Harvard Classics, vol 32 | Page 5

step one foot further without
an ague? The remedie of the vulgar sort is, not to think on it. But from
what brutall stupiditie may so grosse a blindnesse come upon him? he
must be made to bridle his Asse by the taile,
Qiti capite ipse suo instituit vestigia retro. [Footnote: Lucret. 1. iv. 474]
Who doth a course contrarie runne With his head to his course
begunne.

It is no marvell if he be so often taken tripping; some doe no sooner
heare the name of death spoken of, but they are afraid, yea the most
part will crosse themselves, as if they heard the Devill named. And
because mention is made of it in mens wils and testaments, I warrant
you there is none will set his hand to them, til the physitian hath given
his last doome, and utterly forsaken him. And God knowes, being then
betweene such paine and feare, with what sound judgment they endure
him. For so much as this syllable sounded so unpleasantly in their eares,
and this voice seemed so ill boding and unluckie, the Romans had
learned to allay and dilate the same by a Periphrasis. In liew of saying,
he is dead, or he hath ended his daies, they would say, he hath lived. So
it be life, be it past or no, they are comforted: from whom we have
borrowed our phrases quondam, alias, or late such a one. It may haply
be, as the common saying is, the time we live is worth the mony we
pay for it. I was borne betweene eleven of the clocke and noone, the
last of Februarie 1533, according to our computation, the yeare
beginning the first of Januarie. It is but a fortnight since I was 39 yeares
old. I want at least as much more. If in the meane time I should trouble
my thoughts with a matter so farre from me, it were but folly. But what?
we see both young and old to leave their life after one selfe-same
condition. No man departs otherwise from it, than if he but now came
to it, seeing there is no man so crazed,[Footnote: Infirm] bedrell,
[Footnote: Bedridden.] or decrepit, so long as he remembers
Methusalem, but thinkes he may yet live twentie yeares. Moreover,
seely [Footnote: Simple, weak.] creature as thou art, who hath limited
the end of thy daies? Happily thou presumest upon physitians reports.
Rather consider the effect and experience. By the common course of
things long since thou livest by extraordinarie favour. Thou hast
alreadie over-past the ordinarie tearmes of common life: And to prove
it, remember but thy acquaintances, and tell me how many more of
them have died before they came to thy age, than have either attained
or outgone the same: yea, and of those that through renoune have
ennobled their life, if thou but register them, I will lay a wager, I will
finde more that have died before they came to five and thirty years,
than after. It is consonant with reason and pietie, to take example by the
humanity of Jesus Christ, who ended his humane life at three and thirtie
yeares. The greatest man that ever was, being no more than a man, I

meane Alexander the Great, ended his dayes, and died also of that age.
How many severall meanes and waies hath death to surprise us!
Quid quisque vitet, nunquam homini satis Cautum est in horas
[Footnote: Hor. 1. ii. Od. xiii. 13.]
A man can never take good heed, Hourely what he may shun and
speed.
I omit to speak of agues and pleurisies; who would ever have imagined
that a Duke of Brittanie should have beene stifled to death in a throng
of people, as whilome was a neighbour of mine at Lyons, when Pope
Clement made his entrance there? Hast thou not seene one of our late
Kings slaine in the middest of his sports? and one of his ancestors die
miserably by the chocke [Footnote: Shock.] of an hog? Eschilus fore
threatned by the fall of an house, when he stood most upon his guard,
strucken dead by the fall of a tortoise shell, which fell out of the tallants
of an eagle flying in the air? and another choaked with the kernell of a
grape? And an Emperour die by the scratch of a combe, whilest he was
combing his head? And Aemylius Lepidus with hitting his foot against
a doore-seele? And Aufidius with stumbling against the
Consull-chamber doore as he was going in thereat? And Cornelius
Gallus, the Praetor, Tigillinus, Captaine of the Romane watch,
Lodowike, sonne of Guido Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, end their
daies betweene womens thighs? And of a farre worse example
Speusippus, the Platonian philosopher, and one of our Popes?