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

John Gay

Beloved … like a plant whose leaf and bud and blossom are all beautiful.

Bite like pepper.

Blesses, like the dews of Heaven.

Brisk as a bottled ale.

Brown as the hearth of a kitchen fire.

Clean as a [new] penny.

Cool as a cucumber.

Dull as a post.

Fond as a bride.

Friendship, like love, is but a name,
Unless to one you stint the flame.—
The child whom many fathers share,
Hath seldom known a father’s care.
’Tis thus in friendship; who depend
On many, rarely find a friend.

Glow … like Laura’s cheek when blushes rise.

Happy as a king.

Keen as a razor.

Light as the feather on the head of beaux.

Lulling as falling water’s hollow noise.

Princes, like beauties, from their youth
Are strangers to the voice of Truth.

Ripe as the melting cluster.

Round as the globe.

Secret as a confessor.

Sleek as a mouse.

Smooth as glass.

Soft as the breath of distant flutes at hours
When silent evening closes up the flowers.

Soft as when Venus stroked the beard of Jove.

Sound as a roach.

Swell like bubbles, shine and break.

Unmerciful as the billows.

Virgins are like the fair flow’r in its lustre,
Which in the garden enamels the ground,
Near it the bees in play flutter and cluster,
And gaudy butterflies frolic around.
But when once plucked ’tis no longer alluring,
To Convent-garden ’tis sent (as yet sweet),
There fades and shrinks, and grows past all enduring,
Rots, stinks, and dies and is trod under feet.

Warm as toast.

Warm as the zeal of youth when first inspired.

Whimpers like a lowing cow.

Willing as a turtle.

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