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 execution, was fully aware of the merit of the “OEdipus Tyrannus;” and, with the addition of the under-plot of Adrastus and Eurydice, has traced out the events of the drama, in close imitation of Sophocles.  The Grecian bard, however, in concurrence with the history or tradition of Greece, has made OEdipus survive the discovery of his unintentional guilt, and reserved him, in blindness and banishment, for the subject of his second tragedy of “OEdipus Coloneus.”  This may have been well judged, considering that the audience were intimately acquainted with the important scenes which were to follow among the descendants of OEdipus, with the first and second wars against Thebes, and her final conquest by the ancestors of those Athenians, before