embellish vs gild the lily

embellish

verb
  • To make something sound or look better or more acceptable than it is in reality; to distort, to embroider. 

  • To make more beautiful and attractive by adding ornamentation; to decorate. 

  • To enhance by adding something not strictly integral or necessary. 

gild the lily

verb
  • To embellish or improve something unnecessarily. 

  • To add superfluous attributes to something. 

How often have the words embellish and gild the lily occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )