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.

The dreadful subject of this piece has been celebrated by several
ancient and modern dramatists. Of seven tragedies of Sophocles which
have reached our times, two are founded on the history of OEdipus. The
first of these, called "OEdipus Tyrannus," has been extolled by every
critic since the days of Aristotle, for the unparalleled art with
which the story is managed. The dreadful secret, the existence of
which is announced by the pestilence, and by the wrath of the offended
deities, seems each moment on the verge of being explained, yet, till
the last act, the reader is still held in horrible suspense. Every
circumstance, resorted to for the purpose of evincing the falsehood of
the oracle, tends gradually to confirm the guilt of OEdipus, and to
accelerate the catastrophe; while his own supposed consciousness of
innocence, at once interests us in his favour, and precipitates the
horrible discovery. Dryden, who arranged the whole plan of the
following tragedy, although assisted by Lee in the executio