Funeral Tears are only Civilities of Course, but there must be Wringing
of Hands yet, and Ejulations, some where or Other; and where the
Relations are not in Humor for’t, ’tis the Fashion to Provide Mercenaries
to do the Office. The Moral of this will reach to All the Pompous
Solemnities of our Mourning Processions, which upon the Whole, Amount
to no more then Dress and Pageantry, to make the Show look Dismal, and
so many Sowre Faces that are Hir’d to Adorn the _Hypocrisie_. This was
the Widow’s Case, that Cry’d her self half Mad and Blind with a Thousand
Passionate Interjections, for the loss of her Dear Husband. [_Never so
Dear, so Dear a Man!_] This Woman, I say (when she had done All This, and
Renounc’d the World, the flesh and the Devil, with as much Solemnity as
ever she did in her Baptism) was at the Long-Last prevail’d upon to hear
the Will read: But when she found in the Conclusion, that the _Dear Man_
she so often call’d upon, had left her Nothing that he could keep from
her, but her Wedding Ring and her Apron-Strings, Up she started, Wip’d
her Eyes, Rais’d her Voice, [_And is this all with a Pox_] she cry’d;
and with Those Words in her Mouth, she came to her self again. Now This
Widow, in the Pure Strength of Flesh and Blood, cry’d as Arrantly for
_Money_ as the Mercenaries in the Fable.