T. A. G.
John Dunton, a London bookseller and who is mentioned in the Dunciad, describes, in his autobiography, his wedding-ring: as having two hearts united upon it and this poesy:
“God saw thee
Most fit for me.”
This would not seem to have attached to his second wife; for she left him and wrote in one of her letters, “I and all good people think you never married me for love, but for my money.”
Dr. John Thomas, who was Bishop of Lincoln in 1753, married four times. The motto or poesy on the wedding-ring at his fourth marriage was:
“If I survive,
I’ll make them five.”
This Rev. Dr. John Thomas was a man of genial humor. He used to tell a story of his burying a body; and a woman came “and pulled me,” said he, “by the sleeve in the middle of the service. ‘Sir, sir, I want to speak to you.’ ‘Prythee,’ says I, ‘woman, wait till I have done.’ ‘No, sir, I must speak to you immediately.’ ‘Why then, what is the matter?’ ‘Why sir,’ says she, ‘you are burying a man who died of the small-pox next to my poor husband, who never had it.’”