youth, and the fair cheeks and full eyes of childhood, from the vigorousness and strong flexure of the joints of five-and-twenty, to the hollowness and dead paleness, to the loathsomeness and horror of a three day's burial, and we shall perceive the distance to be very

a i

great and very strange. But so have I seen rose newly springing from the clefts of its hoodhand, at first, it was fair as the morning. with the dew of heaven, as a lamb's and fuit. fleece; blet when a ruder breath had forced gin modesty, and dismantled its open its vir nd unripe retirements, it began too youthful aes, and to decline to softness to put on darknes of a sickly age; it bowed and the symptoms its stalk, and, at night, the head, and broke having lost some of

༣་

70, tended

mbitious stay in

a fair

its leaves and all its Tortion of weeds and beauty, it fell into the pG is the portion of outworn faces. The same n; the heritage every man and every womaEnness and cold of worms and serpents, rotte changed, that dishonour, and our beauty so ⚫ us not; and our acquaintance quickly knewst sich horror or that change mingled with so mur's n weak diselse meets so with our fears and coursings, that they who, six hours ag upon us, either with charitable or ai services, cannot, without some regret, ripped the room alone, where the body lies st of its life and honour. I have read of ye often young German gentleman, who, living. mpor refused to be pictured, but put off the i tunity of his friends' desire, by giving that, after a few days' burial, they might a painter to his vault, and, if they saw for it, draw the image of his death unto life. They did so, and found his face eaten, and his midriff and backbone full serpents; and so he stands pictured among armed ancestors. So does the fairest beau change, and it will be as bad with you a me; and then, what servants shall we ha to wait upon us in the grave? what friends visit us? what officious people to cleanse awa the moist and unwholesome cloud reflect upon our faces from the sides of the weer vaults, which are the longest weepers for funeral?

This discourse will be useful, if we cc and practise by the following ru considerations respectively.

I. All the rich and all the coveto the world will perceive, and all the Ho. perceive for them, that it is but a pense for all their cares, that, by

way.

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that shall be left, will be this, that the neighIbours shall say, "He died a rich man ;" and yet his wealth will not profit him in the grave, but hugely swell the sad accounts of = doomsday. And he that kills the Lord's

people with unjust or ambitious wars for an unrewarding interest, shall have this character, that he threw away all the days of his life, that one year might be reckoned with his name, and computed by his reign or consulship; and many men, by great labours and affronts, many indignities and crimes, labour only for a pompous epitaph, and a loud title upon their marble; whilst those, into whose possessions their heirs or kindred are entered, are forgotten, and lie unregarded as their ashes, and without concernment or relation, as the turf upon the face of their grave. A man may read a sermon, the best and most passionate that ever man preached, if he shall but enter into the sepulchres of kings. In the same Escurial,1 where the Spanish princes live in greatness and power, and decree war or peace, they have wisely placed a cemetery, where their ashes and their glory shall sleep till time shall be no more; and where our kings have been crowned, their ancestors lie interred, and they must walk over their grandsire's head to take his crown. There is an acre sown with royal seed, the copy of the greatest change, from rich to naked, from eiled roofs to arched coffins, from living like -8:ods to die like men. There is enough to cool e 1 e flames of lust, to abate the heights of pride, appease the itch of covetous desires, to ght ly and dash out the dissembling colours of wustful, artificial, and imaginary beauty. re the warlike and the peaceful, the fortuand the miserable, the beloved and the ised princes mingle their dust, and pay beat their symbol of mortality, and tell all orld, that, when we die, our ashes shall e haual to kings', and our accounts easier, ends ur pains or our crowns shall be less. To pprehension it is a sad record, which is Athenæus 2 concerning Ninus, the great rian monarch, whose life and death are eef med up in these words: "Ninus, the AssyrFor had an ocean of gold, and other riches te than the sand in the Caspian Sea; he

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la famous building near Madrid, consisting a monastery, a church, a palace, and a mausoum of the Kings of Spain 2 a gossipy Greek riter of the second century after Christ

never saw the stars, and perhaps he never desired it; he never stirred up the holy fire among the Magi, nor touched his god with the sacred rod according to the laws; he never offered sacrifice, nor worshipped the deity, nor administered justice, nor spake to his people, nor numbered them; but he was most valiant to eat and drink, and, having mingled his wines, he threw the rest upon the stones. This man is dead: behold his sepulchre; and now hear where Ninus is. Sometimes I was Ninus, and drew the breath of a living man; but now am nothing but clay. I have nothing, but what I did eat, and what I served to myself in lust, that was and is all my portion. The wealth with which I was esteemed blessed, my enemies, meeting together, shall bear away, as the mad Thyades1 carry a raw goat. I am gone to hell; and when I went thither, I neither carried gold, nor horse, nor silver chariot. I that wore a mitre,2 am now a little heap of dust." I know not anything, that can better represent the evil condition of a wicked man, or a changing greatness. From the greatest secular dignity to dust and ashes his nature bears him, and from thence to hell his sins carry him, and there he shall be forever under the dominion of chains and devils, wrath and an intolerable calamity. This is the reward of an unsanctified condition, and a greatness ill gotten or ill administered.

2. Let no man extend his thoughts, or let his hopes wander towards future and fardistant events and accidental contingencies. This day is mine and yours, but ye know not what shall be on the morrow; and every morning creeps out of a dark cloud, leaving behind it an ignorance and silence deep as midnight, and undiscerned as are the phantasms that make a chrisom-child3 to smile: so that we cannot discern what comes hereafter, unless we had a light from heaven brighter than the vision of an angel, even the spirit of prophecy. Without revelation, we cannot tell, whether we shall eat to-morrow, or whether a squinancy shall choke us: and it is written in the unrevealed folds of Divine predestination, that many, who are this day alive, shall to-morrow be laid upon the cold earth, and the women shall weep over their shroud, and dress them for their funeral.

By his old sire to his embraces runs,
Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea,
Like mortal life to meet eternity;

Though with those streams he no resemblance hold,

Whose foam is amber, and their gravel gold,
His genuine and less guilty wealth to explore,
Search not his bottom, but survey his shore,
O'er which he kindly spreads his spacious
wing,

And hatches plenty for th' ensuing spring; 70
Nor then destroys it with too fond a stay,
Like mothers which their infants overlay,
Nor, with a sudden and impetuous wave,
Like profuse kings, resumes the wealth he
gave;

No unexpected inundations spoil

The mower's hopes, nor mock the ploughman's toil,

But godlike his unwearied bounty flows, First loves to do, then loves the good he does ;

Nor are his blessings to his banks confined, But free and common as the sea or wind; 80 When he to boast or to disperse his stores, Full of the tributes of his grateful shores, Visits the world, and in his flying towers,1 Brings home to us, and makes both Indies

TO LUCASTA, GOING TO THE WARS

Tell me not, Sweet, I am unkind,
That from the nunnery

Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind
To war and arms I fly.

True, a new mistress now I chase,
The first foe in the field;
And with a stronger faith embrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.

Yet this inconstancy is such

As thou too shalt adore;

I could not love thee, Dear, so much, Loved I not Honour more.

FROM THE GRASSHOPPER

O Thou that swing'st upon the waving hair Of some well-filled oaten beard,

12

Drunk every night with a delicious tear Dropt thee from heaven, where thou wert rear'd.

The joys of earth and air are thine entire, That with thy feet and wings dost hop and

fly;

And when thy poppy works, thou dost retire To thy carved acorn-bed to lie. 8

Up with the day, the sun thou welcom'st then,

Sport'st in the gilt plaits of his beams, And all these merry days mak'st merry, men, Thyself, and melancholy streams.

TO ALTHEA, FROM PRISON

When Love with unconfinèd wings

Hovers within my gates,

And my divine Althea brings

To whisper at the grates; When I lie tangled in her hair And fetter'd to her eye,

12

The birds that wanton in the air Know no such liberty.

8

1 ships

When flowing cups run swiftly round With no allaying Thames,1

I diluting water