> as lemmas

1624 T. Heywood Γυναικεῖον ix. 456 Pallas, and potent Iuno, he despis'd, Leauing the good, and great, to chuse the faire.

1667 J. Caryll Eng. Princess ii. vi. 22 Let all in Heaven and Earth, who sacred be, The great, and good, be Witnesses for me.

1683 A. Littleton tr. Plutarch Life Pericles in J. Dryden et al. tr. Plutarch Lives I. 541 Fellows..who..with their reproaches and evil speeches sacrifice the reputations of their Superiours, the Great and the Good, to the envy and spite of the Rabble.

1696 T. Sprat Disc. Ld. Bp. of Rochester to Clergy 33 Has it not been always found, by Experience, that a flattering Tongue is so far from increasing the Virtues of the Good, and the Great, that it rather serves to deprave the real Worth they might have before?

1715 A. Pope Let. 16 Jan. in Corr. (1956) I. 274 I think nothing more honourable, than to be involved in the same fate with all the great and the good that ever lived; that is, to be envy'd and censur'd by bad writers.

1724 L. Welsted Epist., Odes &c. 56 When to the Shades the Great and Good are born, The Shades rejoice, the while the Living mourn.

1746 M. Clancy Hermon Prince of Choræa v. i. 88 The good, and great Are Heav'n's peculiar Care.

1790 A. Christie Let. 20 May in R. Price Corr. (1994) III. 295 You..had mett with more solid and universal applause, from the Good and the Great, than falls to the lot of most, even the best of Men.

1821 Brit. Critic Aug. 122 The work which they effected far exceeded in virtue the sober and solemn act of the good and great.

1854 G. Bancroft Hist. Amer. Revol. III. xxvii. 552 Franklin when he died, had nations for his mourners, and the great and the good throughout the world as his eulogists.

1906 Christian Reg. (Boston) 17 May 543/2 The great and good who have spent their opening manhood at Oxford.

1938 A. E. Bostwick in E. G. Lockhart My Vocation 218 When one has not only his own ideas to purvey but those of the good and great of all ages.

1964 S. Brittan Treasury under Tories ii. 58 The book of the ‘Great and the Good’..is the list of worthy, public-spirited citizens from whom members of Royal Commissions and other government Committees are chosen.

1995 M. Amis Information (1996) 40 The kind of ex-public schoolboy who..did some drug-impaired carpenting or gardening for the good and the great.

2011 Independent 24 May 32/2 But no measure of woe will ever prevent the great and the good of the small-cap sector having a good old knees-up.