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"Turpe mori post te solo non posse dolore,
Violenta luctu & nescia tolerandi,"

as *Tacitus of Agrippina, not able to moderate her passions. So when she heard her son was slain, she abruptly broke off her work, changed countenance and colour, tore her hair, and fell a roaring down right,

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Another would needs run upon the sword's point after Euryalus' departure,

"Figite me, si qua est pietas, in me omnia tela

Conjicite ô Rutili ;

"

O let me dye, some good man or other make an end of me. How did Achilles take on for Patroclus' departure? A black cloud of sorrows overshadowed him, saith Homer. Jacob rent his clothes, put sack-cloth about his loines, sorrowed for his son a long season, and could not be comforted, but would needs go down into the grave unto his son, Gen. 37. 37. Many years after, the remembrance of such friends, of such accidents, is most grievous unto us, to see or hear of it, though it concern not our selves but others. Scaliger saith of himself, that he never read Socrates' death, in Plato's Phædon, but he wept : a Austin shed tears when he red the destruction of Troy. But howsoever this passion of sorrow be violent, bitter, and seizeth familiarly on wise, valiant, discreet men, yet it may surely be withstood, it may be diverted. For what is there in this life, that it should be so dear unto us? or that we should so much deplore the departure of a friend? The greatest pleasures are common society, to enjoy one another's presence, feasting, hawking, hunting, brooks, woods, hills, musick, dancing, &c. all this is but vanity and losse of time, as I have sufficiently declared.

"+

dum bibimus, dum serta, unguenta, puellas
Poscimus, obrepit non intellecta senectus."

Whilst we drink, prank our selves, with wenches dally,
Old age upon's at unawares doth sally.

As Alchymists spend that small modicum they have to get gold,

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and never finde it, we lose and neglect eternity, for a little momentary pleasure which we cannot enjoy, nor shall ever attain to in this life. We abhor death, pain, and grief, all, yet we will do nothing of that which should vindicate us from, but rather voluntarily thrust our selves upon it. "The lascivious prefers his whore before his life, or good estate; an angry man his revenge: a parasite his gut; ambitious, honours; covetous, wealth; a thief his booty: a souldier his spoyle; we abhor diseases, and yet we pull them upon us." We are never better or freer from cares then when we sleep, and yet, which we so much avoid and lament, death is but a perpetual sleep? and why should it, as * Epicurus argues, so much afright us? "When we are, death is not: but when death is, then we are not:" our life is tedious and troublesome unto him that lives best; "+ 'tis a misery to be born, a pain to live, a trouble to dye;" death makes an end of our miseries, and yet we cannot consider of it; a little before ‡ Socrates drank his portion of cicuta, he bid the Citizens of Athens cheerfully farewell, and concluded his speech with this short sentence; "My time is now come to be gone, I to my death, you to live on; but which of these is best, God alone knows." For there is no pleasure here but sorrow is annexed to it, repentance follows it. "If I feed liberally, I am likely sick or surfeit; If I live sparingly my hunger and thirst is not allayed; I am well neither full nor fasting; If I live honest, I burn in lust;" If I take my pleasure, I tire and starve myself, and do injury to my body and soul. "§ Of so small a quantity of mirth, how much sorrow? after so little pleasure, how great misery?" "Tis both ways troublesome to me, to rise and go to bed, to eat and provide my meat; cares and contentions attend me all day long, fears and suspicions all my life. I am discontented, and why should I desire so much to live? But an happy death will make an end of all our woes and miseries;

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"Omnibus una meis certa medela malis ;"

Why shouldst not thou then say with old Simeon since thou art so well affected, "Lord now let thy servant depart in peace" or with Paul, "I desire to be dissolved, and to be with Christ?" Beata mors quæ ad beatam vitam aditum

Amator scortum vitæ præponit, iracundus vindictam, parasitus gulam, ambitiosus honores, avarus opes, miles rapinam, fur prædam; morbos odimus & accersimus. Card. *Seneca; quum nos sumus mors non adest; cum vero + Bernard. c. 3. med. nasci miserum, viPlato Apol. Socratis. Sed jam hora est hinc Comedi ad satietatem, gravitas me offendit; parcius edi, non

mors adest, tum nos non sumus. vere pœna, angusti a mori. abire, &c. est expletum de siderium; vencreas delicias sequor, hinc morbus, lassitudo, &c. Bern. c. 3. med. de tantilla lætitia, quanta tristitia; post tantam voluptatem quam gravis miseria?

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aperit,

aperit, 'tis a blessed hour that leads us to a blessed life, and blessed are they that dye in the Lord. But life is sweet, and death is not so terrible in it self as the concomitants of it, a loathsome disease, pain, horror, &c. and many times the manner of it, to be hanged, to be broken on the wheel, to be burned alive. *Servetus the heretick, that suffered in Geneva, when he was brought to the stake, and saw the executioner come with fire in his hand, homo viso igne tam horrendum exclamavit, ut universum populum perterrefecerit, roared so loud, that he terrified the people.. An old Stoick would have scorned this. It troubles some to be unburied,

or so:

non te optima mater

Condet humi, patriove onerabit membra sepulchro;
Alitibus linguere feris, & gurgite mersum

Unda feret, piscesq; impasti vulnera lambent:"

Thy gentle parents shall not bury thee,
Amongst thine Ancestors entomb'd to be,

But feral fowle thy carcass shall devoure,

Or drowned corps hungry fish maws shall scoure.

As Socrates told Crito, it concernes me not what is done with me when I am dead; Facilis jactura sepulchri: I care not so long as I feel it not; let thein set mine head on the pike of Tenariffa, and my quarters in the foure parts of the world,

-"pascam licet in cruce corvos,"

let Wolves or Bears devoure me;

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." Cœlo tegitur qui non habet urnam,"

The Canopy of heaven covers him that hath no tomb. So likewise for our friends, why should their departure so much trouble us? They are better as we hope, and for what then doest thou lament, as those do whom Paul taxed in his time, 1 Thes. 4. 13. " that have no hope?" "Tis fit there should be some solemnity.

"Sed sepelire decet defunctum, pectore forti,
Constantes, unumq; diem fletui indulgentes."

Job's friends said not a word to him the first seven daies, but let sorrow and discontent take their course, themselves sitting sad and silent by him. When Jupiter himself wept for Sarpedon, what else did the poet insinuate, but that some sorrow is good,

. Luc.

Est enim mors piorum felix transitus de labore ad refrigerium, de expectatione ad præmium, de agone ad bravium. * Vaticanus vita ejus. +11. 9. Homer.

Quis

«* Quis matrem nisi mentis inops in funere nati
Flere vetat?"-

who can blame a tender mother if she weep for her children? Beside, as + Plutarch holds, tis not in our power not to lament, Indolentia non cuivis contingit, it takes away mercy and pitty, not to be sad; "'tis a natural passion to weep for our friends, an irresistible passion to lament and grieve. "I know not how (saith Seneca) but sometimes 'tis good to be miserable in misery and for the most part all grief evacuates itself by teares," "rest quædam flere voluptas,

Expletur lachrymis egeriturq; dolor:"

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"yet after a daye's mourning or two, comfort thy self for thy heaviness," Eccles. 38. 17. Non decet defunctum ignavo quæstu prosequi; 'twas Germanicus' advice of old, that we should not dwell too long upon our passions, to be desperately sad, immoderate grievers, to let them tyrannize, there's indolentiæ ars, a medium to be kept: we do not (saith | Austin) forbid men to grieve, but to grieve overmuch. "I forbid not a man to be angry, but I ask for what cause he is so? Not to be sad, but why is he sad? Not to fear, but wherefore is he afraid?" I require a moderation as well as a just reason. The Romans and most civil Commonwealths have set a time to such solemnities, they must not mourn after a set day, or if in a family a child be born, a daughter or son married, some state or honour be conferred, a brother be redeemed from his bands, a friend from his enemies," or the like, they must lament no more. And 'tis fit it should be so; to what end is all their funeral pomp, complaints, and tears? When Socrates was dying, his friends Apollodorus and Crito, with some others, were weeping by him, which he perceiving, asked them what they meant: "%for that very cause he put all the women out of the roome, upon which words of his they were abashed, and ceased from their tears." Lodovicus Cortesius, a rich Lawyer of Padua (as ¶ Bernardinus Scardeonius relates) commanded by his last will, and a great mulct if otherwise to his heir, that no funeral should be kept for him, no man should lament: But as at a wedding, musick and minstrels to be provided; and instead of black

* Ovid. + Consol. ad Apolon. non est libertate nostra positum non dolere, misericordiam abolet, &c. f Ovid 4 Trist. Tacitus lib. 4. ||Lib. 9. cap. 9. de civitate Dei. Non quæro cum trascatur sed cur, non utrum sit tristis sed unde, non utrum timeat sed quid timeat. Festus verbo minuitur. Luctui dies indicebatur cum liberi nascantur, cum frater abit, amicus ab hospite captivus domum redeat, puella desponsetur. Ob hanc causam mulieres ablegâram ne talia facerent; nos hæc audientes erubuimus et destiumus a lachrymis. ¶ Lib. 1. class. S. de claris. Jurisconsultis Patavinis.

mourners,

mourners, he took order," that twelve virgins clad in green should carry him to the Church." His will and testament was accordingly performed, and he buried in S. Sophie's Church, Tully was much grieved for his daughter Tulliola's death at first, until such time that he had confirmed his mind with some Philosophical precepts, "then he began to triumph over fortune and grief, and for her reception into heaven to be much more joyed then before he was troubled for her loss." If an heathen man could so fortifie himself from Philosophy, what shall a Christian from Divinity? Why doest thou so macerate thy selfe? 'Tis an inevitable chance, the first statute in Magna Charta, an everlasting Act of Parliament, all must † die.

"Constat æternâ positumq; lege est,

Ut constet genitum nihil.”

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It cannot be revoked, we are all mortal, and these all-commanding gods and princes" die like men:"--involvit humile pariter & celsum caput, æquatque summis infima. “O weak condition of humane estate," Sylvius exclaims: Ladislaus King of Bohemia 18 yeeres of age, in the flower of his youth, so potent, rich, fortunate and happy, in the midst of all his friends, amongst so many Physicians, now ready to be" married, in 36 houres sickned and died. We must so be gone sooner or later all, and as Calliopeius in the Comedy took his leave of his Spectators and Auditors,

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"Vos valete & plaudite, Calliopeius recensui."

must we bid the world farewell, (Exit Calliopeius) and having now plaid our parts, for ever be gone. Tombs and monuments have the like fate, data sunt ipsis quoque fata sepulchris, kingdomes, provinces, towns, and cities have their periods, and are consumed. In those flourishing times of Troy, Mycena was the fairest city in Greece, Græciæ cuncta imperitabat, but it alas, and that" || Assyrian Nineve are quite overthrown:" The like fate hath that Egyptian and Boeotian Thebes, Delos, commune Græciæ conciliabulum, the common councel-house of Greece, and Babylon the greatest city that ever the sun shone on, hath now nothing but walls and rubbish left.

*12. Innuptæ puellæ amictæ viridibus pannis, &c. Lib. de consol. Præseptis philosophiæ confirmatus adversus omnem fortunæ vim, et te consecrata in cœlumq; receptâ, tantâ affectus lætitia sum ac voluptate, quantam animo capere possum, ac exultare plane mihi videor, victorq; de omm dolore et fortuna triumphare. + Ut lignum uri natum, arista secari, sic homines mori. Boeth, Nic. Hensel. Breslagr. fol. 47.

*Boeth. lib. 2. met. 3.

Twenty then present. "To Magdalen the daughter of Charles the seventh of France. Obeunt noctesque diesq; &c. Assyriorum regio funditus de

lela. § Omnium quot unquam Sol aspexit urbium maxima.

" Quid

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