Talk:the plot thickens

The phrase "the plot thickens" dates at least to 1693:

• John Locke (1693) Some Thoughts on Education, p. 116.

http://books.google.com/books?id=OCUCAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA116#v=onepage&q&f=false

• (Anon.) (1702) Poems on Affairs of State: From the time of Oliver Cromwell, to the Abdication of K. James the Second. … , 4th ed., p. 88 ("The Hind and the Panther Travers'd" by Charles Montagu, Earl of Halifax)

http://books.google.com/books?id=LeM4AQAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA88#v=onepage&q&f=false

• (Anon.) (1704) The Anthenian Oracle … , vol. iii, p. 156.

http://books.google.com/books?id=4QsUAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA156#v=onepage&q&f=false

• (Anon.) (1707) Glossographia Anglicana nova, or, A dictionary, interpreting such hard words of whatever language … , the pages of this book are not numbered, so see the entry for "epitasis".

http://books.google.com/books?id=0EdWAAAAYAAJ&pg=PT188#v=onepage&q&f=false

The phrase probably antedates even 1693, since it was used in the fourth edition of The Hind and the Panther Travers'd.

As I suspected, the poem The Hind and the Panther Travers'd by Matthew Prior & Charles Montagu, Earl of Halifax, dates to 1687. The poem is a parody of "The City Mouse and the Country Mouse". The quote is: "But now, Gentlemen, the Plot thickens, here comes my t'other Mouse, the City Mouse."

In the play The Rehearsal (1671) by George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, during Act III, sc. iv, the character Bayes says: "Ay, now the Plot thickens very much upon us."

Cwkmail (talk) 20:58, 21 January 2014 (UTC)