Devil looking Over Lincoln. (The)

Sir W. Scott in his Kenilworth has, “Like the Devil looking over Lincoln.” A correspondent of Notes and Queries, September 10th, 1892, says—

“The famous devil that used to overlook Lincoln College, in Oxford, was taken down (Wednesday, September 15th, 1731), having about two years since [previously] lost his head in a storm.”—Gentleman’s Magazine, 1831, p. 402.

⁂ We have other similar phrases, as “The devil looking over Durham.”

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.