14. A common rendezvous of the rakes and bullies of the time; "For when they expected the most polished hero in Nemours, I gave them a ruffian reeking from Whetstone's Park." Dedication to Lee's "Princess of Cleves." In his translation of Ovid's "Love Elegies," Lib. II, Eleg. XIX. Dryden mentions, "an easy Whetstone whore." EPILOGUE. SPOKEN BY LIMBERHAM. I beg a boon, that, ere you all disband, Some one would take my bargain off my hand: To keep a punk is but a common evil; To find her false, and marry,--that's the devil. Well, I ne'er acted part in all my life, But still I was fobbed off with some such wife. I find the trick; these poets take no pity Of one that is a member of the city. We cheat you lawfully, and in our trades; You cheat us basely with your common jades. Now I am married, I must sit down by it; But let me keep my dear-bought spouse in quiet. Let none of you damned Woodalls of the pit, Put in for shares to mend our breed in wit; We know your bastards from our flesh and blood, Not one in ten of yours e'er comes to good. In all the boys, their fathers' virtues shine, But all the female fry turn Pugs--like mine. When these grow up, Lord, with what rampant gadders Our counters will be thronged, and roads with padders! This town two bargains has, not worth one farthing,-- A Smithfield horse, and wife of Covent-Garden[1]. Footnote: 1. Alluding to an old proverb, that whoso goes to Westminster for a wife, to St Paul's for a man, and to Smithfield for a horse, may meet with a whore, a knave, and a jade. Falstaff, on being informed that Bardolph is gone to Smithfield to buy him a horse, observes, "I bought him in Paul's, and he'll buy me a horse in Smithfield; an I could get me but a wife in the stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived." _Second Part of Henry IV._ Act I. Scene II. * * * * * OEDIPUS. A TRAGEDY. _Hi proprium decus et partum indignantur honorem, Ni teneant--_ VIRG. _Vos exemplaria Graeca Nocturna versate manu, versate diurna._ HORAT. OEDIPUS.