1662. Rump Songs, ii. 44. If Monesk be turn'd Scot, The Rump goes to pot, And the good Old cause will miscarry.
1665. Head, English Rogue (1874), 1. x. 77. We will make his Till spring a leak for it, or his Goods go to Pot, and break him at last.
1680. Dryden, Prol. to Univ., Oxford, 15 (Globe, 443). Then all you heathen wits shall go to pot For disbelieving of a Popish plot.
1686. Higden, On Tenth Satire of Juvenal, 13. The Founder's fournace grows red-hot—Sejanus Statue goes to pot.
1712. Arbuthnot, Hist. of John Bull, 1. vi. John's ready money, book debts, bonds, mortgages, all went into the lawyers' pockets. Then John began to borrow money on Bank Stock, East India Bonds: and now and then a farm went to pot.
1771. Smollett, Humphry Clinker, 61. We went by sea to another kingdom, called Fife, and, coming back, had like to have gone to pot in a storm.
1772. Bridges, Burlesque Homer, 31. Mother, since I'm to go to pot, And must be either hang'd or shot.
1840. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends, 'Merchant of Venice.' "In the first place you know all the money I've got, Time and often, from now has been long gone to pot."
1889. Cornhill Mag., July, 46. For the potato is really going to pot . . . Constitutional disease and the Colorado beetle have preyed too long upon its delicate organism.
Colloquialisms are:—A pot (or pitcher) oft sent to the well is broken at last = the inevitable must happen: see Pitcher, subs. 1; to agree like pot and kettle = to wrangle: see Black-arse; as like as one pot's like another = very like indeed; A little pot is soon hot = (1) a little suffices, and (2) little people (or minds) are soon angered (B. E., c.1696); to make the pot boil (or keep the pot boiling) = (1) to provide necessaries, and (2) to keep things going: Fr. (artists') faire du métier: see Pot-boiler; to make a pot with two ears = to set the arms akimbo; to put on the pot = (1) see Pot, subs., (2) = to overcharge, (3) = to exaggerate, (4) = to bully, (5) = to snub, or patronise (also to put on the big pot): see Pot, subs. 4, and (6) = to provide the necessaries of life; to put on the pot = to banish, to extinguish; to make a pot at = to grimace; to make pots and pans = 'to spend freely, then beg' (Bee, 1823); to give moonshine in a mustard-pot = to give nothing (Ray, 1670); 'If you touch pot, you must touch penny = 'You must pay for what you have.' Also see Piss, Pot-and-pan, Old Pod, Pot-shot, Pot-hat, Honey-pot, &c.
1481. Reynard the Foxe [Percy Soc.]. A pot may goo so longe to water that at last it cometh to-broken hoom.
1535. Coverdale, Bible, Eccles. xiii. How agree the ketell and the pot together.
1546. Heywood, Proverbs, s.v. Little pot, soone hot.
1593. Shakspeare, Tam. of Shrew, iv. 1, 5. Now, were I not a little pot and soon hot.
1661. Heylin, Hist. Reformation, 212. So poor that it is hardly able to keep the pot boiling for a parson's dinner.
1678. Cotton, Scarronides, 236. See what a goodly port she bears, Making the pot with the two ears.
1812. Coombe, Dr. Syntax, 1. xxiii. No fav'ring patrons have I got, But just enough to boil the pot.
1836. Dickens, Pickwick, xxx. Mr. Pickwick . . . went slowly and gravely down the slide . . ."Keep the pot a bilin', sir!" said Sam; and down went Wardle . . . Mr. Pickwick, and then Sam, . . . following closely upon each other's heels.
