Whetstone, George

Whetstone, George, 1551?–1587, English dramatist and poet. His chief work, the play Promos and Cassandra (1578), is important in the development of English domestic drama and was a source for Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. Whetstone, whose works are full of grave moral utterances, was also the author of Rock of Regard (1576), a miscellany of verse and prose; A Remembrance (1577), a poem in honor of his friend George Gascoigne; An Heptameron of Civil Discourses (1582); and A Mirror for Magistrates of Cities (1584).