might have children; and for their sakes she marries no more. She is
like the purest gold, only employed for princes' medals: she never
receives but one man's impression. The largest jointure moves her not,
titles of honour cannot sway her. To change her name were (she thinks)
to commit a sin should make her ashamed of her husband's calling. She
thinks she hath travelled all the world in one man; the rest of her
time, therefore, she directs to heaven. Her main superstition is, she
thinks her husband's ghost would walk, should she not perform his will.
She would do it were there no Prerogative Court. She gives much to pious
uses, without any hope to merit by them; and as one diamond fashions
another, so is she wrought into works of charity, with the dust or ashes
of her husband. She lives to see herself full of time; being so
necessary for earth, God calls her not to heaven till she be very aged,
and even then, though her natural strength fail her, she stands like an
ancient pyramid, which, the less it grows to man's eye, the nearer it
reaches to heaven. This latter chastity of hers is more grave and
reverend than that ere she was married, for in it is neither hope, nor
longing, nor fear, nor jealousy. She ought to be a mirror for our
youngest dames to dress themselves by, when she is fullest of wrinkles.
No calamity can now come near her, for in suffering the loss of her
husband she accounts all the rest trifles. She hath laid his dead body
in the worthiest monument that can be: she hath buried it in her one
heart. To conclude, she is a relic, that, without any superstition in
the world, though she will not be kissed, yet may be reverenced.

AN ORDINARY WIDOW

Is like the herald's hearse-cloth; she serves to many funerals, with a
very little altering the colour. The end of her husband begins in tears,
and the end of her tears begins in a husband. She uses to cunning women
to know how many husbands she shall have, and never marries without the
consent of six midwives. Her chiefest pride is in the multitude of her
suitors, and by them she gains; for one serves to draw on another, and
with one at last she shoots out another, as boys do pellets in eldern
guns. She commends to them a single life, as horse-coursers do their
jades, to put them away. Her fancy is to one of the biggest of the
Guard, but knighthood makes her draw in in a weaker bow. Her servants or
kinsfolk are the trumpeters that summon any to his combat. By