You husbands, match not but for love,
Lest some disliking after prove;
Women, be warn'd when you are wives:
What plagues are due to sinful lives:
Then, maids and wives, in time amend,
For love and beauty will have end.
NOTES
- After the death of Hastings she was kept by the Marquis of Dorset, son to Edward
IV.'s queen. In Rymer's Fœdera is a proclamation of Richard's, dated at Leicester,
October 23, 1483, wherein a reward of 1000 marks in money, or 200 a year in land is
offered for taking "Thomas late marquis of Dorset," who, "not having the fear of God,
nor the salvation of his own soul, before his eyes, has damnably debauched and
defiled many maids, widows, and wives, andlived in actual adultery with the wife of
Shore."-- Buckingham was at that time in rebellion, but as Dorset was not with him,
Richard could not accuse him of treason, and therefore made a handle of these
pretended debaucheries to get him apprehended. Vide Rym. Fœd. tom. xii. pag. 204. - These words of Sir Thomas More probably suggested to Shakspeare that proverbial
reflection in Hen. VIII. act iv. scene 2.
"Men's evil manners live in brass: their virtues
We write in water."Shakspeare, in his play of Richard III. follows More's History of that reign, and
therefore could not but see this passage.
- But it had this name long before; being so called from its being a commonSewer
(vulgarlyShore) or drain. See Stow.