From Chaucer to Tennyson Part 20

SIR THOMAS BROWNE.

THE VANITY OF MONUMENTS.

[From _Urn Burial_]

There is no antidote against the opium of time, which temporally considereth all things. Our fathers find their graves in our short memories, and sadly tell us how we may be buried in our survivors.

Grave-stones tell truth scarce forty years. Generations pa.s.s while some trees stand, and old families last not three oaks....The iniquity[130]

of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity. Who can but pity the founder of the pyramids? Herostratus lives, that burnt the temple of Diana, he is almost lost that built it. Time hath spared the epitaph of Adrian's horse, confounded that of himself. In vain we compute our felicities by the advantage of our good names, since bad have equal durations and Thersites[131] is like to live as long as Agamemnon. Who knows whether the best of men be known, or whether there be not more remarkable persons forgot than any that stand remembered in the known account of time? Without the favor of the everlasting register, the first man had been as unknown as the last, and Methusaleh's long life had been his only chronicle.

Oblivion is not to be hired.[132] The greater part must be content to be as though they had not been, to be found in the register of G.o.d, not in the record of man. Twenty-seven names make up the first story, and the reported names ever since contain not one living century. The number of the dead long exceedeth all that shall live. The night of time far surpa.s.seth the day, and who knows when was the equinox? Every hour adds unto that current arithmetic which scarce stands one moment. And since death must be the Lucina[133] of life, and even pagans could doubt whether thus to live were to die; since our longest sun sets at right descensions and makes but winter arches, and, therefore, it cannot be long before we lie down in darkness and have our light in ashes. Since the brother[134] of death daily haunts us with dying mementoes, and time that grows old in itself bids us hope no long duration; diuturnity is a dream and folly of expectation....

There is nothing strictly immortal but immortality. Whatever hath no beginning may be confident of no end. All others have a dependent being and within the reach of destruction, which is the peculiar of that necessary essence that cannot destroy itself, and the highest strain of omnipotency, to be so powerfully const.i.tuted as not to suffer even from the power of itself. But the sufficiency of Christian immortality frustrates all earthly glory, and the quality of either state after death makes a folly of posthumous memory. G.o.d, who can only[135] destroy our souls, and hath a.s.sured our resurrection, either of our bodies or names hath directly promised no duration. Wherein there is so much of chance that the boldest expectants have found unhappy frustrations, and to hold long subsistence seems but a scape[136] in oblivion. But man is a n.o.ble animal, splendid in ashes and pompous in the grave, solemnizing nativities and deaths with equal l.u.s.tre, nor omitting ceremonies of bravery[137] in the infamy of his nature.

[Footnote 130: Injustice.]

[Footnote 131: See Shakspere's _Troilus and Cressida_.]

[Footnote 132: That is, bribed, bought off.]

[Footnote 133: The G.o.ddess of childbirth. We must die to be born again.]

[Footnote 134: Sleep.]

[Footnote 135: That is, the only one who can.]

[Footnote 136: Freak.]

[Footnote 137: Ostentation.]

JOHN DRYDEN.

THE CHARACTER OF ZIMRI.[138]

[From _Absalom and Achitophel_.]

In the first rank of these did Zimri stand, A man so various that he seemed to be Not one, but all mankind's epitome: Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong, Was every thing by turns, and nothing long; But in the course of one revolving moon Was chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon; Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking, Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking, Blest madman, who could every hour employ With something new to wish or to enjoy!

Railing and praising were his usual themes, And both, to show his judgment, in extremes: So over-violent or over-civil That every man with him was G.o.d or Devil.

In squandering wealth was his peculiar art; Nothing went unrewarded but desert.

Beggared by fools whom still he found[139] too late, He had his jest, and they had his estate.

He laughed himself from court; then sought relief By forming parties, but could ne'er be chief: For spite of him, the weight of business fell To Absalom and wise Achitophel.[140]

Thus, wicked but in will, of means bereft, He left not faction, but of that was left.

[Footnote 138: This is a satirical sketch of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham.]

[Footnote 139: Found out, detected.]

[Footnote 140: The Duke of Monmouth and the Earl of Shaftesbury.]

THE CHEATS OF HOPE.

[From _Aurengzebe_.]

When I consider life, 'tis all a cheat; Yet, fooled with hope, men favor the deceit, Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay; To-morrow's falser than the former day.

Lies worse, and while it says we shall be blest With some new joys, cuts off what we possessed.

Strange cozenage! none would live past years again, Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain, And from the dregs of life think to receive What the first sprightly running could not give.

I'm tired of waiting for this chymic[141] gold Which fools us young and beggars us when old.

[Footnote 141: The gold which the alchemists tried to make from base metals.]

JONATHAN SWIFT.

THE EMPEROR OF LILLIPUT.

[From _Gulliver's Travels_.]

He is taller by almost the breadth of my nail than any of his court; which alone is enough to strike an awe into the beholders. His features are strong and masculine, with an Austrian lip and arched nose, his complexion olive, his countenance erect, his body and limbs well proportioned, all his motions graceful, and his deportment majestic. He was then past his prime, being twenty-eight years and three quarters old, of which he had reigned about seven in great felicity, and generally victorious. For the better convenience of beholding him, I lay on my side, so that my face was parallel to his, and he stood but three yards off; however, I have had him since many times in my hand, and therefore cannot be deceived in the description. His dress was very plain and simple, and the fashion of it between the Asiatic and the European; but he had on his head a light helmet of gold, adorned with jewels and a plume on the crest. He held his sword drawn in his hand to defend himself, if I should happen to break loose; it was almost three inches long: the hilt and scabbard were gold enriched with diamonds. His voice was shrill, but very clear and articulate, and I could distinctly hear it, when I stood up.

THE STRULDBRUGS.

[From _Gulliver's Travels_.]

One day in much good company, I was asked by a person of quality whether I had seen any of their _Struldbrugs_, or immortals? I said I had not, and desired he would explain to me what he meant by such an appellation, applied to a mortal creature. He told me that sometimes, though very rarely, a child happened to be born in a family with a red circular spot in the forehead, directly over the left eyebrow, which was an infallible mark that it should never die....He said these births were so rare that he did not believe there could be above eleven hundred _Struldbrugs_ of both s.e.xes in the whole kingdom; of which he computed about fifty in the metropolis, and among the rest, a young girl born about three years ago; that these productions were not peculiar to any family, but a mere effect of chance; and the children of the _Struldbrugs_ themselves were equally mortal with the rest of the people....After this preface, he gave me a particular account of the _Struldbrugs_ among them. He said they commonly acted like mortals till about thirty years old; after which, by degrees, they grew melancholy and dejected, increasing in both till they came to fourscore. This he learned from their own confession; for otherwise, there not being above two or three of that species born in an age, they were too few to form a general observation by. When they came to fourscore years, which is reckoned the extremity of living in this country, they had not only all the follies and infirmities of other old men, but many more, which arose from the dreadful prospect of never dying. They were not only opinionative, peevish, covetous, morose, vain, talkative, but incapable of friendship and dead to all natural affection, which never descended below their grandchildren. Envy and impotent desires are their prevailing pa.s.sions. But those objects against which their envy seems princ.i.p.ally directed are the vices of the younger sort and the deaths of the old. By reflecting on the former, they find themselves cut off from all possibility of pleasure; and whenever they see a funeral they lament and repine that others are gone to a harbor of rest, to which they themselves never can hope to arrive.

They have no remembrance of any thing but what they learned and observed in their youth and middle age, and even that is very imperfect, And for the truth or particulars of any fact, it is safer to depend on common tradition than upon their best recollections. The least miserable among them appear to be those who turn to dotage and entirely lose their memories; these meet with more pity and a.s.sistance, because they want many bad qualities which abound in others....At ninety, they lose their teeth and hair; they have at that age no distinction of taste, but eat and drink whatever they can get, without relish or appet.i.te. The diseases they were subject to still continue, without increasing or diminishing. In talking, they forget the common appellation of things, and the names of persons, even of those who are their nearest friends and relatives. For the same reason they never can amuse themselves with reading, because their memory will not serve to carry them from the beginning of a sentence to the end; and by this defect they are deprived of the only entertainment whereof they might otherwise be capable....

They are despised and hated by all sorts of people; when one of them is born, it is reckoned ominous, and their birth is recorded very particularly....They were the most mortifying sight I ever beheld; and the women were homelier than the men Beside the usual deformities in extreme old age, they acquired an additional ghastliness, in proportion to their number of years, which is not to be described; and among half a dozen I soon distinguished which was the eldest, although there was not above a century or two between them.

ALEXANDER POPE.

A CHARACTER OF ADDISON.

[From the _Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot_.]

Peace to all such! but were there one whose fires True genius kindles and fair fame inspires; Blest with each talent and each art to please, And born to write, converse, and live with ease: Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne; View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes, And hate, for arts that caused himself to rise; d.a.m.n with faint praise, a.s.sent with civil leer, And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault and hesitate dislike; Alike reserved to blame or to commend, A timorous foe and a suspicious friend; Dreading even fools, by flatterers besieged; And so obliging that he ne'er obliged; Like _Cato_,[142] give his little Senate laws, And sit attentive to his own applause; While wits and templars[143] every sentence raise, And wonder with a foolish face of praise-- Who but must laugh if such a man there be?

Who would not weep if Atticus were he?

AN ORNAMENT TO HER s.e.x.