show-box

To a show-box of the temple overlooking the Piazza;

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 27, January, 1860 Various

A show-box of a room, papered with select wood-cuts from _Punch_ and the _Illustrated London News_, was the grand banquet-hall of the castle.

Acadia or, A Month with the Blue Noses Frederic S. Cozzens

Viridarium, too, -- and _omne quod exit in um_: but you will not thereby produce a good dwelling-house; far from it, you will have a show-box fit for Cockneys to come and gape at: but nothing else.

Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 Various

Those clear eyes of yours are never to look up into the face of the Eternal Father; the show-box of the Church must content them, with Mary and the saints seen through its dusty glass, -- the august figure of the Son, who sometimes reproved his mother, crowded quite out of sight behind the woman, whom it is so much easier to dress up and exhibit.

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 04, No. 22, August, 1859 Various

It was a toy, a plaything, a show-box, in which the gods seemed pleased to keep the representation of the great monarchy of earth, and which they afterwards hid from time, to give to the wonder of posterity -- the moral of the maxim, that under the sun there is nothing new.

The World's Greatest Books — Volume 06 — Fiction Various 1909

At first everyone was sure that he had; but when we came to look, he was there, under the show-box, dead too.

A Thin Ghost and Others 1899

It was just such a head as that, that I, from my somewhat higher post, saw in the inside of the show-box; but at first the audience did not see it.

A Thin Ghost and Others 1899

The whole show-box fell over backwards; kicking legs were seen among the ruins, and then two figures -- as some said; I can only answer for one -- were visible running at top speed across the square and disappearing in a lane which leads to the fields.

A Thin Ghost and Others 1899

You have heard enough, and if ever you looked into a show-box, seen full sufficient of this gaudy spectacle, without my enlarging upon the topic.

Dreams Waking Thoughts and Incidents Beckford, William 1891

Honest soul! thou didst look into it with as much innocency of heart as ever child looked into a raree show-box; and 'twere as much a sin to have hurt thee.

The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II Various 1887