1705–1707. Ward, Hudibras Redivivus, vol. II., pt. iv., p. 5. There’s no resisting Female Force, Grey mare will prove the better Horse.
1717. Prior, Epilogue to Mrs. Manley’s Lucius. As long as we have eyes, or hands, or breath, We’ll look, or write, or talk you all to death. Yield, or she-Pegasus will gain her course, And the grey mare will prove the better horse.
1719. Durfey, Pills, etc., p. 240. For the grey mare has proved the better horse.
1738. Swift, Polite Convers., dial. 3. I wish she were married; but I doubt the gray mare would prove the better horse.
1748. Smollett, Rod. Random, ch. xix. By the hints they dropped, I learned the gray mare was the better horse—that she was a matron of a high spirit. [[200]]
1819. Macaulay, Hist. England. The vulgar proverb, that the grey mare is the better horse, originated, I suspect, in the preference generally given to the grey mares of Flanders over the finest coach horses of England.
1883. G. A. S[ala], in Illustr. London News, 14 Apr., p. 359, c. 2. She [Mrs. Romford], did not over-accentuate either her strong-mindedness or her jealousy of her flighty husband; but she let him and the audience unmistakably know that she was in all respects the grey mare in the Romford stable.
Gray-parson (or Gray-coat parson), subs. (old).—A lay impropriator, or lessee of tithes.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, grey parson, s.v. A farmer who rents the tythes of the rector or vicar.
1830 in Cobbett’s Rural Rides, vol. I., p. 123 note (ed. 1886). The late editor says, that, having been a large holder of lay tithes, the author applied to Mr. Nicholls, the name of the grey-coated parson.