove the suspicion of personal satire, and says, that the character of Flutter is meant to ridicule none in particular, but the whole fraternity of finished fops, the idolaters of new fashions.

Bonaparte had never mastered the art of flattering women in the light, frivolous style of the fashionable coxcomb; and when he attempted it his compliments were frequently of so unusual and startling a character that they might just as well contain an affront as a tribute of eulogy.

At first she dislikes Benedick, and thinks him a flippant conceited coxcomb; but overhearing a conversation between her cousin Hero and her gentlewoman, in which Hero bewails that Beatrice should trifle with such deep love as that of Benedick, and should scorn so true and good a gentleman, she cries, "Sits the wind thus?

Shadwell, an acute observer of nature, in one of his comedies describes a formal coxcomb of this class, who courts his mistress out of the "Grand Cyrus," and rejoices in an opportunity of showing, that his passion could subsist in despite of her scorn.

That the winsome little minx had her legion of lovers from the day she set foot in Marseilles, at the age of thirteen, we know; but it was not until Frèron came on the scene that her volatile little heart was touchedFrèron, the handsome coxcomb and arch-revolutionary, who was sent to Marseilles as a Commissioner of the Convention.

"He's not worth the trouble you take for himthe addle-headed, ill-tempered coxcomb," said Mark.

Some idle coxcombs, vain Of the nice conduct of a clouded cane, amuse themselves with switching off their lovely heads.

[Sidney is] a complete intellectual coxcomb, or nearly so;" and so forth.

What intolerable coxcombs we should all be if we were perfect, and could sit admiring ourselves for ever and ever!"

Come, you are such a jealous coxcomb: I warrant you suspect there's some amour between 'em; there can be nothing in't, it is so open: Pray observe.

how Sir J. Minnes, like a mad coxcomb, did swear and stamp, swearing that Commissioner Pett hath still the old heart against the King that ever he had, ... and all the damnable reproaches in the world, at which I was ashamed, but said little;

Of Othello, I need 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!

Homer, Iliad, i. BRISK, a good-natured conceited coxcomb, with a most voluble tongue.

The Due de Broglie seems to be a pedantic coxcomb.

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.

245, 363; pension, ii. 317; on public speaking, ii. 139; Junius, suspected to be, iii. 376, n. 4; Parliamentary Logick, i. 518; satisfactory coxcomb, describes a, iii. 245, n. 1; 'Single-speech,' i. 489, n, 4; Warton, Dr., letter to, i. 519; mentioned, iv. 1, n. 1, 159, n. 3, 344.

The pride in a garden laid out under one's own directions and partly cultivated by one's own hand has been alluded to as in some degree unworthy of the dignity of manhood, not only by mere men of the world, or silly coxcombs, but by people who should have known better.