distinction to merit of perpetuity. Who can but pity the founder of pyramids ? Erostratus lives that burnt the Temple of Diana, he is almost lost that built it. Time hath spared the epitaph of Adrian's horse; confounded that of himself. In vain we compute our felicities by the advantage of our good names, since bad have equal durations; and Thersites is like to live as long as Agamemnon. Who knows whether the best of men be known, or whee ther there be not more remarkable persons forgot than any that stand remembered in the known adcount of time? Without the favour of the everlast ing register, the first man had been as unknown as the last, and Methuselah's long life had been chis only chronicle.

Oblivion is not to be hired. The greater part must be content to be as though they had not been, to be found in the register of God, not in the record of man. Twenty-seven names make up the first story,* and the recorded names ever since contain not one living century. The number of the dead long exceedeth all that shall live. The night of time far surpasseth the day, and who knows when was the equinox? Every hour adds unto that current arithmetic, which scarce stands one moment. And since death must be the Lucina of life, and even Pagans+ could doubt whether thus to live were

* First story before the flood.

+ Euripide.

to die; since our longest sun sets at right declensions, and makes but winter arches, and therefore it cannot be long before we lie down in darkness, and have our light in ashes ;* since the brother of death daily haunts us with dying mementos, and time, that grows old itself, bids us hope no long duration, diuturnity is a dream and folly of expectation,

Darkness and light divide the course of time, and oblivion shares with memory a great part even of our living beings. We slightly remember our feli cities, and the smartest strokes of affliction leave but short smart upon us.. Sense endureth no extremities, and sorrows destroy us or themselves. To weep into stones are fables. Afflictions induce callosities; miseries are slippery, or fall like snow upon us, which, notwithstanding, is no unhappy stupidity. To be ignorant of evils to come, and forgetful of evils past, is a merciful provision in nature, whereby we digest the mixture of our few and evil days, and our delivered senses not relapsing into cutting remembrances, our sorrows are not kept raw by the edge of repetitions. A great part of antiquity contented their hopes of subsistency with a transmigration of their souls, a good way to continue their memories, while, having the advantage of plural

According to the custom of the Jews, who placed a lighted wax candle in a pot of ashes by the corpse.-Leo.

+"All suffering doth destroy, or is destroyed,

Even by the sufferer."-BYRON, Ch. Har. c. iv.

successions, they could not but act something remarkable in such variety of beings, and, enjoying the fame of their passed selves, make accumulation of glory unto their last durations. Others, rather than be lost in the uncomfortable night of nothing, were content to recede into the common being, and make one particle of the public soul of all things, which was no more than to return into their unknown and divine original again. Egyptian ingenuity was more unsatisfied, contriving their bodies in sweet consistencies, to attend the return of their souls. But all was vanity, feeding* the wind and folly. The Egyptian mummies, which Cambyses or time hath spared, avarice now consumeth. Mum my is become merchandize, Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharaoh is sold for balsams.

In vain do individuals hope for immortality, or any patent from oblivion, in preservations below the moon: men have been deceived even in their flatteries above the sun, and studied conceits to perpe tuate their names in heaven. The various cosmography of that part hath already varied the names of contrived constellations: Nimrod is lost in Orion, and Osyris in the Dog-Star. While we look for incorruption in the heavens, we find they are but like the earth, durable in their main bodies, alterable in their parts; whereof, beside comets and new

* Omnia vanitas et pastio venti, vnun ávie, Bonnois ut olim Aquila et Symmachus.-V. Drus. Eccles.

stars, perspectives begin to tell tales, and the spots that wander about the sun, with Phaeton's favour, would make clear conviction.

There is nothing strictly immortal but immortality. Whatever hath no beginning, may be confident of no end, which is the peculiar of that necessary essence that cannot destroy itself, and the highest strain of omnipotency to be so powerfully constituted, as not to suffer even from the power of itself. All others have a dependent being, and within the reach of destruction. But the sufficiency of Christian immortality frustrates all earthly glory, and the quality of either state after death, makes a folly of posthumous memory. God, who only can destroy our souls, and hath assured our resurrection, either of our bodies or names hath directly promised no duration. Wherein there is so much of chance, that the boldest expectants have found unhappy frustration; and to hold long subsistence, seems but a scape in oblivion. But man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave, so lemnizing nativities and deaths with equal lustre, nor omitting ceremonies of bravery in the infamy of his nature.

Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible sun within us. A small fire sufficeth for life, great flames seemed too little after death, while men vainly affected precious pyres, and to burn like Sardanapalus; but the wisdom of funeral laws found the folly of prodigal blazes, and reduced undoing

fires unto the rule of sober obsequies, wherein few could be so mean as not to provide wood, pitch, a mourner, and an urn.*

Five languages + secured not the epitaph of Gordianus. The man of God lives longer without a tomb than any by one, invisibly interred by angels, and adjudged to obscurity, though not without some remarks directing human discovery. Enoch and Elias, without either tomb or burial, in an anomalous state of being, are the great examples of perpe tuity, in their long and living memory in strict account, being still on this side death, and having a late part yet to act upon this stage of earth. If in the decretory term of the world, We shall not all die but be changed, according to received transla tion, the last day will make but few graves; at least, quick resurrections will anticipate lasting sepultures. Some graves will be opened before they be quite closed, and Lazarus be no wonder. When many that feared to die shall groan that they can die but once, the dismal state is the second and living death, when life puts despair on the damned; when men

*

According to the epitaph of Rufus and Beronica in Gruterus.

Nec ex

Eorum bonis plus inventum est, quam

Quod sufficeret ad emendam pyram

Et picem quibus corpora cremarentur

Et præfica conducta et olla empta.

+ Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Egyptian, and Arabic, defaced by Licinius

the Emperor.