standard. Hence the very time that a man shall mourn, and the very time
that he shall only half-mourn, and the very time that he shall cease to
mourn, is fixed for him by the world, whatever may be the duration of
his own sorrow.

In court-mourning also, we have an instance of men being instructed to
mourn, where their feelings are neither interested nor concerned. In
this case, the _disguised pomp_, spoken of by the Quakers, will be more
apparent. Two princes have perhaps been fighting with each other for a
considerable portion of their reigns. The blood of their subjects has
been spilled, and their treasures have been exhausted. They have
probably had, during all this time, no kind disposition one towards
another, each considering the other as the aggressor, or as the author
of the war. When both have been wearied out with expense, they have made
peace. But they have still mutual jealousies and fears. At length one of
them dies. The other, on receiving an express relative to the event,
orders mourning for the deceased for a given time. As other potentates
receive the intelligence, they follow the example. Their several levees
or drawing-rooms, or places of public audience, are filled with
mourners. Every individual of each sex, who is accustomed to attend
them, is now habited in black. Thus a round of mourning is kept up by
the courtiers of Europe, not by means of any sympathetic beating of the
heart, but at the sound, as it were, of the postman's horn.

But let us trace this species of mourning farther, and let us now more
particularly look at the example of our own country for the elucidation
of the point in question. The same Gazette, which gave birth to this
black influenza at court, spreads it still farther. The private
gentlemen of the land undertake to mourn also. You see them accordingly
in the streets, and in private parties, and at public places, in their