But, if a really good wife can be found, he admits with the wise Hebrew king that "her price is above rubies." Verses like the following, salvage from the wreck of his plays, passed into proverbs:—
"A virtuous woman is a man's salvation."
"A good wife is the rudder of the house."
He is honest enough, too, to lay the fault of ill-assorted marriages at the door of those who have to choose in such a matter, as much as of those who are chosen; in this, as in other things, he recognises a certain law of supply and demand.
"What boots it to be curious as to lineage—
Who was her grandfather, and her mother's mother—
Which matters nought? while, for the bride herself,
Her whom we have to live with,—what she is,
In mind and temper, this we never ask.
They bring the dowry out, and count it down,
Look if the gold be good, of right assay,—
The gold, which some few months shall see the end of;
While she who at our hearth must sit through life,
We make no trial of, put to no proof,
Before we take her, but trust all to chance."[1]
The gibes which he launches against women seem to have been not more than half in earnest. He probably borrowed the tone from Euripides, of whom he was a great admirer, and whose influence may be pretty clearly traced in the style and sentiment of his comedies.
We usually find, then, the chief parts in the comedy filled by the members of one or two neighbouring
- ↑ Meineke, Menand. Rel., 189
