--Tacitus, Annal., ii. 77, writing of Germanicus.]

Their whimpering is offensive to the living and vain to the dead. We
should willingly give them leave to laugh after we are dead, provided
they will smile upon us whilst we are alive. Is it not enough to make a
man revive in pure spite, that she, who spat in my face whilst I was in
being, shall come to kiss my feet when I am no more? If there be any
honour in lamenting a husband, it only appertains to those who smiled
upon them whilst they had them; let those who wept during their lives
laugh at their deaths, as well outwardly as within. Therefore, never
regard those blubbered eyes and that pitiful voice; consider her
deportment, her complexion, the plumpness of her cheeks under all those
formal veils; 'tis there she talks plain French. There are few who do
not mend upon't, and health is a quality that cannot lie. That starched
and ceremonious countenance looks not so much back as forward, and is
rather intended to get a new husband than to lament the old. When I was
a boy, a very beautiful and virtuous lady, who is yet living, the widow
of a prince, wore somewhat more ornament in her dress than our laws of
widowhood allow, and being reproached with it, she made answer that it
was because she was resolved to have no more love affairs, and would
never marry again.

I have here, not at all dissenting from our customs, made choice of three
women, who have also expressed the utmost of their goodness and affection
about their husbands' deaths; yet are they examples of another kind than
are now m use, and so austere that they will hardly be drawn into
imitation.

The younger Pliny' had near a house of his in Italy a neighbour who was
exceedingly tormented with certain ulcers in his private parts. His wife
seeing him so long to languish, entreated that he would give her leave to
see and at leisure to consider of the condition of his disease, and that
she would freely tell him what she thought. This permission being
obtained, and she having curiously examined the business, found it
impossible he could ever be cured, and that all he had to hope for or
expect was a great while to linger out a painful and miserable life, and
therefore, as the most sure and sovereign remedy, resolutely advised him
to kill himself. But finding him a little tender and backward in so rude
an attempt: "Do not think, my friend," said she, "that the torments I see
thee endure are not as s