THE FUNERAL: OR, GRIEF À-LA-MODE.
ACT THE FIRST.
SCENE—Covent Garden.
Enter Cabinet, Sable, and Campley.
Cab. I burst into laughter, I can't bear to see writ over an undertaker's door, "Dresses for the Dead, and Necessaries for Funerals!" Ha! ha! ha!
Sab. Well, gentlemen, 'tis very well; I know you are of the laughers, the wits that take the liberty to deride all things that are magnificent and solemn.
Cam. Nay, but after all, I can't but admire Sable's nice discerning on the superfluous cares of mankind, that could lead them to the thought of raising an estate by providing horses, equipage, and furniture, for those that no longer need 'em.
Cab. But is it not strangely contradictory, that men can come to so open, so apparent an hypocrisy, as in the face of all the world, to hire professed mourners to grieve, lament, and follow in their stead their nearest relations, and suborn others to do by art what they themselves should be prompted to by nature?