and unprofitable to the Chriftian world, was wonderfully glad to hear that there were fuch echoes of him founding in remote parts. (Ibid.)

go

OF DEATH.

Men fear Death, as children fear to in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other. Certainly, the contemplation of death, as the wages of fin and paffage to another world, is holy and religious; but the fear of it, as a tribute due unto nature, is weak. Yet in religious meditations there is fometimes a mixture of vanity and fuperftition. You fhall read in fome of the friars' books of mortification, that a man fhould think with himself what the pain is if he have but his finger's end preffed or tortured, and thereby imagine what the pains of death are, when the whole body is corrupted and diffolved; when many times death paffeth with lefs pain than the torture of a limb: for the most vital parts are not the quickest of sense. And

by him that spake only as a philofopher and natural man it has been well faid:

Pompa mortis magis terret, quam mors ipfa [=it is the accompaniments of death that are frightful, rather than death itself]. Groans and convulfions, and a difcoloured face, and friends weeping, and blacks, and obfequies, and the like, show death terrible. It is worthy the observing that there is no paffion in the mind of man fo weak but it mates and mafters the fear of death; and therefore death is no fuch terrible enemy when a man hath so many attendants about him that can win the combat of him. Revenge triumphs over death; Love flights it; Honour afpireth to it; Grief flieth to it; Fear pre-occupateth it; nay, we read, after Otho the emperor had flain himself, Pity (which is the tendereft of affections) provoked many to die, out of mere compaffion to their fovereign, and as the trueft teft of followers. Nay, Seneca adds niceness and fatiety Cogita quamdiu eadem feceris; mori velle, non tantum fortis, aut miser, fed etiam faftidiofus poteft. A man would die, though he were neither valiant nor miferable, only upon a weariness to do

the same thing so oft over and over. It is no less worthy to obferve, how little alteration in good fpirits the approaches of death make; for they appear to be the fame men till the laft instant. Auguftus Cæfar died in a compliment : Livia, conjugii noftri memor vive, et vale [= farewell, Livia; and forget not the days of our marriage]. Tiberius, in diffimulation; as Tacitus faith of him : Jam Tiberium vires et corpus, non diffimulatio, deferebant [his power of body was gone; but his power of diffimulation ftill remained]. Vefpafian on a jeft; fitting upon the ftool: Ut puto Deus fio [I think I am becoming a god]. Galba, with a sentence: Feri, si ex re fit populi Romani [= strike, if it be for the good of Rome]; holding forth his neck. Septimius Severus, in despatch: Adefte fi quid mibi reftat agendum =make hafte, if there is anything more for me to do]. And the like. Certainly the Stoics bestowed too much coft upon death, and by their great preparations made it appear more fearful. Better faith he, qui finem vitæ extremum inter munera ponat natura [=who accounts the close of life as one of the

G

But

benefits of nature]. It is as natural to
die as to be born; and to a little infant,
perhaps, the one is as painful as the
other. He that dies in an earnest pur-
fuit is like one that is wounded in hot
blood; who, for the time, scarce feels
the hurt; and therefore a mind fixed
and bent upon fomewhat that is good
doth avert the dolors of death.
above all, believe it, the sweetest can-
ticle is Nunc dimittis; when a man hath
obtained worthy ends and expectations.
Death hath this alfo; that it openeth
the gate to good fame and extinguisheth
envy. Extinctus amabitur idem [= the
fame man that was envied while he
lived fhall be loved when he is gone].
(Eays, 1625.)

H

DEFORMITY.

Deformed perfons are commonly even with Nature; for as Nature hath done ill by them, fo do they by Nature; being for the most part (as the Scripture faith) void of natural affection; and

fo they have their revenge of Nature. (Eays, 1625, xliv.)

DELAYS.

Fortune is like the market; where many times, if you can stay a little, the price will fall. (Essays, 1625, xxi.)

OF GREAT PLACE AND DIGNITIES.

Certainly great perfons had need to borrow other men's opinions, to think themselves happy; for if they judge by their own feeling, they cannot find it; but if they think with themselves what other men think of them, and that other men would fain be as they are, then they are happy as it were by report; when perhaps they find the contrary within. For they are the first that find their own guilt, though they be the last that find their own faults. (Ejays, 1625, xi.)