> as lemmas

1592 T. Nashe Pierce Penilesse (Brit. Libr. copy) sig. G [If certain people walked instead of riding] the price of veluet and cloath would fall..and the gentle craft (alias the red herrings kinsmen) get more & drink lesse.

1599 George a Greene sig. F4^v You shall be no more called Shoomakers. But you and yours to the worlds ende, Shall be called the trade of the gentle craft.

1688 R. Holme Acad. Armory iii. 99/1 A Man on a Seat [sc. a Shooe-maker]..exercising of the Gentle Craft.

1725 Weekly Jrnl., or Brit. Gazetteer 25 Sept. This is to give Notice to all the Gentle Craft, that on Tuesday the 28th of this Instant, at the Sign of the Haunch of Venison,..will be a Turn'd Pump to be seen.

1828 Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. 24 259/1 Then for the Preserve in which he angles—in all things worthy of such a master of the gentle craft! Call not one—anyone—of the sweet-running waters of England tame.

1844 J. T. J. Hewlett Parsons & Widows I. i. 9 One of the gentle craft—so called, I presume, from their using gentles in their art.

1850 J. G. Whittier Songs of Labor & Other Poems 18 Ho! workers of the old time styled The Gentle Craft of Leather.

1894 Irish Monthly Nov. 608 Bygone days by stream and loch..pursuing the gentle craft which erst gladdened the hearts of dear old Izaak Walton and his boon-companion, Charles Cotton.

1937 Times 4 Oct. 15/4 Indeed the practice of the gentle craft [i.e. shoemaking] is less likely to produce men of action than men of thought.