When Agrippina poisons Claudius' son, That all the world to her own brat might run; When the husband gapes that his stale wife would die That he might once be in by courtesy; 131 The big-paunch'd wife longs for her loath'd mate's death, That she might have more jointures here on earth; When tenure for short years (by many a one) Is thought right good be[452] turn'd forth Littleton, All to be heady, or freehold at least, When 'tis all one, for long life be a beast, A slave, as have a short-term'd tenancy; When dead's the strength of England's yeomanry; When inundation of luxuriousness 140 Fats all the world with such gross beastliness:-- Who can abstain? What modest brain can hold, But he must make his shame-faced muse a scold? [442] Ridiculed in _The Poetaster_, v. i.; but we have the expression _quaking custard_ in the prologue to _Volpone_. [443] Use. [444] _i.e._, intent on committing. [445] So ed. 1598.--Ed. 1599 "Than." [446] See note 1, vol. ii. p. 328. [447] _i.e._, if they have not attained their majority. [448] Dekker, on the other hand, tells us in _The Seven Deadly Sins of London_, 1606, that orphans were nowhere more carefully guarded than in London. "For what city in the world," he writes, "does more dry up the tears of the widow and gives more warmth to the fatherless than this ancient and reverend grandame of cities? Where hath the orphan (that is to receive great portions) less cause to mourn the loss of parents? He finds four and twenty grave senators to be his father instead of one; the city itself to be his mother; her officers to be his servants, who see that he want nothing; her laws to suffer none to do him wrong; and though he be never so simple in wit or so tender in years, she looks as warily to that wealth which is left him as to the apple of her own eye." [449] A small French coin. [450] Old eds. "Whether of _Wright_, as _Paraphonalion_." [451] It would appear from old inventories that these articles were occasionally made of the precious metals. [452] The text is evidently corrupt. SATIRE III. _Redde, age, quæ deinceps risisti._