Look you, Doctor,' (said Lord Bolingbroke) you tears over the remains of his dear Narcissa: ⚫ With know I don't believe the Bible to be a divine revela-pious sacrilege a grave I stole."" tion; but they who do, can never defend it on any Something more lively; but still it is about seprinciples but the doctrine of grace. To say truth, I crecy, and disguise:have at times been almost persuaded to believe it upon this view of things; and there is one argument which has gone very far with me in behalf of its authenticity, which is, that the belief in it exists upon earth, even when committed to the care of such as you, who pretend to believe it, and yet deny the only principles on which it is defensible," "

A sceptic's death-bed; Chesterfield is the per

son:

"In Lady Huntingdon's chapel (the Vineyards) Bath, was a seat for Bishops. The witty and eccentrie Lady Betty Cobbe was cousin-german to Lady Huntingdon: her influence was extensive and frequently exerted in bringing Bishops to the Chapel, whom she always contrived to smuggle into the curtained seats immediately inside the door, where they heard without undergoing the dreadful disgrace of being seen in such a place. This seat Lady Betty facetiously termed 'Nicodemus's Corner!" "

We conclude with some particulars that concern the Hastings family :—

"I saw my dear and valued friend (says Lady Huntingdon) a short time before his departure. The blackness of darkness, accompanied by every gloomy horror, thickened most awfully round his dying mo- "The late Flora Hastings was grand-daughter of ments. Dear Lady Chesterfield could not be per- Lady Elizabeth Hastings, eldest daughter of the suaded to leave his room for an instant. What Countess of Huntingdon. In early life she was much unmitigated anguish has she endured, but her confi- admired at Court for elegance of manners, her vivadential communications I am not at liberty to dis- city, and great abilities. Lady Elizabeth was apelose. The curtain has fallen-his mortal part has pointed Lady of the Bedchamber to the Princesses passed to another state of existence. Oh! my soul, come not thou unto this end.' Lord Chesterfield's infidelity is too well known to require much comment."

Her Ladyship was a frequent comforter to the sick and dying; and the amiability of her disposition as well as charitable sentiments must have rendered her visits doubly welcome. A physician:

Amelia and Caroline, sisters to George the Third. Horace Walpole, the celebrated Lord Orford, says The Queen of the Methodists got her daughter named for Lady of the Bedchamber to the Princesses; but it is all off again, as she will not let her play at cards on Sundays.' Whether this is the real cause we do not pretend to know; but she was shortly succeeded by a daughter of Earl Gower. Lady Eliza"Was visited by Lady Huntingdon a few days beth Hastings married, in 1752, John, first Earl of before he died. He lamented, not only his own past Moira, and on the decease of her brother, Francis, infidelity, but the zeal and success with which he tenth Earl of Huntingdon, in 1789, carried the barohad endeavoured to infect the minds of others. Onies by writ, Botreaux, Hungerford, Molines, and that I could undo the mischief I have done! I was Hastings, to that family. Her grandson, Georgemore ardent to poison people with the principles of Augustus-Francis, the present Marquis of Hastings, irreligion and unbelief, than almost any Christian married Barbary Gray de Ruthyn, heir to the whole can be to spread the doctrines of Christ.' Cheer blood of the Earls of Pembroke and the elder branch up! (answered Lady Huntingdon) Jesus, the great of the House of Hastings. The Marquis's infant son sacrifice for sin, atoned for the sins of the second is heir to three noble families-namely, the Marquitable as well as those of the first. God (replied he) sate of Hastings, the Scotch Earldom of Loudon, certainly can, but I fear never will, pardon such a and the Barony of Ruthyn. Lady Elizabeth Hastwretch as I.' You may feel it at present (rejoined ings bore Queen Charlotte's train at her Coronation the Countess) but you and I shall most certainly her grand-daughter, Lady Flora Hastings, bore meet each other in heaven.' The doctor then said, Queen Victoria's train at the late Coronation." O woman! great is thy faith! my faith cannot believe that I shall ever be there." 999

Here is a touching passage in a poet's life :

From the Retrospective Review.

SIR T. BROWNE ON URN BURIAL. Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial, or, a discourse of the Sepulchral Urus lately found in Norfolk. By Thomas Browne, Dr. of Physic. London, printed for Charles Brome, 1686.

The author of the Night Thoughts,' had married Lady Elizabeth Lee, daughter of the Earl of Lichfield. Mrs. Temple, daughter of Lady Elizabeth, by her former husband, died of consumption two years after her marriage with Mr. Temple, (grand-father of the present Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston.) As the Doctor saw her gradually declining, he used frequently to walk backwards and forwards in a place called the King's Garden, to find the most solitary There are few writers who have taken for their esspot where he might show his last token of affection, pecial themes, death and the grave. Still fewer are by leaving her remains as secure as possible from they who have done justice to these subjects, so those savages who would have denied her Christian snblime and fearful. The poets and philosophers, burial; for at that time, an Englishman in France indeed, all make no small use of the last solemn pewas looked upon as an heretic, an infidel, or a devil. riod to earthly enjoyments and hopes. It not only The under-gardener being bribed, pointed out the deepens the speculations of sages, and sheds a memost solitary place, dug the grave, and let him bury lancholy hue over the images of tragic poets, but his beloved daughter. The man, through a private heightens the feeling breathed forth in gay and festive door, admitted the Doctor at midnight, bringing his songs. The fragility of delight is one of its most daughter wrapped in a sheet upon his shoulder, he bewitching attributes. We desire to grasp earnestly, laid her in the hole, sat down, and shed a flood of that which is soon to pass away for ever. We feel

as if we could make up in intensity for that which |They have fearfully described the rending asunder is wanting in duration, and live whole ages in a few of soul and body-the last farewell to existence-and short hours. All the affections of the human heart the state of the spirit in its range through new and are rendered more august and sacred, by the mor- untried scenes of rapture or of woe. Some have intality of the frame which is their present abode. dividualized the theme, and written of death in relaThis ever counteracts their tendency to cling to ma- tion only to particular persons or classes who become terial objects, to grow to the delights of sense, and its victims. Those who regard it more universally to lose their noblest and most disinterested qualities and intensely-as Blair and Young-yet look but on in the feeling of full satisfaction in those things its surface. They are conversant only with cypresses, which form but their temporary resting places, and yew trees, and grave stones, or hint at superstitions refreshments in this palpable yet shifting scene. which endow the dead with life, and endue the tomb Destined to an eternity on earth, they might harden with something of vitality. Sir Thomas Browne into a selfishness which would debase their essence. alone treats of death as one subdued to its very esBut when he who feels them recognizes his own sence. He encounters the tyrant, and "plucks out mortality and their eternal nature-when he knows the heart of his mystery." He speaks not of the that all sensual gratifications must perish, but that agonies of dissolution; but regards the destroyer they shall endure-he nurtures them for their high and only when he is laden with his spoils, and the subjects supernatural destiny. In the spirit of immortality, of his victory are at rest. The region of his imaginahe cherishes sentiments of devotion and self-sacrifice, tion is that space beneath the surface of the world. learns to live beyond himself, and, denied the imme- where the bones of all generations repose. His fancy diate range of those regions in which hereafter he works beneath the ground its way from tomb to will be a free traveller, seeks fit walk for his spirit tomb, rests on each variety of burial, ennobles the among the ranks of humanity, and claims deep kindred naked clay of the peasant, expands in the sepulchres with those who are journeying through earth with the of kings, and, skimming beneath the deepest caverns same hopes and foretastes. Death imparts its most of the sea, detects the unvalued jewels "in those intense interest to life. It preserves to the spiritual holes which eyes did once inhabit." The language part of man its own high prerogatives. Our sense of of his essay is weighty, yet tender, such as his theme the majesty of the soul arises from its contrast with should inspire. We can imagine nothing graver. the perishableness of our moral nature. We do His words are sepulchral-his ornaments are flowers reverence to that within us which is external. We of mortality. If his essay were read by Mr. Kemble, find no perfection, no completeness, in pleasure, ex- it would have appropriate voice, breathed forth in the cept when the feeling of eternity blends with and tenderest of sepulchral tones, with cadences solemn consecrates the joy. Thus the delights of innocent and sweet as the last tremblings of good men's lives. and deep-hearted love are the sweetest we can know The immediate occasion which called forth the in this world; because its fleeting enjoyments are deep and noble effusion we are now to contemplate, heightened by sentiments which cannot die; because is thus related by its author:

there are some pulses of rapture in its delights, "In a field of old Walsingham, not many months which death cannot bid to pause; because it unites past, were digged up between forty and fifty Urns, the spirit of both worlds, the delicacies of earth, with deposited in a dry and sandy soil, not a yard deep, the pure and far-reaching emotions of Heaven. Fre- nor far from one another: Not all strictly of one quent use, therefore, hath been made of the mortality figure, but most answering these described; sone conof man by poets and sages. They have delighted to taining two pounds of bones, distinguishable in shew the superiority of the soul over its mortal des- skulls, ribs, jaws, thigh-bones, and teeth, with fresh tiny. They have consecrated this world by repre- impressions of their combustion. Besides the extrasenting it as the vestibule of one which shall endure ordinary substances, like pieces of small boxes, or for ever. They have taught us to listen to echoes combs handsomely wrought, handles of small brass from beyond the grave, and have shed over our instruments, brazen nippers, and in one some kind of earthly path "glimpses which may make us less for- opal. lorn." But they have, for the most part, regarded

Near the same plot of ground, for about six death only as the barrier between the shadows of this yard's compass, were digged up coals and incinerated world, and the invisible realities of another. They substances, which begat conjecture that this was the have not taken the awful subject as the sole or chief Ustrina or place of burning their bodies, or some saground of their contemplations. They have rather crificing place unto the manes, which was properly sought to soften it away-to represent it as a general below the surface of the ground, as the are and altars slumber or to make us feel it but as the dividing unto the gods and heroes above it." streak between our visible horizon and that more clear Thus inspired, he pours forth, without particular and unstained hemisphere, on which the sun of human order or design, his richest treasures of imagery and existence rises, when it dips behind the remotest thought. These may be divided into two classeshills of earthly vision with all its livery of declining those learned commentaries which relate to modes of glories. interment, and those intense reflections which he makes on death, life, and duration.

But Sir Thomas Browne, in the work before us, hath dared to take the grave itself for his theme. He He opens the subjects with a general survey or deals not with death as a shadow, but as a substan- map of the earthy region through which he is about tial reality. He dwells not on it as the mere cessa- to conduct us: tion of life-he treats it not as a terrible negation- "In the deep discovery of the subterranean world, but enters on its discussion as a state with its own a shallow part would satisfy some enquirers; who, solemnities and pomps. Others who have professed if two or three yards were open about the surface, to write on death, have treated merely of dying. would not care to rake the bowels of Potosi, and re

gions toward the centre. Nature hath furnished one and restoring the debt of their bodies. Whereas the part of the earth, and man another. The treasures old heroes in Homer, dreading nothing more than of time lie high, in urns, coyns, and monuments, water or drowning; probably upon the old opinion of scarce below the roots of some vegetables. Time the fiery substance of the soul, only extinguishable hath endless rarities, and shows of all varieties; by that element; and therefore the poet emphatically which reveals old things in heaven, makes new dis- implieth the total destruction in this kind of death, coveries in earth, and even earth itself a discovery. which happened to Ajax Oileus." That great antiquity, America, lay buried for a thou- The following appears to us some of the most sand years; and a large part of the earth is still in beautiful moralizing ever drawn from funeral solemnities.

the urn unto us.

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Though if Adam were made out of an extract of "Men have lost their reason in nothing so much the earth, all parts might challenge a restitution, yet as their religion, wherein stones and clouts make few have returned their bones far lower than they martyrs; and since the religion of one seems madmight receive them; not affecting the graves of ness unto another, to afford an account or rational of giants, under hilly and heavy coverings, but content old rights, requires no rigid reader. That they with less than their own depth, have wished their kindled the pyre aversely, or turning their face from bones might lie soft, and the earth be light upon it, was an handsome symbol of unwilling ministrathem; even such as hope to rise again, would not tion; that they washed their bones with wine and be content with central interment, or so desperately milk, that the mother wrapt them in linen, and dried to place their reliques as to lie beyond discovery, and them in her bosom, the first fostering part, and place in no way to be seen again; which happy contrivance of their nourishment; that they opened their eyes tohath made communication with our forefathers, and ward heaven, before they kindled the fire, as the left unto our view some parts which they never be-place of their hopes or original, were no improper held themselves." ceremonies. Their last valediction, thrice uttered by Here his genius seems to make its way through the attendants, was also very solemn, and somewhat the softened mould. We feel as if we could be de-answered by Christians, who thought it too little, if lighted to grope all our lives about the roots of vega- they threw not the earth thrice upon the interred tables for the treasures of time which lie so near us. body. That in strewing their tombs the Romans afHow sublimely does he, in his antiquarian zeal, re- fected the rose, the Greeks amaranthus and myrtle; present America as when undiscovered "a buried that the funeral-pyre consisted of sweet fuel, cypress, antiquity," and expand his subject to the limits of fir, larix, yew, and trees perpetually verdant, lay sithe world! With what rich conceit does he allude lent expressions of their surviving hopes; wherein to the solemnities of our frame, and with what a Christians which deck their coffins with bays have placid and smiling allusion does he insinuate our found a more elegant emblem-for that it seemed hopes of rising from the tomb! When he discusses modes of burial, instead of dwelling with fondness on one of them, he dignifies them all. He treats burial superstitions, however fantastic, as most holy. Assuming with a philosophic charity, that "all customs were founded on some bottom of reason," he finds traces of noble imagination, or deep wisdom, in the most opposite rites and ceremonies. "Some," says he,

dead, will restore itself from the root, and its dry and exsuceous leaves resume their verdure again; which if we mistake not, we have also observed in furze. Whether the planting of yew in church yards hold not its original from ancient funeral rites, or as an emblem of resurrection, from its perpetual verdure, may also admit conjecture."

Young, in one of his cold conceits, exclaims, "How populous, how vital is the grave!" in refer"Being of the opinion of Thales, that water was ence merely to the obvious truth, that the number of the original of all things, thought it most equal to the dead exceeds that of the living. Sir Thomas submit unto the principle of putrefaction, and con-Browne, by his intense earnestness and vivid solemIclude in a moist relentment. Others conceived it nity, seems really to endow the grave itself with most natural to end in fire, as due unto the master life. He does not linger in the valley of the shadow principle in the composition, according to the doctrine of death, but enters within the portals, where the of Heraclitus. And therefore heaped up large piles, regal destroyer keeps his awful state; and yet there more actively to waft them towards that element, is nothing thin, airy, or unsubstantial-nothing whereby they also declined a visible degeneration ghostly or shocking-in his works. He unveils, into worms, and left a lasting parcel of their compo-with a reverent touch, the material treasures of the sition. sepulchre; he describes these with the learning of an "Some apprehended a purifying virtue in fire, re- antiquary; moralizes on them with the wisdom of a fining the grosser commixture, and firing out the philosopher; broods over them with the tenderness æthereal particles so deeply immersed in it. And of an enthusiast; and associates with them sweet and such as by tradition or rational conjecture held any congenial images, with the fancy of a poet. He is hint of the final pyre of all things, or that this ele- the laureat of the king of terrors; and most nobly ment at last must be too hard for all the rest, might does he celebrate the earthly magnificence of his conceive most naturally of the fiery dissolution." kingdom. He discovers consolations not only in the And again: hopes of immortality, but in the dusty and sad orna"The Scythians who swore by wind and sword, ments of the tomb. How richly does he speak of that is, by life and death, were so far from burning the liquors found in old sepulchres, as if death were their bodies, that they declined all interment, and the chief butler of time, and preserved patriarchal made their graves in the air. And the Ichthyophagi, flavours within his vaults!

or fish-eating nations about Egypt, affected the sea "Some find sepulchral vessels containing liquors, for their grave: thereby declining visible corruption, which time hath incrassated into gellies. For beside

these lachrymatories, notable lamps, with vessels of But Sir Thomas Browne finds matter of deeper oils and aromatical liquors, attended noble ossuaries. speculation in the regions of the grave, than any to And some yet retaining a vinosity and spirit in them, which we have yet particularly alluded. He derives which if any have tasted they have far exceeded the the nobleness of our nature, even from its mortality palates of antiquity. Liquors not to be computed by on earth. In the most opposite ceremonials, he traces years of annual magistrates, but by great conjunctions the spirit of a higher and more perfect life. Thus he and the fatal periods of kingdoms. The draughts of treats the disregard of interment, as evincing a sense consulary date were but crude unto these, and opi- that the frame was but the shell of a finer essence, mian wine but in the must unto them." and the solemnities of burial as proving that man, in extending his cares beyond death, displays the instinct of future being. Every thing with him has a "Some finding many fragments of sculls in these profound and sacred meaning. He embodies the urns, suspected a mixture of bones; in none we abstractions of humanity in the stateliest forms, elesearched was there cause of such conjecture, though vating even the brevity of existence into a distinct sometimes they declined not that practice. The being, and endowing it with venerable attributes. ashes of Domitian were mingled with those of Julia: Past and Present, Life and Dissolution, Time and of Achilles with those of Patroclus. All urns con- Immortality, seem to meet in his works, as in a fane, tained not single ashes; without confused burnings for festal purpose decked with unrejoicing berries!" they affectionately compounded their bones, passion- He thus immortalizes transitoriness, and makes obately endeavouring to continue their living unions. livion sublime:

How intense is the following passage, relative to the mingling of bones in the same urn!

about them."

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And when distance of death denied such conjune- "Oblivion is not to be hired: the greater part must tions, unsatisfied affections conceived some satisfac-be content to be as though they had not been, to be tion to be neighbours in the grave, to lie urn by urn, found in the register of God, not in the record of and touch but in their names. And many were so man. Twenty-seven names make up the first story, curious to continue their living relations, that they and the recorded names ever since contain not one contrived large and family urns, wherein the ashes living century. The number of the dead long exof their nearest friends and kindred might succes-ceedeth all that shall live. The night of time far sively be received, at least some parcels thereof, surpasseth the day, and who knows when was the while their collateral memorials lay in minor vessels æquinox? Every hour adds unto that current arithmetic, which scarce stands one moment. And since Never surely by any other writer was sentiment death must be the Lucina of life, and even pagans thus put into dry bones. Ashes here seem endowed could doubt whether thus to live were to die; since with living passion. The imagination rests satis-our longest sun sets at right descensions, and makes fied with the neighbourhood of bodies in the grave, but winter arches, and therefore it cannot be long beand with the mere touching of names. Sir Thomas fore we lie down in darkness, and have our light in Browne ennobles and consecrates whatever he ashes; since the brother of death daily haunts us touches. He makes us feel that magnitude is not with dying mementos, and time that grows old itself, necessary to venerableness, for in his works, things bids us hope no long duration: diuturnity is a dream which before appeared insignificant, impress us with and folly of expectation." an awful grandeur. He requires not a vast or gi- Can anything be more ingenious, yet more solemn, gantic object to stir and affect him. He perceives more quaint, yet more impressive, than the following the high attributes of the smallest things-the anti- dissuasive from anxiety for earthly renown? quity and the consecration which they share with "Restless inquietude for the diuturnity of our methe mightiest and renders an urn or a pyramid mories unto present considerations, seems a vanity equal to the mind. His power, like that of death, almost out of date, and superannuated piece of folly. levels distinctions; for he looks into the soul of We cannot hope to live so long in our names, as things, instead of contemplating merely their exter- some have done in their persons; one face of Janus nal forms. Can anything be said of the ruins of holds no proportion unto the other. "Tis too late to Babylon equal to the following celebration of a few be ambitious. The great mutations of the world are sepulchral urns? Now since these dead bones acted, or time may be too short for our designs. To have already outlasted the living ones of Methuselah, extend our memories by monuments, whose death and in a yard under ground, and thin walls of play, we daily pray for, and whose duration we cannot outworn all the strong and spacious buildings above hope, without injury to our expectations in the adit; and quietly rested under the drums and tramp- vent of the last day, were a contradiction to our belings of three conquests: what prince can promise liefs. We whose generations are ordained in this such diuturnity unto his reliques, or might not setting part of time, are providentially taken off from gladly say,

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such imaginations. And being necessitated to eye the remaining particle of futurity, are naturally constituted unto thoughts of the next world, and cannot excusably decline the consideration of that duration, which maketh pyramids pillars of snow, and all that's past a moment."

"Sic ego componi versus in ossa velim ?" "Time, which antiquates antiquities, and hath an art to make dust of all things, hath yet spared these minor monuments." Thus, by showing that the lowliest things have consecrating associations equal What reflections can be more strange, yet more to the stateliest, he vindicates to Nature and Time, familiar, than the following speculations on human those regalities which we are prone to attribute to life; entering into the deepest solemnities of our stupendous remains of human skill, as if they ap-mortal being, and daring to take advantage of those pertained to them as inherent properties, and were riddles of humanity, which meaner moralists scarce not merely shed on them by hallowing years. venture to imagine?

"If the nearness of our last necessity brought aftory." What moral sublimity is here! And with nearer conformity unto it, there were a happiness in how noble a glimpse into the night of forgotten hoary hairs, and no calamity in half senses. But things-a half lifting of the veil of oblivion-does he the long habit of living indisposeth us for dying-ask," who knows whether the best of men be when avarice makes us the sport of death, when even known? or whether there be not more remarkable David grew politickly cruel, and Solomon could hardly persons forgot, than any that stand remembered in be said to be the wisest of men. But many are too the known account of time?" Having, with farther early old, and before the date of age. Adversity richness of illustration, and quaint philosophy, shown stretcheth our days, misery makes Alcmena's nights, the uncertainty of all human memorials of the dead, [one night as long as three] and time hath no wings he holds a question with man's immortality after But the most tedious being is that which death, and retaining all reverential belief in future can unwish itself, content to be nothing, or never to life, yet seems to hesitate whether God hath prohave been, which was beyond the mal-content of mised a duration absolutely endless. From this Job, who cursed not the days of his life, but his na-high speculation, he recalls himself to the nobleness tivity; content to have so far been, as to have a title of man, as evinced by the solemnities of burial, to future being; although he had lived here but in a hidden state of life, and as it were an abortion.

unto it.

taking the gravestone for his faith to lean on, and for his hope's moveless resting place-" But man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave, solemnizing nativities and deaths with equal lustre, and not omitting ceremonies of bravery in the infamy of his nature."

What song the Syrens sang, and what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, though puzzling questions, are not beyond all conjecture. What time the persons of these ossuaries entered the famous nations of the dead, and slept How stupendous is the following moralizing on with princes and counsellors, might admit a wide human afflictions, on the Pythagorean phantasies, solution. But who were the proprietors of these on Egyptian contrivances for preservation of the bones, or what bodies these ashes made up, were a earthly frame, and on the vain hopes of men to perquestion above antiquarism-not to be resolved by petuate their memories in the changeless movements man, nor easily perhaps by spirits, except we consult of the stars. the Provincial Guardians, or Tutelary Observators.

Darkness and light divide the course of time, Had they made as good provision for their names as and oblivion shares with memory a great part even they have done for their reliques, they had not so of our living beings; we slightly remember our fegrossly erred in the art of perpetuation; but to sub-licities, and the smartest strokes of affliction leave sist in bones, and be but pyramidally extant, is a but short smart upon us. Sense endureth no extrefallacy in duration. Vain ashes, which in the obli- mities, and sorrows destroy us or themselves. To vion of names, persons, times and sexes, have found weep into stones are fables. Afflictions induce calunto themselves a fruitless continuation, and only losities, miseries are slippery, or fall like snow upon arise unto late posterity, as emblems of mortal va- us, which notwithstanding is no unhappy stupidity. nities; antidotes against pride, vain glory and mad- To be ignorant of evils to come, and forgetful of ding vices. Pagan vain glories which thought the evils past, is a merciful provision in nature, whereby world might last forever, had encouragement for am- we digest the mixture of our few and evil days; and bition, and finding no Atropos unto the immortality of our delivered senses not relapsing into cutting retheir names, were never damped with the necessity membrances, our sorrows are not kept raw by the of oblivion. Even old ambitions had the advantage edge of repetitions. A great part of antiquity conof ours, in the attempts of their vain glories, who tented their hopes of subsistency with a transmigraacting early and before the probable meridian of tion of their souls-a good way to continue their time, have by this time found great accomplishment memories; while having the advantage of plural of their designs, whereby the ancient heroes have successions, they could not but act something realready out-lasted their monuments, and mechanical markable in such variety of beings, and enjoying preservations. But in this latter scene of time we the fame of their passed selves, make accumulation cannot expect such mummies unto our memories, of glory unto their last durations. Others, rather when ambition may fear the prophecy of Elias, and Charles the Fifth can never hope to live within two Methuselahs of Hector."

than be lost in the uncomfortable night of nothing, were content to recede into the common being, and make no particle of the public soul of all things, He proceeds to argue against the passionate de- which was no more than to return into their unknown sire of fame, from the slender relics which it usually and divine original again. Egyptian ingenuity was embalms of its followers. "To be read by bare in- more unsatisfied, contriving their bodies in sweet scriptions, like many in Gruter; to hope for eternity consistences, to attend the return of their souls. by enigmatical epithets, or first letters of our names; But all was vanity, feeding the wind and folly. The to be studied by antiquaries, who we were, and have Egyptian mummies, which Cambyses, or time hath new names given us like some of the mummies, are spared, avarice now consumeth. Mummy has becold consolations to the students of perpetuity, even come merchandise, Mizraim cures wounds, and Phaby everlasting languages." He unmasks the frigid raoh is sold for balsams. ambition of those who desire merely to be known as "In vain do individuals hope for immortality, or haying been. "Who," he demands, "cares to sub- any patent from oblivion, in preservations below the mit like Hippocrates's patients, or Achilles' horses moon; men have been deceived even in their flatteries in Homer, under naked nominations, without deserts above the sun, and studied conceits to perpetuate or noble acts, which are the balsam of our memories, their names in heaven. The various cosmography the Entelechia and soul of our subsistences? To be of that part hath already varied the names of connameless in worthy deeds, exceeds an infamous his- trived constellations; Nimrod is lost in Órion, and