A _Man_ in _Tears_ for the Loss of his _Wife_.
Never had any Man such a Loss in a Woman certainly as I have had! Cries
a Widdower in the Flush of his Extravagancies for a Dead Wife: Never so
dear a Creature! Never so Miserable a Wretch! And so he runs Raving on,
how he should abhor the Sex it Self now she is gone. As he was in the
Transport of his Lamentations, and about half thorough the Farce, he
started all on a sudden, and call’d out to the Woman about the Body, (who
it seems, had gotten the best Piece of Linnen in the House for a Winding
Sheet;) Pray, says he, will you take another Cloth for the Present, and
let this be laid by for my next Wife, if it should be the Lords will to
have me Bury another. This set the Company a Laughing, for all their
Sorrow, to see the Good Man so soon brought to his Wits again.
The MORAL.
_Funeral Tears are but Matter of Form; and it is a Distinguishing Mark of
Hypocrisie, to take upon us to be Kind as well as to be Righteous, beyond
Measure. But Time and Nature will bolt out the Truth of Things, through
all Disguises._