when even David grew politically cruel, and Solomon could hardly be said to be the wisest of men. But many are too early old, and before the date of age. Adversity stretcheth our days, misery makes Alcmena's nights, (157) and time hath no wings unto it. But the most tedious being is that which can unwish itself, content to be nothing, or never to have been, which was beyond the malcontent of Job, who cursed not the day of his life, but his nativity. Content to have so far been, as to have a title to future being; although he had lived here but in an hidden state of life, and as it were, an abortion. What song the syrens sang, (158) or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, though puzzling questions,(159) are not beyond all conjecture. What time the persons of these ossuaries entered the famous nations of the dead, and slept with princes and counsellors, might admit a wide solution. But who were the proprie(157) One night as long as three. (158) Homer has given us his version of their song. Odys. μ. 184-191. where, as Damm conceives, col. 3006, the bard describes his own poetry. Pope has translated it with great elegance and grace: "Stay, oh pride of Greece, Ulysses, stay! O, cease thy course, and listen to our lay! Approach! and learn new wisdom from the wise." "-ED. (159) The puzzling question of Tiberius unto grammarians. Marcel. Donatus in Suet. KAvrà čovɛa veкpõv. Hom. Job. taries of these bones, or what bodies these ashes made up, were a question above antiquarianism; not to be resolved by man, nor easily perhaps by spirits, except we consult the provincial guardians, or tutelary observators. Had they made as good provision for their names as they have done for their relics, they had not so grossly erred in the art of perpetuation. But to subsist in bones, and be but pyramidally extant, is a fallacy in duration. Vain ashes, which in the oblivion of names, persons, times, and sexes, have found unto themselves a fruitless continuation, and only arise unto late posterity, as emblems of mortal vanities, antidotes against pride, vain-glory, and maddening vices. Pagan vain-glories, which thought the world might last for ever, had encouragement for ambition, and finding no Atropos unto the immortality of their names, were never damped with the necessity of oblivion. Even old ambitions had the advantage of ours, in the attempts of their vainglories, who acting early, and before the probable meridian of time, have by this time found great accomplishment of their designs, whereby the ancient heroes have already outlasted their monuments, and mechanical preservations. But in this latter scene of time we cannot expect such mummies unto our memories, when ambition may fear the prophecy of Elias, (160) and Charles the Fifth can never hope to live within two Methuselahs of Hector (161) (160) That the world may last but six thousand years. (161) Hector's fame lasting above two lives of Methuselah, before that famous prince was extant. S And therefore restless inquietude for the diuturnity of our memories unto present considerations, seems a vanity almost out of date, and superannuated piece of folly. We cannot hope to live so long in our names as some have done in their persons, one face of Janus holds no proportion unto the other. It is too late to be ambitious. The great mutations of the world are acted, or time may be too short for our designs. To extend our memories by monuments, whose death we daily pray for, and whose duration we cannot hope, without injury to our expectations, in the advent of the last day, were a contradiction to our beliefs. We, whose generations are ordained in this setting part of time, are providentially taken off from such imaginations; (162) 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 is past a moment. Circles and right lines limit and close all bodies, and the mortal right-lined circle(163) must conclude and shut up all. There is no antidote against the opium of time, which temporally considereth all things. Our fathers find their graves in our short memories, and sadly tell us how we may be buried in our survivors. Grave-stones tell truth (162) This extraordinary fancy appears at times to have been cherished even by Lord Bacon, who now and then talks of our having fallen upon the evening of the world.-ED. (163) 0. The character of death. scarce forty years. (164) Generations pass while some trees stand, and old families last not three oaks. To be read by bare inscriptions like many in Gruter,(165) to hope for eternity by enigmatical epithets, or first letters of our names, to be studied by antiquaries who we were, and have new names given us, like many of the mummies, are cold consolations unto the students of perpetuity, even by everlasting languages. To be content that times to come should only know there was such a man, not caring whether they knew more of him, was a frigid ambition in Cardan; (166) disparaging his horoscopal inclination and judgment of himself, who cares to subsist, like Hippocrates' patients, or Achilles' horses, in Homer, under naked nominations, without deserts and noble acts, which are the balsam of our memories, the entelechia and soul of our subsistences. To be nameless in worthy deeds exceeds an infamous history. The Canaanitish woman lives more happily without a name than Herodias with one. And who had not rather have been the good thief, than Pilate? But the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity; who can but pity the founder of the pyramids? Hero (164) Old ones being taken up, and other bodies laid under them. (165) Gruteri Inscriptiones Antiquæ. (166) Cuperem notum esse quod sim, non opto ut sciatur qualis sim. Card. in vita propria. stratus lives that burnt the temple of Diana; he is almost lost that built it: (167) 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, without the favour of the everlasting register. Who knows whether the best of men be known? or, whether there be not more remarkable persons forgot, than any that stand remembered in the known account of time? The first man had been as unknown as the last, and Methuselah's long life had been his 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 to die; (168) since our longest sun sets (167) This idea has been made use of by Shakspeare . "The aspiring youth that fired the Ephesian dome ED. (168) Speaking of Bunyan, I have elsewhere observed, "His imagination was raised to the sphere in which Pythagoras and Plato had moved-the existence we lead here seemed to be a |