Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	age_n	life_n	old_a	5,148	5	5.6715	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30476	Dr. Burnet's travels, or Letters containing an account of what seemed most remarkable in Switzerland, Italy, France, and Germany, &c written by Gilbert Burnet ...	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1687 (1687)	Wing B5934; ESTC R9984	167,242	250

as brought under a Debate in Law and the price is paid into the State and is by them given either to the Debtors of the Seller if he owes money or to the Seller himself This Custom prevails likewise in Swisse where also twelve Years Possession gives a Prescription so that in no place of the World are the Titles to Estates so secure as here The Constitution of the Government is the same both in Geneva and in most of the Cantons The Sovereignty lies in the Council of Two hundred and this Council chuses out of its number Twenty five who are the lesser Council and the censure of the Twenty five belongs to the great Council they are chosen by a sort of Ballet so that it is not known for whom they give their Votes which is an effectual method to suppress Factions and Resentments since in a competition no man can know who voted for him or against him yet the Election is not so carried but that the whole Town is in an Intrigue concerning it for since the being of the little Council leads one to the Sindicat which is the chief Honour of the State this Dignity is courted here with as active and sollicitous an Ambition as appears elsewhere for greater matters The Two hundred are chosen and censured by the Twenty five so that these two Councils which are both for Life are checks one upon another The Magistracy is in the one and the Sovereignty in the other The Number of Twenty five is never exceeded in the lesser Council but for the greater tho' it passes by the Name of the Council of Two hundred yet there are commonly eight or ten more so that notwithstanding the absence or sickness of some of the Number they may still be able to call together near the full Number There is another Council besides these two composed of Sixty consisting of those of the Two hundred that have borne Offices such as Auditors Attorney-Generals or those that have been in other Employments which are given for a determinate number of Years This Court has no Authority but is called together by the Twenty five when any extraordinary occasion makes it advisable for them to call for a more general Concurrence in the Resolutions that they are about to form And this Council is of the nature of a Council of State that only gives Advice but has no power in it self to enforce its Advices The whole Body of the Burgesses chuses the Sindicks the first Sunday in the Year and there are some other Elections that do likewise belong to them The difference between the Burgesses and Citizens is that the former degree may be bought or given to Strangers and they are capable to be of the Two hundred but none is a Citizen but he that is the Son of a Burgess and that is born within the Town I need say no more of the Constitution of this little Republick It s chief support is in the firm Alliance that has stood now so long between it and the Cantons of Bern and Zurich and it is so visibly the Interest of all Switzerland to preserve it as the Key by which it may be all laid open that if the Cantons had not forgotten their Interest so palpably in suffering the French to become Masters of the Franche Comtè one would think that they would not be capable of suffering Geneva to be touch'd for all that can be done in fortifying the Town can signifie no more but to put it in case to resist a Surprise or Scalade since if a Royal Army comes against it to besiege it in form it is certain that unless the Switzers come down with a Force able to raise the Siege those within will be able to make a very short resistance From Geneva I went throngh the Country of Vaud or the Valley and Lausanne its chief Town in my way to Bern. The Town of Lausanne is situated on three Hills so that the whole Town is ascent and descent and that very steep chiefly on the side on which the Church stands which is a very noble Fabrick The South-wall of the Cross was so split by an Earthquake about thirty years ago that there was a rent made from top to bottom above a foot wide which was so closed up ten years after by another Earthquake that now one only sees where the breach was This extravagant situation of the Town was occasioned by a Legend of some Miracles wrought near the Church which prevailed so much on the Credulity of that Age that by it the Church and so in consequence the Buildings near it were added to the old Town which stood on the other Hill where there was a Town made on the High-way from the Lake into Switzerland to which the chief Priviledges of the Town particularly the judicature of Life and Death do still belong Between Geneva and this lies the Lake which at the one end is called the Lake of Geneva and at the other the Lake of Lausanne I need not mention the Dimensions of it which are so well known only in some Places the depth has never been found for it is more than five hundred Fathom The banks of the Lake are the beautifullest Plots of Ground that can be imagined for they look as if they had been laid by art the sloping is so easie and so equal and the Grounds are so well cultivated and peopled that a more delighting Prospect cannot be seen any where The Lake is well stock'd with excellent Fish but their Numbers do sensibly decrease and one sort is quite lost it is not only to be ascribed to the ravenousness of the Pikes that abound in it but to another sort of Fish that they call Moutails which were never taken in the Lake untill within six years last past they are in the Lake of Neuf-chastel and some of the other Lakes of Switzerland and it is likely that by some conveyance under ground they may have come into Channels that fall into the Lake the Water of the Lake is all clear and fresh It is not only a great Pond made by the Rhosne that runs into it but does not pass through it unmix'd as some Travellers have fondly imagined because sometimes a soft Gale makes a curling of the Waters in some places which runs smooth in the places over which that soft breath of Wind does not pa●s the Gale varying its place often But it is believed that there are also many great Fountains all over the Lake these Springs d● very probably flow from some vast Cavities that are in the neighbouring Mountains which are a great Cisterns that discharge themselves in the Valleys which are covered over with Lakes And on the two sides of the Alps both North and South there is so great a number of those little Seas that it may be easily ghessed they must have vast Sorces that feed so constantly those huge Ponds And when one considers the height of those Hills the

slightly fortified to hold out against so powerful a Prince and so great an Army that brought Cannon before it I met with nothing remarkable between this and Basile except that I staid sometime at Bern and knew it better and at this second time it was that my Lord Advoyer d'Erlach gave order to shew me the Original Records of the famous Process of the four Dominicans upon which I have retoucht the Letter that I writ to you last year so that I now send it to you with the corrections and enlargements that this second stay at Bern gave me occasion to make Basile is the Town of the greatest extent of all Switzerland but it is not inhabited in proportion to its extent The Rhine maketh a crook before it and the Town is situated on a rising ground which hath a noble effect on the eye when one is on the Bridge for it looketh like a Theater Little Basile on the other side of the Rhine is almost a fourth part of the whole The Town is surrounded with a Wall and Ditch but it is so exposed on so many sides and hath now so dreadful a Neighbour within a quarter of a League of it the Fort of Huningh that it hath nothing to trust to humanly speaking but its Union with the other Cantons The maxims of this Canton have hindred its being better peopled than it is the advantages of the Burgership are such that the Citizens will not share them with strangers and by this means they do not admit them For I was told that during the last War that Alsatia was so often the seat of both Armies Basile having then a neutrality it might have been well filled if it had not been for this maxim And it were a great happiness to all the Cantons if they could have different degrees of Burgership so that the lower degrees might be given to strangers for their encouragement to come and live among them and the higher degrees which qualifie men for the advantagious Employments of the State might be reserved for the ancient Families of the Natives Basile is divided into sixteen Companies and every one of these hath four Members in the little Council so that it consisteth of sixty four But of those four two are chosen by the Company it self who are called the Masters and the other two are chosen by the Councel out of the Company and thus as there are two sorts of Councellers chosen in those different manners there are also two chief Magistrates There are two Burghermasters that Reign by turns and two Zunst-Masters that have also their turns and all is for life And the last are the heads of the Companies like the Roman Tribunes of the people The Fabrick of the Stadt-House is ancient there is very good Painting in fresco upon the Walls one Piece hath given much offence to the Papists though they have no reason to blame the Reformation for it since it was done several years before it in the year 1510. It is a representation of the Day of Judgement and after Sentence given the Devil is represented driving many before him to Hell and among these there is several Ecclesiasticks But it is believed that the Councel which sate so long in this place acting so vigorously against the Pope ingaged the Town into such a hatred of the Papacy that this might give the rise to this representation The more learned in the Town ascribe the beginning of the Custom in Basile of the Clocks anticipating the time a full Hour to the sitting of the Councel and they say that in order to the advancing of business and the shortning their Sessions they ordered their Clocks to be set forward an Hour which continueth to this day The Cathedral is a great old Gothick building the Chamber where the Councel sate is of no great reception and is a very ordinary Room Erasmus's Tomb is only a plain Inscription upon a great brass plate There are many of Holbens's Pictures who was a Native of Basile and was recommended by Erasmus to King Henry the VIII the two best are a Corpo or Christ dead which is certainly one of the best in the World There is another Piece of his in the Stadt-House for this is in the publick Library of about three or four foot square in which in six several Cantons the several parts of our Saviours Passion are represented with a life and beauty that cannot be enough admired it is valued at ten thousand Crowns it is in Wood but hath that freshness of Colour on it that seems peculiar to Holbens's Pencil There is also a Dance that he painted on the Walls of an House where he used to drink that is so worn out that very little is now to be seen except shapes and postures but these shew the exquisiteness of the hand There is another longer Dance that runneth all along the side of the Convent of the Augustinians which is now the French Church which is Deaths Dance there are above threescore figures in it at full length of Persons of all ranks from Popes Emperors and Kings down to the meanest sorts of People and of all Ages and Professions to whom Death appeareth in an insolent and surprizing posture and the several passions that they express are so well set out that this was certainly a great design But the fresco being exposed to the Air this was so worn out some time ago that they ordered the best Painter they had to lay new Colour on it but this is so ill done that one had rather see the dead shadows of Holbens's Pencil than this course work There is in Basile a Gun-Smith that maketh Wind-Guns and he shewed me one that as it received at once Air for ten shot so it had this particular to it which he pretends is his own Invention that he can discharge all the Air that can be parcelled out in ten shot at once to give a home blow I confess those are terrible instruments and it seems the interest of Mankind to forbid them quite since they can be imployed to assassinate persons so dextrously that neither noise nor sire will discover from what hand the shot cometh The Library of Basile is by much the best in all Switzerland there is a fine collection of Medals in it and a very handsome Library of Manuscripts the Room is Noble and disposed in a very good method Their Manuscripts are chiefly the Latine Fathers or Latine Translations of the Greek Fathers some good Bibles they have the Gospels in Greek Capitals but they are vitiously writ in many places There is an infinite number of the Writers of the darker Ages and there are Legends and Sermons without number All the Books that were in the seueral Monasteries at the time of the Reformation were carefully preserved and they believe that the Bishops who sate here in the Council brought with them a great many Manuscripts which they never carried away Among their Manuscripts I saw