sitated to eye the remaining particle of fu- it. Time hath spared the epitaph of Adrian's? turity, are naturally constituted unto thoughts horse, confounded that of bimself. In vain of the next world, and cannot excusably de- we compute our felicities by the advantage of cline the consideration of that duration, which our good names, since bad have equal duramaketh pyramids pillars of snow, and all that's tions; and Thersites? is like to live as long as past a moment.

Agamemnon. Who knows whether the best Circles and right lines limit and close all of men be known, or whether there be not bodies, and the mortal right-lined circled must more remarkable persons forgot than any that conclude and shut up all. There is no anti- stand remembered in the known account of dote against the opium of time, which témpo- time? Without the favour of the everlasting rarily considereth all things. Our fathers find register, the first man had been as unknown their graves in our short memories, and sadly as the last, and Methuselah's long life had tell us how we may be buried in our survivors. been his only chronicle. Gravestones tell truth scarce forty years.? Oblivion is not to be hired. The greater Generations pass while some trees stand, and part must be content to be as though they had old families last not three oaks. To be read not been, to be found in the register of God, by bare inscriptions, like many in Gruter; 3 to not in the record of man. Twenty-seven hope for eternity by enigmatical epithets, or names make up the first story, i and the refirst letters of our names; to be studied by corded names ever since contain not one living antiquaries, who we were, and have new names century. The number of the dead long exgiven us, like many of the mummies, are cold ceedeth all that shall live. The night of consolations unto the students of perpetuity, time far surpasseth the day; and who knows even by everlasting languages.

when was the equinox? Every hour adds To be content that times to come should unto that current arithmetic, which scarce only know there was such a man, not caring stands one moment. And since death must whether they knew more of him, was a frigid be the Lucina' of life, and even Pagans could ambition in Cardan,“ disparaging his horo- doubt whether thus to live were to die; since scopal inclination and judgment of himself. our longest sun sets at right declensions, and Who cares to subsist like Hippocrates's pa- makes but winter arches, and therefore it tients, or Achilles's horses in Homer, under cannot be long before we lie down in darkness, naked nominations, without deserts and noble and have our light in ashes; since the brother acts, which are the balsam of our memories, of death daily haunts us with dying mementhe "entelechia” 6 and soul of our subsis- tos, and time, that grows old itself, bids us tences? Yet to be nameless in worthy deeds hope no long duration, diuturnity is a dream exceeds an infamous history. The Canaan- and folly of expectation. itish woman lives more happily without a Darkness and light divide the course of time, name, than Herodias with one. And who had and oblivion shares with memory a great part not rather have been the good thief than even of our living beings. We slightly rememPilate?

ber our felicities, and the smartest strokes of But the iniquity? of oblivion blindly scat- afiliction leave but short smart upon us. tereth her poppy, and deals with the memory Sense endureth no extremities, and sorrows of men without distinction to merit of per- destroy us or themselves. To weep into petuity. Who can but pity the founder of the stones are fables. Afflictions induce callosipyramids ? Erostratus 8 lives that burnt the ties; niseries are slippery, or fall like snow Temple of Diana; he is almost lost that built upon us, which, not withstanding, is no un

happy stupidity. To be ignorant of evils to 1, the character of deathIn old graveyards come, and forgetful of evils past, is a merciful the old graves were used for new burials. 3 Gruter's provision in nature, whereby we digest the Ancient Inscriptions - A famous Italian scholar of mixture of our few and evil days, and our the sixteenth century, who said: "I should like it to be known that I lived, I do not care that it 1 the emperor Hadrian an impudent coward should be known what sort of man I was.” mere in the Greek army against Troy, see the Iliad or names 6 realizations injustice The night that Troilus and Cressida 3 leader of the Greeks against Alexander the Great was born, Herostralus burnt the Troy 4i.e., before the flood, see Gen., iv and v temple of Diana, at Ephesus, to secure immortal fame. 6 goddess of birth

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delivered senses not relapsing into cutting a dependent being, and within the reach of remembrances, our sorrows are not kept raw destruction. But the sufficiency of Christian by the edge of repetitions. A great part of immortality frustrates all earthly glory, and antiquity contented their hopes of subsistency the quality of either state after death makes a with a transmigration of their souls; a good folly of posthumous memory. God, who can way to continue their memories, while, having only destroy our souls, and hath assured our the advantage of plural successions, they resurrection, either of our bodies or names could not but act something remarkable in hath directly promised no duration. Wherein such variety of beings, and enjoying the fame there is so much of chance, that the boldest of their passed selves, make accumulation of expectants have found unhappy frustration; glory unto their last durations. Others, and to hold long subsistence seems but a scape rather than be lost in the uncomfortable in oblivion. But man is a noble animal, night of nothing, were content to recede splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave, into the common being, and make one particle solemnising nativities and deaths with equal of the public soul of all things, which was no lustre, nor omitting ceremonies of bravery in more than to return into their unknown and the infamy of his nature. divine original again. Egyptian ingenuity was more unsatisfied, contriving their bodies

EDMUND WALLER (1606-1687) in sweet consistencies? to attend the return of their souls. But all was vanity, feeding the

THE STORY OF PHEBUS wind and folly. The Egyptian mummies,

AND which Cambyses or time hath spared, avarice

DAPHNE, APPLIED now consumeth.Mummy is become merchandise, Mizraim'cures wounds, and Pharaoh Thyrsis, a youth of the inspired train, is sold for balsams.

Fair Sacharissa loved, but loved in vain. In vain do individuals hope for immortality, Like Phæbus sung the no less amorous boy ; for any patent from oblivion, in preservations Like Daphne she, as lovely, and as coy! below the moon. Men have been deceived With numbers' he the flying nymph pursues, 5 even in their flatteries above the sun,4 and With numbers such as Phæbus' self might use! studied conceits to perpetuate their names in Such is the chase when Love and Fancy leads, heaven. The various cosmography of that O'er craggy mountains, and through flowery part hath already varied the names of con

meads; trived constellations. Nimrod 5 is lost in Orion, Invoked to testify the lover's care, and Osirise in the Dog-star. While we look for Or form some image of his cruel fair. incorruption in the heavens, we find they are Urged with his fury, like a wounded deer, but like the earth, durable in their main O'er these he fled; and now approaching near, bodies, alterable in their parts; whereof, be- Had reached the nymph with his harmonious side comets and new stars, perspectives begin lay, to tell tales, and the spots that wander about Whom all his charms could not incline to stay. the sun, with Phaethon's favor, would make Yet what he sung in his immortal strain, 15 clear conviction.

Though unsuccessful, was not sung in vain; There is nothing strictly immortal but im- All, but the nymph that should redress his mortality. Whatever hath no beginning, may wrong, be confident of no end; which is the peculiar Attend his passion, and approve his song. of that necessary essence that cannot destroy Like Phæbus thus, acquiring unsought praise, itself, and the highest strain of omnipotency to He catched at love, and filled his arm with be so powerfully constituted, as not to suffer bays. even from the power of itself. All others have

ON A GIRDLE

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That which her slender waist confined,
Shall now my joyful temples bind;
No monarch but would give his crown,
His arms might do what this has done.

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