Harvard Classics, vol 32 | Page 7

Skeleton] of a dead man to be brought
before them, as a memorandum and warning to their guests.
Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum, Grata superveniet; quae
non sperabitur, hora? [Footnote: Hor. 1. i. Epist. iv. 13.]
Thinke every day shines on thee as thy last, Welcome it will come,
whereof hope was past.
It is uncertaine where death looks for us; let us expect her everie where:
the premeditation of death, is a forethinking of libertie. He who hath
learned to die, hath unlearned to serve. There is no evill in life, for him
that hath well conceived, how the privation of life is no evill. To know
how to die, doth free us from all subjection and constraint. Paulus
AEmilius answered one, whom that miserable king of Macedon his
prisoner sent to entreat him he would not lead him in triumph, "Let him
make that request unto himselfe." Verily, if Nature afford not some
helpe in all things, it is very hard that art and industrie should goe farre
before. Of my selfe, I am not much given to melancholy, but rather to
dreaming and sluggishness. There is nothing wherewith I have ever
more entertained my selfe, than with the imaginations of death, yea in
the most licentious times of my age.
Iucundum, cum atas florida ver ageret [Footnote: Catul. Eleg. iv. 16.]
When my age flourishing Did spend its pleasant spring.
Being amongst faire Ladies, and in earnest play, some have thought me

busied, or musing with my selfe, how to digest some jealousie, or
meditating on the uncertaintie of some conceived hope, when God he
knowes, I was entertaining my selfe with the remembrance of some one
or other, that but few daies before was taken with a burning fever, and
of his sodaine end, comming from such a feast or meeting where I was
my selfe, and with his head full of idle conceits, of lore, and merry glee;
supposing the same, either sickness or end, to be as neere me as him.
Iam fuerit, nec post, unquam revocare licebit. [Footnote: Lucr. I. iii.
947.]
Now time would be, no more You can this time restore.
I did no more trouble my selfe or frowne at such conceit, [Idea.] than at
any other. It is impossible we should not apprehend or feele some
motions or startings at such imaginations at the first, and comming
sodainely upon us; but doubtlesse, he that shall manage and meditate
upon them with an impartiall eye, they will assuredly, in tract [Course.]
of time, become familiar to him: Otherwise, for my part, I should be in
continuall feare and agonie; for no man did ever more distrust his life,
nor make lesse account of his continuance: Neither can health, which
hitherto I have so long enjoied, and which so seldome hath beene
crazed, [Enfeebled.] lengthen my hopes, nor any sicknesse shorten
them of it. At every minute me thinkes I make an escape. And I
uncessantly record unto my selfe, that whatsoever may be done another
day, may be effected this day. Truly hazards and dangers doe little or
nothing approach us at our end: And if we consider, how many more
there remaine, besides this accident, which in number more than
millions seeme to threaten us, and hang over us; we shall find, that be
we sound or sicke, lustie or weake, at sea or at land, abroad or at home,
fighting or at rest, in the middest of a battell or, in our beds, she is ever
alike neere unto us. Nemo altero fragilior est, nemo in crastinum sui
certior: "No man is weaker then other; none surer of himselfe (to live)
till to morrow." Whatsoever I have to doe before death, all leasure to
end the same seemeth short unto me, yea were it but of one houre.
Some body, not long since turning over my writing tables, found by
chance a memoriall of something I would have done after my death: I
told him (as indeed it was true), that being but a mile from my house,
and in perfect health and lustie, I had made haste to write it, because I
could not assure my self I should ever come home in safety: As one

that am ever hatching of mine owne thoughts, and place them in my
selfe: I am ever prepared about that which I may be: nor can death
(come when she please) put me in mind of any new thing. A man
should ever, as much as in him lieth, be ready booted to take his
journey, and above all things, looke he have then nothing to doe but
with himselfe.
Quid brevi fortes jaculamur aevo Multa: [Footnote: Hor. 1. ii. Od. Xiv]
To aime why are we ever bold, At many things