The Works of Sir Thomas Browne Volume III Part 11

[89] Del inferno. _cant. 4._

Were the happinesse of next world as closely apprehended as the felicities of this, it were a martyrdome to live; and unto such as consider none hereafter, it must be more then death to die, which makes us amazed at those audacities, that durst be nothing, and return into their _Chaos_ again. Certainly such spirits as could contemn death, when they expected no better being after, would have scorned to live had they known any. And therefore we applaud not the judgment of _Machiavel_, that Christianity makes men cowards, or that with the confidence of but half dying, the dispised virtues of patience and humility, have abased the spirits of men, which Pagan principles exalted, but rather regulated the wildenesse of audacities, in the attempts, grounds, and eternal sequels of death; wherein men of the boldest spirits are often prodigiously temerarious. Nor can we extenuate valour of ancient Martyrs, who contemned death in the uncomfortable scene of their lives, and in their decrepit Martyrdomes did probably lose not many moneths of their dayes, or parted with life when it was scarce worth the living.

For (beside that long time past holds no consideration unto a slender time to come) they had no small disadvantage from the const.i.tution of old age, which naturally makes men fearful; And complexionally superannuated from the bold and couragious thoughts of youth and fervent years. But the contempt of death from corporal animosity, promoteth not our felicity. They may set in the _Orchestra_, and n.o.blest Seats of Heaven, who have held up shaking hands in the fire, and humanely contended for glory.

Mean while _Epicurus_ lies deep in _Dante's_ h.e.l.l, wherin we meet with Tombs enclosing souls which denied their immortalities. But whether the virtuous heathen, who lived better then he spake, or erring in the principles of himself, yet lived above Philosophers of more specious Maximes, lye so deep as he is placed; at least so low as not to rise against Christians, who beleeving or knowing that truth, have lastingly denied it in their practise and conversation, were a quaery too sad to insist on.

But all or most apprehensions rested in Opinions of some future being, which ignorantly or coldly beleeved, beget those perverted conceptions, Ceremonies, Sayings, which Christians pity or laugh at. Happy are they, which live not in that disadvantage of time, when men could say little for futurity, but from reason. Whereby the n.o.blest mindes fell often upon doubtful deaths, and melancholly Dissolutions; With these hopes _Socrates_ warmed his doubtful spirits, against that cold potion, and _Cato_ before he durst give the fatal stroak, spent part of the night in reading the immortality of _Plato_, thereby confirming his wavering hand unto the animosity of that attempt.

It is the heaviest stone that melancholy can throw at a man, to tell him he is at the end of his nature; or that there is no further state to come, unto which this seemes progressional, and otherwise made in vaine; Without this accomplishment the natural expectation and desire of such a state, were but a fallacy in nature; unsatisfied Considerators would quarrel the justice of their const.i.tutions, and rest content that _Adam_ had fallen lower; whereby by knowing no other Original, and deeper ignorance of themselves, they might have enjoyed the happinesse of inferiour Creatures; who in tranquillity possess their Const.i.tutions, as having not the apprehension to deplore their own natures. And being framed below the circ.u.mference of these hopes, or cognition of better being, the wisedom of G.o.d hath necessitated their Contentment: But the superiour ingredient and obscured part of our selves, whereto all present felicities afford no resting contentment, will be able at last to tell us we are more then our present selves; and evacuate such hopes in the fruition of their own accomplishments.

CHAPTER V

Now since these dead bones have already out-lasted the living ones of _Methuselah_, and in a yard under ground, and thin walls of clay, out-worn all the strong and specious buildings above it; and quietly rested under the drums and tramplings of three conquests; What Prince can promise such diuturnity unto his Reliques, or might not gladly say,

_Sic ego componi versus in ossa velim._[90]

[90] Tibullus.

Time which antiquates Antiquities, and hath an art to make dust of all things, hath yet spared these _minor_ Monuments. In vain we hope to be known by open and visible conservatories, when to be unknown was the means of their continuation and obscurity their protection: If they dyed by violent hands, and were thrust into their Urnes, these bones become considerable, and some old Philosophers would honour them,[91] whose soules they conceived most pure, which were thus s.n.a.t.c.hed from their bodies; and to retain a stronger propension unto them: whereas they weariedly left a languishing corps, and with faint desires of reunion.

If they fell by long and aged decay, yet wrapt up in the bundle of time, they fall into indistinction, and make but one blot with Infants. If we begin to die when we live, and long life be but a prolongation of death; our life is a sad composition; we live with death, and die not in a moment. How many pulses made up the life of _Methuselah_, were work for _Archimedes_: Common Counters sum up the life of _Moses_ his man.[92]

Our dayes become considerable like petty sums by minute acc.u.mulations; where numerous fractions make up but small round numbers; and our dayes of a span long make not one little finger.[93]

[91] Oracula Chaldaica c.u.m scholiis Pselli et Phethonis. ??? ??po?t??

s?a ???a? ?a?a??tata?. Vi corpus relinquentium animae purissimae.

[92] _In the Psalme of_ Moses.

[93] _According to the ancient Arithmetick of the hand wherein the little finger of the right hand contracted, signified an hundred._ Pierius in Hieroglyph.

If the nearnesse of our last necessity, brought a nearer conformity unto it, there were a happinesse in h.o.a.ry hairs, and no calamity in half senses. But the long habit of living indisposeth us for dying; When Avarice makes us the sport of death; When even _David_ grew politickly cruel; and _Solomon_ could hardly be said to be the wisest of men. But many are to early old, and before the date of age. Adversity stretcheth our dayes, misery makes _Alcmenas_ nights,[94] and time hath no wings unto it. But the most tedious being is that which can unwish it self, content to be nothing, or never to have been, which was beyond the _male_-content of _Job_, who cursed not the day of his life, but his Nativity; Content to have so far been, as to have a t.i.tle to future being; Although he had lived here but in an hidden state of life, and as it were an abortion.

[94] _One night as long as three._

[Sidenote: _The puzling questions of_ Tiberius _unto Grammarians.

Marcel. Donatus in Suet._ ???t? ???ea ?e????. Hom. Job.]

What Song the _Syrens_ sang, or what name _Achilles_ a.s.sumed when he hid himself among women, though puzling questions are not beyond all conjecture. What time the persons of these Ossuaries entred the famous Nations of the dead, and slept with Princes and Counsellors, might admit a wide solution. But who were the proprietaries of these bones, or what bodies these ashes made up, were a question above Antiquarism. Not to be resolved by man, nor easily perhaps by spirits, except we consult the Provincial Guardians, or tutelary Observators. Had they made as good provision for their names, as they have done for their Reliques, they had not so grosly erred in the art of perpetuation. But to subsist in bones, and be but Pyramidally extant, is a fallacy in duration. Vain ashes, which in the oblivion of names, persons, times, and s.e.xes, have found unto themselves a fruitlesse continuation, and only arise unto late posterity, as Emblemes of mortal vanities; Antidotes against pride, vainglory, and madding vices. Pagan vain glories which thought the world might last for ever, had encouragement for ambition, and finding no _Atropos_ unto the immortality of their Names, were never dampt with the necessity of oblivion. Even old ambitions had the advantage of ours, in the attempts of their vain-glories, who acting early, and before the probable Meridian of time, have by this time found great accomplishment of their designes, whereby the ancient _Heroes_ have already out-lasted their Monuments, and Mechanical preservations. But in this latter Scene of time we cannot expect such Mummies unto our memories, when ambition may fear the Prophecy of _Elias_,[95] and _Charles_ the fift can never hope to live within two _Methusela's_ of _Hector_.[96]

[95] _That the world may last but six thousand years._

[96] _Hectors fame lasting above two lives of_ Methuselah, _before that famous Prince was extant._

And therefore restlesse inquietude for the diuturnity of our memories unto present considerations, seemes a vanity almost out of date, and superannuated peece of folly. We cannot hope to live so long in our names, as some have done in their persons, one face of _Ja.n.u.s_ holds no proportion to the other. 'Tis to late to be ambitious. The great mutations of the world are acted, or time may be too short for our designes. To extend our memories by Monuments, whose death we dayly pray for, and whose duration we cannot hope, without injury to our expectations, in the advent of the last day, were a contradiction to our beliefs. We whose generations are ordained in this setting part of time, are providentially taken off from such imaginations. And being necessitated to eye the remaining particle of futurity, are naturally const.i.tuted unto thoughts of the next world, and cannot excusably decline the consideration of that duration, which maketh Pyramids pillars of snow, and all that's past a moment.

Circles and right lines limit and close all bodies, and the mortal right-lined-circle[97] must conclude and shut up all. There is no antidote against the _Opium_ of time, which temporally considereth all things; Our Fathers finde their graves in our short memories, and sadly tell us how we may be buried in our Survivors. Grave-stones tell truth scarce fourty yeers:[98] Generations pa.s.se while some trees stand, and old Families last not three Oakes. To be read by bare inscriptions like many in _Gruter_,[99] to hope for Eternity by aenigmatical Epithetes, or first letters of our names, to be studied by Antiquaries, who we were, and have new Names given us like many of the Mummies, are cold consolations unto the Students of perpetuity, even by everlasting Languages.

[97] T _The character of death._

[98] _Old ones being taken up, and other bodies laid under them._

[99] Gruteri Inscriptiones Antiquae

To be content that times to come should only know there was such a man, not caring whether they knew more of him, was a frigid ambition in _Cardan_:[100] disparaging his horoscopal inclination and judgement of himself, who cares to subsist like _Hippocrates_ Patients, or _Achilles_ horses in _Homer_, under naked nominations, without deserts and n.o.ble acts, which are the balsame of our memories, the _Entelechia_ and soul of our subsistences. To be namelesse in worthy deeds exceeds an infamous history. The _Canaanitish_ woman lives more happily without a name, then _Herodias_ with one. And who had not rather have been the good theef, then _Pilate_?

[100] Cuperem notum esse quod sim, non opto ut sciatur qualis sim.

_Card._ in vita propria.

But the iniquity 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 _Adrians_ 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_ 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, then any that stand remembred in the known account of time? Without the favour of the everlasting Register the first man had been as unknown as the last, and _Methuselahs_ long life had been his only Chronicle.

Oblivion is not to be hired: 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 recorded 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 aequinox? Every houre addes unto that current Arithmetique, which scarce stands one moment.

And since death must be the _Lucina_ 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 darknesse, and have our light in ashes; Since the brother of death daily haunts us with dying _memento's_, and time that grows old it self, bids us hope no long duration: Diuturnity is a dream and folly of expectation.

Darknesse and light divide the course of time, and oblivion shares with memory, a great part even of our living beings; we slightly remember our felicities, and the smartest stroaks of affliction leave but short smart upon us. Sense endureth no extremities, and sorrows destroy us or themselves. To weep into stones are fables. Afflictions induce callosities, miseries are slippery, or fall like snow upon us, which notwithstanding is no stupidity. To be ignorant of evils to come, and forgetful of evils past, is merciful provision in nature, whereby we digest the mixture of our few and evil dayes, and our delivered senses not relapsing into cutting remembrances, our sorrows are not kept raw by the edge of repet.i.tions. A great part of Antiquity contented their hopes of subsistency with a transmigration of their souls. A good way to continue their memories, while having the advantage of plural successions, they could not but act something remarkable in such variety of beings, and enjoying the fame of their pa.s.sed selves, make acc.u.mulation of glory unto their last durations. Others rather then be lost in the uncomfortable night of nothing, were content to recede into the common being, and make one particle of the publick soul of all things, which was no more then to return into their unknown and divine Original again. aegyptian ingenuity was more unsatisfied, contriving their bodies in sweet consistences, to attend the return of their souls.

But all was vanity, feeding the winde,[101] and folly. The aegyptian Mummies, which _Cambyses_ or time hath spared, avarice now consumeth.

Mummie is become Merchandise, _Mizraim_ cures wounds, and _Pharaoh_ is sold for balsoms.

[101] Omnia vanitas et pastio venti, ??? ?????, ?s??s?? ut olim Aquila et Symmachus.

_V. Drus._ Eccles.

In vain do individuals hope for immortality, or any patent from oblivion, in preservations below the Moon: Men have been deceived even in their flatteries above the Sun, and studied conceits to perpetuate their names in heaven. The various Cosmography of that part hath already varied the names of contrived constellations; _Nimrod_ is lost in _Orion_, and _Osyris_ in the Dogge-starre. While we look for incorruption in the heavens, we finde they are but like the Earth; Durable in their main bodies, alterable in their parts: whereof beside Comets and new Stars, perspectives begin to tell tales. And the spots that wander about the Sun, with _Phaetons_ favour, would make clear conviction.

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 it self; And the highest strain of omnipotency to be so powerfully const.i.tuted, as not to suffer even from the power of it self. 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 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 frustration; and to hold long subsistence, seems but a scape 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, in the infamy of his nature.

Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible Sun within us. A small fire sufficeth for life, great flames seemed too little after death, while men vainly affected precious pyres, and burn like _Sardanapalus_, but the wisedom of funeral Laws found the folly of prodigal blazes, and reduced undoing fires, unto the rule of sober obsequies, wherein few could be so mean as not to provide wood, pitch, a mourner, and an Urne.

Five Languages secured not the Epitaph of _Gordia.n.u.s;_ The man of G.o.d lives longer without a Tomb then any by one, invisibly interred by Angels, and adjudged to obscurity, though not without some marks directing humane discovery. _Enoch_ and _Elias_ without either tomb or burial, in an anomalous state of being, are the great Examples of perpetuity, in their long and living memory, in strict account being still on this side death, and having a late part yet to act upon this stage of earth. If in the decretory term of the world we shall not all die but be changed, according to received translation; the last day will make but few graves; at least quick Resurrections will antic.i.p.ate lasting Sepultures; Some Graves will be opened before they be quite closed, and _Lazarus_ be no wonder. When many that feared to die shall groan that they can die but once, the dismal state is the second and living death, when life puts despair on the d.a.m.ned; when men shall wish the coverings of Mountaines, not of Monuments, and annihilation shall be courted.

While some have studied Monuments, others have studiously declined them: and some have been so vainly boisterous, that they durst not acknowledge their Graves; wherein _Alaricus_[102] seems most subtle, who had a Rever turned to hide his bones at the bottome. Even _Sylla_ that thought himself safe in his Urne, could not prevent revenging tongues, and stones thrown at his Monument. Happy are they whom privacy makes innocent, who deal so with men in this world, that they are not afraid to meet them in the next, who when they die, make no commotion among the dead, and are not toucht with that poeticall taunt of _Isaiah_.[103]

[102] Jornandes de rebus Geticis.

[103] _Isa._ 14.

_Pyramids_, _Arches_, _Obelisks_, were but the irregularities of vain-glory, and wilde enormities of ancient magnanimity. But the most magnanimous resolution rests in the Christian Religion, which trampleth upon pride, and sets on the neck of ambition, humbly pursuing that infallible perpetuity, unto which all others must diminish their diameters and be poorly seen in Angles of contingency.[104]

[104] Angulus contingentiae, _the least of Angles_.

Pious spirits who pa.s.sed their dayes in raptures of futurity, made little more of this world, then the world that was before it, while they lay obscure in the Chaos of preordination, and night of their fore-beings. And if any have been so happy as truly to understand Christian annihilation, extasis, exolution, liquefaction, transformation, the kisse of the Spouse, gustation of G.o.d, and ingression into the divine shadow, they have already had an handsome antic.i.p.ation of heaven; the glory of the world is surely over, and the earth in ashes unto them.

To subsist in lasting Monuments, to live in their productions, to exist in their names, and praedicament of _Chymera's_, was large satisfaction unto old expectations and made one part of their _Elyziums_. But all this is nothing in the Metaphysicks of true belief. To live indeed is to be again our selves, which being not only an hope but an evidence in n.o.ble beleevers; 'Tis all one to lie in St. _Innocents_ Church-yard,[105] as in the Sands of _aegypt_: Ready to be any thing, in the extasie of being ever, and as content with six foot as the Moles of _Adria.n.u.s_.[106]

[105] _In_ Paris _where bodies soon consume._