A glowing tribute to one of these Boston widows was paid by that gossiping traveller, John Dunton, with so much evidence of deep interest, and even sentiment, that I fancy Madam Dunton could not have been wholly pleased with the writing and the printing thereof. He called this Widow Breck the “flower of Boston,” the “Chosen exemplar of what a Widow is.” He extols her high character, beauty, and resignation, and then bridles with satisfaction while he says, “Some have been pleas’d to say That were I in a single state they do believe she wou’d not be displeas’d with my addresses.” He rode on horseback on a long journey with his fair widow on a pillion behind him, and if his conversation on “Platonicks and the blisses of Matrimony” was half as tedious as his recounting of it, the road must indeed have seemed long. He says her love for her dead husband is as strong as death, but Widow Breck proved the strength of her constancy by speedily marrying a second husband, Michael Perry. As an instance of the complicated family relations which might arise in marrying widows, let me cite the familiar case of the rich merchant, Peter Sergeant, the builder of the famous Province House in Boston. I will use Mr. Shurtleff’s explanation of this bewildering gallimaufrey of widows and widowers:-- He was as remarkable in his marriages as his wealth; for he had three wives, the second having been a widow twice before her third venture; and his third also a widow, and even becoming his widow, and lastly the widow of her third husband. To this I may add that this last husband, Simon Stoddart, also had three wives, that his father had four, of whom the last three were widows,--but all this goes beyond the modern brain to comprehend, and reminds us most unpleasantly of the wife of Bath. These frequent and speedy marriages were not wholly owing to the exigencies of colonial life, but were the custom of the times in Europe as well. I read in the diary of the Puritan John Rous, in January, 1638, of this somewhat hasty wooing:-- A gentleman carried his wife to London last week and died about eight o’clock at night, leaving her five hundred pounds a year in land. The next day before twelve she was married to the journeyman woolen-draper that came to sell mourning to her. I do not believe John Rous made special note of this marriage simply because it was so speedy, but because it was unsuitable; as a landed widow was, in social standing, far above a journeyman draper. As we approach Revolutionary days, the reign of widows is still absolute. Washington loved at fifteen a fair unknown, supposed to be Lucy Grimes, afterward mother of Gen. Henry Lee. To her he wrote sentimental poems, from which we gather (as might be expected at that age) that he was too bashful to reveal his love. A year later he writes:--