'Tis granted that a greater grief attends
Departed moneys than departed friends;
None ever counterfeits upon this score,
Nor need he do't; the thought of being poor
Will serve alone to make the eyes run o'er.
Lost money's grieved with true unfeignèd tears,
More true than sorrow of expecting heirs
At their dead fathers’ funerals, though here
The back and hands no pompous mourning wear.
But if the like complaints be daily found
At Westminster, and in all courts abound;
If bonds, and obligations can't prevail,
But men deny their very hand and seal,
Signed with the arms of the whole pedigree
Of their dead ancestors to vouch the lie,
If Temple Walks,[1] and Smithfield[2] never fail
Of plying rogues, that set their souls to sale
To the first passenger, that bids a price,
And make their livelihood of perjuries;
For God's sake why are you so delicate,
And think it hard to share the common fate?
And why must you alone be favourite thought
Of heaven, and we for reprobates cast out?
The wrong you bear, is hardly worth regard,
Much less your just resentment, if compared
- ↑ My companions, the worthy knights of the most noble order of the Post, your peripatetic philosophers of the Temple Walks.'—Otway's Soldier's Fortune,
Retain all sorts of witnesses
That ply i' th' Temple under trees,
Or walk the Round with knights of the Post.
Butler.—Hudibras.
The lawyers made appointments with their clients in the Round, where they discussed their business, the posts being the points of established rendezvous.—See Mr. Peter Cunningham's Hand-book of London. - ↑ The horse-market in Smithfield was notorious for the cheats practised on purchasers. Pepys, going thither to buy horses for his coach, records his opinion of the place. 'Here I do see instances of a piece of craft and cunning that I never dreamed of, concerning the buying and choosing of horses.'
