The DESIGNE of the FRONTISPICE Loe DEATH invested in a Roabe of Ermiâ—â— Triumphant sits embellished with Verminâ— Vpon a Pile of dead-men's Skulls her Throne Pell-mell subduing all and sparing none A scrutinous judgement will the Type ressent You may imagine 'T is DEATH's Parlement Vpon the World it 's pow'rfull Foot doth tread For all the world or is or shall be dead One hand the Scepter t' other holds our MIRROVR In courtesie to shew poore flesh its errour If men forget themselves It tells 'em home They 're Dust and Ashes All to this must come To view their fate herein some will forbeare Who wave all thought of Death as too severe But know Death is ' though 't be unknown how nie A Point on which depends ETERNITIE Either to live Crown'd with perpetuall Blisse Or howle tormented in Hell's darke Abysse With winged haste our brittle lives doe passe As runnes the gliding Sand i' th' Houre-Glasse If more you would continue on your Looke No more upon the Title but the Booke THE MIRROVR which Flatters not O that they were Wise that they vnderstood This that they would Consider their latter End Deut 32.29 MORS sola fatotur Quantula sint hominum corpuscula Iuvenal THE MIRROUR WHICH FLATTERS NOT. Dedicated to their MAIESTIES of GREAT BRITAINE By Le Sieur de la SERRE Historiographer of FRANCE Enriched with faire Figures Transcrib'd ENGLISH from the FRENCH by T. C. And devoted to the well-disposed READERS HORAT OMNEM crede DIEM tibi diluxisse SUPREMUM LONDON Printed by E. P. for R. Thrale and are to be sold at his shop at the Signe of the Crosse-Keyes at Pauls Gate 1639. TO THE KING OF GREAT BRITAINE SIR IF the Greatnesse of Kings derive its value and lustre from the number of Vertues which they possesse I render you now the homage of my observance and submissions as to one of the greatest Monarchs of the World since you are the Majestie of all Vertues together What an agreeable compulsion is this to see a man's selfe powerfully forced to become the subject of a foraine Prince by the soveraigne authoritie of his merit To this point am I reduced SIR your all-royall perfections impose upon me so absolutely such sweet lawes of servitude that I have no more libertie but to accept its yoake And in this my inclination and dutie make a fresh injunction o're me which dispute preheminence with all the rest for who can keepe himselfe from rendring homage to your Majestie the onely fame of whose Renowne captivates through all the Vniverse instructing us that you are as absolute over your Passions as over your Subjects and that you reigne as Soveraigne in the esteeme of men as in your Royall Estates And the Truths of this set your glory at so high a worth that the felicitie on 't may perhaps be envied you but the like Merit not to be reacht by others because Nature is very sparing of the like gifts and Heaven does not every day such miracles For me I am but one of the Admirers not of the greatnesse of your Dominion although onely the vast extent of the Ocean markes out its limits but of all the divine qualities which you onely possesse in proper as a Good which Time Fate nor Death can take from you Nor is this the all in all to be Wise Valiant and Generous in the height of Native deduction All these Titles of Honour have degrees of eminence which marke out to us the gradations of their severall perfections and whereof your Majestie shewes us now the onely patterne having in possession all admirable Vertues with so much puritie and luster as dazles its very envyers and forces them to adore that in your Majestie which elsewhere they admire not And 't is my beleefe that you stand thus unparallel'd even amongst your semblables since besides the Crownes of your Cradle you carry above them others and such as shall exempt you from the Grave I avow that I have studied long time to speake condignely of your Majestie but although my paines and watchings are equally unprofitable my defect yet is still glorious howsomever that it is a shadow from your Light It sufficeth me to have taken Pen in hand to publish onely that I am SIR Your MAIESTIES Most humble and most obeysant Servant P. De la SERRE TO THE QUEENE OF GREAT BRITAINE MADAME I Could not approach but with a MIRROVR in my hand before your Majestie the splendour of whose magnificence dazles so powerfully all the world that I am not able to behold the immediate presence on 't but by the reflection of its Rayes Without fiction MADAME your Glory is arrived to the point of rendring your perfections so unknowne as being so above the commune that I beleeve most men honour you now by observance and example onely as not able otherwise to reach the depth of the just reasons they might have for it Nor is this All to say that you are solely faire and perfectly chaste but it is necessarie beyond all this to intimate secretly in the Language of Thought all the divine qualities which you possesse of Super-eminence in all things since their puritie cannot discend to the capacitie of our discourse without suffering a kind of prophanation From hence is it that if I should call you THE COMPLEATLY-PERFECT I might well say in effect that which you are but never thus should I represent the greatnesse of your merits since every of them in it selfe has such particular perfections as might challenge Altars from us if your humilitie could permit it These are such Truths MADAME as hinder me from praysing your Majestie not knowing how to expresse my selfe condignely Well might I perhaps suggest it to remembrance that your particular inclinations are the publike Vertues which we adore and that of the same temperament of humour Nature composed heretofore the Sages of the World But of all these discourses notwithstanding I cannot frame one onely prayse sufficiently adaequate to your worth seeing 't is elevated beyond all Eulogiums Insomuch that if Admiration it selfe teach not a new Language to posteritie wherein to proclaime aloud the favours and graces wherewith Heaven hath accomplisht you it must content it selfe to reverence your Name and adore your Memorie without presumption of speech of your actions as being ever above all valuation as well as imitation To instance the immortalitie of your AuGUSTICK Race although it be a pure Source of Honour which can never be dry'd up yet all these Titles of a Kings Daughter Sister and Wife can never adde to your Renowne which derives its value rather from the admirabilities of your Life then the greatnesse of your Birth Insomuch MADAME that the Scepters and Crownes of your Royalties are the meanest Ornaments wherewith your Majestie can decke it selfe since the least glympse of the least of your Actions duskes the luster of all the other magnificences which environ you And I beleeve had those Wonders of the World
of the Day which with a continuall aspect We are all amourous of our selves not knowing for what for our defects are objects rather of hate then Love contemplates all created things cannot make reflexion of his beames to see himselfe as if his mother Nature had apprehended in making him so glorious that the Mirrour of his light might not be metamorphosed into a fire of love to render him amorous of his owne proper lustre But the Intellect this Sunne of our Soules has a faculty with which it can both contemplate out of it selfe all things A Man cannot stumble ordinarily but through perveâ—snesse since Reason enlightens him in the very worst wayes and repeale againe the same power to consider it selfe which makes a Man capable not onely of the Meditation of the miseries of the World but also of that of the afflictions and troubles which inseparably keeps him company to the grave We reade of Moses that God commanded him to frame the * The Laver which was before the Tabernacle Exod. 38.8 fore-front of the Tabernacle all of Mirrours to the end that those that should present themselves before his Altar might view themselves in this posture of Prayer O this excellent Mysterie Mortals it behooves you to view your selves in the Mirrour of your Ashes if you would have your vowes heard God hath taught us an excellent way of Prayer Give us this day our daily bread But why O Lord teachest thou us not to aske thee our bread for to Morrow There is nothing assured in Life but its continuall Death as well as for to day O how good a reason is there hereof This is because that life hath no assurance of tom-orrow besides that it is an excesse of grace that wee may be bold to crave of him the bread of our nourishment for all a whole day since every moment may be That of our Death Reader let this verity serve thee yet as a Mirrour 'T is not sufficient to muse of the necessity of dying but to consider also that every houre may be our Lost if thou would'st have thy prayers to pierce the heavens This is not all to know thy body is a Colosse of filth which is traild along from one place to another as it were by the last struggle of a Life alwayes languishing It behooves thee also to call to mind that every instant may terminate the course of thy troublesome carriere and that this suddaine retreate constraines thee to bid Adieu for ever to all the things of the world which thou cherishedst most Thoughts onely worthy of a noble spirit I have eaten Ashes as bread Psal 102. 9. Cinerem tan quam panem manducabam sayes the Royall Prophet but how is it possible I conceive his thought He entertained his soule with the remembrance of the Ashes of his body and this truth alone serv'd as object to his imagination for to satisfie the appetite of his Soule Lord give me both the same relish and desire to repast my selfe still thus of Dust and Ashes in remembrancing my selfe alwayes that I am nothing else A man to abase himselfe below that which he is being so poore a thing of nothing O sweet remembrance of my rottennesse since it steads me for eternall nourishment of my Soule O precious memorie of my Nothingnesse since able to satisfie the appetite of my heart Let this be the daily bread O Lord which thou hast taught me to aske thee to the end that all my desires together nourishment I recollect my selfe in this digression Having diverse times mused of the imbecillity and weakenesse of Man Si vitrei essemus minus casus timeremus S. Aug. I am constrain'd to cry out with St. Augustin What is there that can be more fraile in Nature If we were of Glasse pursues hee our condition might therein be better There is nothing more brittle than glasse yet man is more for a Glasse carefully preserv'd may last long time and yet what paine somever Man takes to preserve himselfe and under what shelter somever hee shrowds himselfe for covert to the storme hee breakes and is shattered of himselfe What reply you to these verities Great Princes Well may you now be arrogant The fragilitie of Glasse cannot admit of comparison with this of your nature what seat will you give to your greatnesse and what foundation to your vanity Man is fully miserable since his life is the source of his miseries when the wind alone of your sighs may shipwracke you upon the Sea of your owne proper teares what surnames will you take upon you for to make you be mis-taken That of Immortall would become you ill since every part of your body serves but as a But to the shaftes of Death Invincible A man may doe every thing with vertue without it nothing would also be no way proper since upon the least touch of mishap you are more worthy of pity then capable of defence Would you be called Gods your Idolaters would immolate you to their owne laughter Tread under foot your Crownes if rightly you will be crowned with them you onely thus render your selves worthy of those honours which you misprize for Glory consists not in the possessing it Heaven cannot bee acquâ—red but by the misprize of earth but in the meriting and the onely means to obtaine it is to pretend nothing at all to it How remarkeable is the custome of the Locrians at the Coronation of their Kings They burnt before them a handfull of Tow to represent unto them the instability of their grandeurs and the greedinesse of Time to destroy them In effect all the greatnesses of the Earth are but as a bundlet of Tow All the grandour of Kings is but as the blaze of flaming tow and then when Darius would make of them his treasure Mis-hap set fire on them and reduced 'em into Cinders and when hee had yet in his heart a desire to immortalize them a new fire seaz'd his intrals by the heat of thirst which burn'd him to the end to consume at once both the cause and the effect So true it is that the Glory of the world vanisheth away like Smoke Great Kings if you build a Throne of Majestie to the proofe both against Time and Fortune lay its foundation upon that of your miseries He which esteems himselfe the least of all is the greatest Humility takes her rise in low linesse from the lowest footing when she makes her flight into the heavens O how admirable is the Humility of Saint Iohn Baptist They would give him titles of Soveraignty in taking him for the Messias but call to you Memory how with an ejaculation oâ— Love and reverence hee precipitateâ— himselfe both with heart and thoughâ— into the Abysse of his owne Nothingnesse there to admire in all humility both Greatnesse and Majesty in his Throne I am but a voyce Vox clamantis in deserto Iohn 1.23
acquire eternall treasures but the Sun sets the candle goes out the bed of buriall is prepared there must be their Enter at the Exit of so many unprofitable pains To what purpose serves it now to know they are fooles having no more time to be wise What cruell Maladie of spirit is it to sacrifice both ones body and soule in an unluckie alymbicke for to nourish a vaine ambition whose irregular appetite can never be satisfied Is not this to take pleasure in kindling the fire which consumes us to burne perpetually with desire of being rich in this world An inclination toward the misprize of Earth is a presage of the getting of Heaven and yet get nothing by it And then to burne againe eternally in hell without possibility to quench the ardour of those revenging flames is not this to warp ones-selfe the web of a fate the most miserable that ever was Produce we then of nothing the creation of this Philosopher-stone grant we it made at present to the hearts of the most ambitious I am content that from the miracles of this Metamorphosis they make us see the marvels of a new gallery of silver like to that which bare NERO to the Capitoll I am content that they make pendant at the point of a needle as SEMIRAMIS the price of twenty millions of gold I am content that after the example of * Atabali King of Peru. Atabalipas they pave their halls with Saphirs I am pleas'd that imitating Cyrus they enround their gardens with perches of gold I am content The World is aptly compared to the Sea since as the stormes of this so are the miseries of that and like the flitting billowes ever rolling so are all the objects which we here admire that the Dryades of their fountaines be composed of the same materiall following the magnificences of Cesar I am content that they erect with Pompey an Amphitheater all covered with plates of Gold I am content they build a Pallace of Ivory there to to lodge another Melaus or a Louvre of Christall to receive therein an other Drusus and let I am content still this Louvre be ornamented with court-cupboards of Pearles equal to those of Scaurus and with coffers of the same price as that of Darius To what will all this come to in the end What may be the reverse of all these medals The scortching heat of Time and the Suns-beames have melted this gallery of silver its admirers are vanisht and its proprietary Even Rome it selfe hath runne the like fate and though it subsist yet 't is but onely in name its ruines mourne at this day the death of its glory That so pretious Pendant of Semiramis could not be exempt from a kind of Death 'T is a Rule without exception that all that is included in the revolution of Time is subject to change though it were inanimate I mean that in its insensibility it hath received the attaints of this Vicissitude which alters and destroyes all things since it now appeares no more to our eyes All those Saphir-paved halls are passed away though Art had enchained them in beautifull Workemanships They have had otherwise a glittering luster like the Sunne but this Planet jealous of them hath refused in the end its clearenesse so much as to their ruines insomuch that they are vanished in obscuritie These gardens environed with railes of gold have had like others divers Spring-times to renew their growth but one Winter alone was enough to make them dye Those Dryades which enricht these fountaines are fled upon their owne water-trils and scarce remaines us their remembrance That proud Amphitheater of Pompey could not eternize it selfe but in the memory of men yet we scarce know what they say when they speake on 't That Ivory Palace of Melaus goes for a fable in histories being buried in the Abisses of non-entitie That famous Louvre of Christall having been bustled against by Time is broken Meditate here a little how oft the face of the Earth hath been varied since its first creation and shivered into so many peeces that not so much as the very dust on 't subsists but in the confus'd Idea of things which have beene otherwhile All those high cup-boards of Pearle and all those coffers of great price have indeed had an appearance like lightning but the thunder-bolt of inconstancy hath reduc't them into ashes and the memory of 'em is preserv'd in ours but as a dreame since in effect it is no more at all But if the precious wonders of past Ages There is nothing so certaine in the world as its uncertaintie have done nothing but passe away together with their admirers and owners is it not credible that those covetous rich ones did runne the same fortune with all the treasures of their Philosopher-Stone and at the end of their Carreere what device could they take but this very same of SALADINE since of all their riches there remaines them at their Death but onely a poore Shirt * Fui nibil ampliu I have beene saies this great Monarch and behold heere 's all Why Rich-ones of the World doe you trouble your selves so much to establish your glory here below for to perswadeus at the end of the journall onely this That you have beene An atome has the same advantage for this creating power which we adore after he had ta'en it out of the Abysses of nothing wherein you also were buried made it to subsist in nature Yet thus is it a blessednesse of our condition thus to escape by little and little the miscries which are incident unto us Bee it that you have beene the greatest on Earth yet now the faire light of your faire dayes is extinguish't for ever The Sun of your glory is eclips't and in an eternall West And that your fate which interloomed the web of your greatnesses together with your lives lyes entomb'd with your Ashes to shew us that these are the onely unhallowed reliques which your Ambition could leave us You have bin then otherwhile the only Minions of Fortune like Demetrius but he and you are now no more any thing not so much as a hand full of Ashes for lesse then with an Infinite power 't were impossible to any to reunite into a body the parcels of the Dust whereof your Carkasses were formed behold in what consists at this day the foundation of your past glory You have bin then otherwhile the same as SALADINE the onely Monarch of the East and have possest as he treasures without number and honours without parallel If vertue eternize not our memorie our life passeth away like the wind without leaving any trace But as He also you have done nothing else but passe away and like him againe you have not beene able to hide your wretchednesse but under a Scrap of Linnen whereof the Wormes have repasted to manifest you to all the World In fine you have beene otherwhile the
wise worldly ones have had no other recompence of their folly but such a blast of Fames Trump that they sought immortality amid'st this inconstancy of Ages where Death onely was in his Kingdome for they assisted every day at the funerall of their renowned companions and after they had seen their bodyes reduced into ashes they might with the same eye moreover contemplate their shadows I meane their statues metamorphosed into dust and all their reputation served but as a wind to beare them away into an infinity of Abysses since as a Wind being nothing else it flyes away with these heapes of ruine so farre both from the eye and all memory that in the end there is no more thought on 't In effect all these great men of the World did see buried every moment the hope of this vaine glory whereof their ambition was alwayes labouring to make acquist and yet not one of them for all this stept backe as if they tooke a pride in their vanities and the folly of them were hereditary Ambition never elevates but to give a greater fall CAESAR had seene the death of Pompey and with him all the glory of his renowne and Pompey had seene buried in the tombe of Time and Oblivion the renowne of that great Scipio whose valour more redoubted then the thunder had made the Earth tremble so oft Scipio in his turne might have read the Epitaph which despaire shame and disaster had graven in letters of Gold upon the Sepulture of Hannibal and Hannibal might have learn't to know by the unconstancy of the Age wherein he liv'd before he made experiment of them the mis-fortunes and miseries which are inseparable to our condition And yet notwithstanding all of them have stumbled one after other upon one and the same Stumbling-stone The richest of the world at last is found as poore as the poorest companion I am not come into Persia for the conquest of treasures said Alexander to Parmenio take thou all the riches and leave mee all the glory but after good calculation neither of them both had any thing at all These riches remained in the world still to which they properly appertained and this vaine-glory saw its lover dye without it selfe being seene Insomuch that after so great conquests the wormes have conquered this great Monarch and as the dunghill of his ashes ha's no sort of correspondence with this so famous name of Alexander which otherwhile he bore t is not to be said what he hath beene seeing what he is now I meane his present wretchednesses efface every day the memory of his past greatnesses Ambitious spirits though you should conquer a thousand worlds as hee did this one you should not be a whit richer for all these conquests The Earth is still as it was it never changes nature All her honours are not worth one teare of repentance all its glory is not to bee prized with one sigh of contrition I grant that the noise of your renowne may resound through the foure corners of the Universe That of SALADINE which went round it all could not exempt him from the mishaps of life nor miseries of Death After he had encoffered all the riches of the East yet findes he himselfe so poore for all that hardly can he take along with him so much as a Shirt Embalme then the Aire which you breathe with a thousand Odours bee Served in Plate of Gold Lye in Ivory Swimme in Honours and lastly let all your actions glitter with magnificence the last moment of your life shall bee judge of all those 'T is the greatest horror of death to render account of all the moments of life which have preceded it then shall you be able at your Death to tel me the worth of this vaine glory whereof you have beene Idolaters and after your Death you shall resent the paines of an eternall regreet having now no more opportunity to repent you to any effect Beleeve mee all is but Vanity Honour Glory Riches Praise Esteeme Reputation All this is but smoake during Life and after Death nothing at all The Grands of the world have made a little more noyse then others by the way But this Noyse is ceas'd their light is extinguish't their memory buried And if men speake of them sometimes the answer is returned with a shake of the head intimating no more words of them since such a Law of silence Time hath imposed hereon Seeke your glory in God and your Honour in the contempt of this earthly Honour if you will eternize your renowne in the perpetuity of Ages I have no more to say to you after these truths A PROLVSIVE upon the EMBLEME of the third Chapter A Funeral Herse with wreaths of Cypres crested A Skeleton with Roabes imperiall vested Dead march sad lookes no glorious circumstance Of high Atchievements and victorious Chance Are these fit Trophy's for a Conquerour These are the Triumphs of the Emperour ADRIAN who chose this Sable Heraldry Before the popular guilded Pageantry ' Stead of Triumphall Arches he doth reare The Marble Columnes of his Sepulcher No publike honours wave his strict intent To shrine his Triumph in his Monument The Conscript Fathers and Quirites all Intend his welcome to the Capitoll The vast expence one day's work would have cost He wiser farre since t'other had beene lost To build a Mausolaeum doth bestow Which now at Rome is call'd Saint * Moles ADRIANI nunc Castrū S. Angeli Angelo Where to this Day from Aelius Adrian's Name The Aelian * Pons Aelius Bridge doth still revive his fame Now was the peoples expectation high For wonted pompe and glitt'ring Chevalry But loe their Emp'rour doth invite 'em all Not to a Shew but to his Funerall They looke for Gew-Gaw-fancies his wise scorne Contemnes those Vanities leaves their hope forlorne For since all 's smother'd in the Funerall Pile He will not dally with 'em for a while This was Selfe-Victory and deserveth more Then all the Conquests he had woon before What can Death doe to such a man or Fate Whose Resolutions them anticipate For since the Grave must be the latter end Let our preventing thoughts first thither tend Bravely resolv'd it is knowing the worst What must be done at last as good at first ADRIAN Emperour of Rome Celebrates himselfe his Funeralls and causes his Coffin to be carried in Triumph before him THE MIRROVR WHICH FLATTERS NOT. CHAP. III. O How glorious is the Triumph over Death O how brave is the Victorie over a Mans selfe You see how this great * Adrian Monarch triumphs to day over that proud Triumpher Death after the happy vanquishment of his passions Hee enters into his Empire by the Port of his Tombe thus to raigne during his life like a man that dyes every moment he celebrates himselfe his owne Funerals and is led in Triumph to his Sepulcher to learne to dye generously What a glory 's this to over-awe That which commands the
Kingdome of Pontus See Pliny's Nat. Historie 7 Bock 26 Chapter Armenia Cappadocia Paphlagonia Media Colchis the Hiberians the Albanians Siria Cilicia Mesopotamia Phoenicia Pride is the passion of fooles for what a senselesnesse is it to be proud having so many miseries about us which are incident to mortall man Palestina Iudea Arabia and the Rovers of all the Seas Who can be comparable to this proud Conquerour and yet I say it having conquered and subjugated the greatest part of the Earth Fate permits him not so much as to expire upon it and the Sea yet more treacherous prepares him shipwracke in mid'st of the Port. What resemblance and what correspondence can there be now betweene this Triumph so sumptuous so stately and magnificent and that whose presentation I show you where lowlinesse humilitie and miserie hold the first ranke and possesse the highest places How poore is the vanitie of men having no other grounds but humane frailtie Assuredly the difference is great but yet this inequalitie here is glorious since it brings along with it the price of that vertue whereof Pompey despised the conquest Hee in his Triumph rays'd wonder to the beauty of those two great precious stones But the Sepulchrall Marbles which appeared in this of ADRIAN were of another estimate because Prudence values them above all price putting them to that employment to which shee had destinated them Againe if he expose to view in vessels of gold Mountaines Animals Trees Vines Statues of the same matter This Herse covered with black which serves for ornament to this Funerall Pompe containes yet much more treasure since the contempt of all together is graven therein Hee makes ostentation of his Statue of gold enrich't with Pearles but our Monarch takes as much glory without them shewing in his owne bare Portraict the originall of his miseries That proud Conquerour had a thousand Garlands and golden Coronets as a novell Trophy Except the Crown of Vertue all other are subject to change But ours here crownes himselfe with Cypresse during his carreere of life to merit those palmes which await him in the end In fine Pompey is the Idoll of hearts and soules and his Triumphall Chariot serves as an Altar where he receives the vowes and Sacrifices But this Prince in stead of causing Idolaters during the sway of his Majestie immolates himselfe up to the view of Heaven and Earth dying already in his owne Funerals and suffering himselfe to be as is were buried by the continuall object which dwels with him of Death and his Tombe But if Pompey lastly boast himselfe to have conquered an infinite number of Realmes or all the world together * ADRIAN This Man having never had worse enemies then his passions hath sought no other glory but to overcome them and in their defeat a Man may well be stil'd the Conquerour of Conquerours for the Coronall wreaths of this Triumph feare nor the Sunnes extremity nor the Ages inconstancie Wee must passe on farther All the objects of Vanitie are so many enemies against which we ought to be alwayes in armes Isidore and Tranquillus doe assure us that to carry away the glory of a Triumph it was necessarily required to vanquish five thousand enemies or gaine five victories as it is reported of Caesar The consent of the Senate was also to be had And the Conquerour was to be clothed in Purple and Crowned with Laurell holding a Scepter in his hand and in this sort hee was conducted to the Capitoll of Iupiter where some famous Orator made a Panegyricke of his prowesse What better Allegory can wee draw from these prophane truths then this of the Victory which wee ought to have of our five Senses as of five thousand enemies whose defeat is necessary to our triumph Still to wage warre against our passions is the way to live in peace These are the five Victories which he must gaine that would acquire such Trophies whose glory is taken away neither by time nor Death This consent of the Senate is the Authority of our reason which alone gives value and esteeme to our actions and 't is of her that we may learne the meanes in obeying her to command over our passions and by the conquest of this sway triumph over our selves which is the bravest Victory of the World These Scepters and Crownes are so many markes of Soveraignty which remaine us in propriety after subjection of so many fierce enemies Heaven is the Capitol whither our good workes conduct us in triumph and where the voyce of Angels serves for Oratour to publish the glory of our deedes whose renowne remaines eternall 'T is not all to love Vertue 't is the practice These great Roman Captaines which made love to vertue though without perfect knowledge of it have sought for honour and glory in the overthrow of their enemies but they could never finde the shadowes of solid Honour which thus they sought from whence it came to passe that they have fashioned to themselves diverse Chimeras for to repast their fancy too greedy of these cheating objects Not that there is no glory in a Conquest but 't was their Ambition led them along in Triumph amidst their owne Triumphing What honour had Caesar borne away if hee had joyned to his Trophies the slavery of Cleopatra hee had exposed to view a Chaptive-Queene who otherwhile had subjected him to her Love-dominion But if the fortune of the warre had delivered him this Princesse He triumphs with an ill grace o're whom his vices triumph the fate of Love would have given even himselfe into her hands Insomuch that the Death of Cleopatra immmortaliz'd the renowne of Cesar Asdrubal according to Iustin triumphed foure times in Carthage but this famous Theater of honour where glory it selfe had appeared so often upon its Throne serves in conclusion for a Trophy to a new Conquerour insomuch that it buried at once the renowne and memory even of those that had presented themselves triumphant personages To day Memphis is all-Triumphant and on the morrow this proud Citie is reduced to slaverie To day the report of its glory makes the world shake and on the morrow Travellers seeke for it upon its owne site but finde it not O goodly triumph O fearefull overthrow What continuall revolution of the Wheele Marcellus shewes himselfe at point of day upon a magnificent Chariot of Triumph and at Sunne-set his glory and his life finish equally their carreere I meane in the twinckling of an eye Fortune takes away from him all those Laurell-wreaths which shee had given him and leaves him nothing at his death but the regreet of having liv'd too-long It may be some consolation in all our miseries to see all else have their changes as well as we Marius triumphed diverse times but with what tempests was the Ship of his fortune entertained Behold him now elevated upon the highest Throne of Honour but if you turne but your
head you shall see him all naked in his shirt halfe-buried under the mire of a common Sinke where the light of the day troubles him not being able to endure the Sunne a witnesse of his misfortunes Behold him first I say in all abundance of Greatnesse and Soveraigntie whereof the splendour dazles the world but stay a little and you shall heare pronounc'd the sentence of his death being abandoned even of himselfe having no more hope of safetie How pompeous and celebrious was the Triumph of Lucullus In which hee rais'd admiration to the magnificence of an hundred Gallyes all-armed in the Prow a thousand Chariots charged with Pikes Halberts and Corselets whose shocking rumbles sounded so high it frighted the admirers though they celebrated the Festivall of the Victorie The number of Vessels of Gold and other Ornaments of the Triumph was without number The Statue of Mithridates also of Gold six foot high with the Target all covered with precious Stones serv'd anew to the Triumph And of this Glory all the world together was an adorer for the renowne of the Conquerour had diverse times surrounded the Vniverse But what shame after so much glory What infamie after so great honour Lucullus Great Men cannot commit little faulis victorious over so many Empires is found in fine subjected under the dominion of his pleasures his valour ha's made many slaves every where and yet his sottishnesse renders him in the end slave to his owne passions Insomuch that after hee had exalted the splendour of Rome's beautie by his brave actions worthy-admiration he againe blouzeth it's lustre by his excessive deboshes all blacke with vice And now 't is in vaine to seeke for Lucullus triumphant since hee is onely to be found overthrowne in reputation in which hee survives thus rendring himselfe doubly miserable Plutarchus in Apophtheg Reg. Imp. Tristis sollicitusque circumivit urbem Wee reade of Epaminondas that returning victorious from the Leuctrians hee received with regreet the Present oâ— the honour of Triumph which the Senatâ— had prepared him apprehending evermore the deturne of the Wheele so thaâ— the next morrow after the Festivall heâ— tooke on him mourning habit to preparâ— himselfe betimes to suffer the change oâ— his fortune It is remark't in the history of Demetrius that entring in Triumph into Athens the people cast flowers and an infinite number of golden Globes up and downe the streets We are but as so many flowers planted by Nature in the Garden of the Earth and onely Death gathers us for a signe of a sumptuous congratulation But what signe of Vicissitude and frailty could there be more apparent then this which these flowers represented since there is nothing more fraile in Nature then they And these balles shewed also by their round and still rouling figure that the Glory whereof they were the symbole and Hieroglyphicke could not be firme and stable according as Truth it selfe soone after publish't by a sudden change which rendred the fate of this Victor deplorable Consider a little upon the same subject what revolutions has the Ball of Empire made since the first Monarch let it fall at his Death Is it not credible In like respect also we are as Bowles for still we rowle along to the Grave that it hath runne over diverse times the circuit of the Universe and its figure instructs us that in the inconstancy which is proper to all created things it will still rowle incessantly from one to another without ever staying since its Center is no where at all For so long as the world shall endure a continuall vicissitude will be its foundation And what meanes can there be to find a seat upon the earth which may be sheltered from inconstancy which raignes soveraignly and necessarily as essentiall to all whatsomever subsists here below I have not beene farre behold mee upon returne Tertullian assures us that in the Triumphs of the Romans there was a man waged to cry aloud to the Triumpher Remember thou art a Man Worldly honours are so many temptations to make us idolatrize our selves Plinie passeth farther yet and tells us that they were accustomed to put an iron ring upon the Conquerors finger in signe of servitude as if silently to intimate unto him that he was besides himselfe by an excesse of vanity in this amplitude of honour wherein he saw himselfe elevated above his companions And upon the same subject a great number of Historians doe adde that about the Charriot of the Triumpher there were two men assigned the one carrying a Deaths-head the other the Image of a Peacocke and both continually crying REMEMBER THAT THOV ART A MAN Vanitie is a dangerous enemie since it betrayes us while it seemes to oblige us by the complacence which it gives us Certainely Vanity makes great Prize of us then when we are elevated to some eminent degree of honour And though our heads be but as of dead-mens for wee are dying uncessantly and our miseries resemble us to those Images of Peacockes which cannot beare up traine but upon ugly Feete Yet our Blindnesse is so great and this Selfe-love so extreame that men are dazled with too much Splendour and a Man becomes slave to himselfe by loving himselfe with too much passion Greatnesse and prosperitie never let themselves be possest but to take greater possession of us And as they have allurements to charme us and sweets to ravish us a Man had need implore the succour of Divine grace if hee would escape their pleasing tyrannie and nothing but flight from them or contempt can give us weapons to resist them Let us still returne to the point We reade of Iudas Machabeus that returning victorious from Galile the people conducted him to the Temple by a way all tapistred with flowers Abraham after hee had vanquished five Kings was received in Triumph into Salem now called Hierusalem Iudith received the honour of Triumph by the destruction of Holofernes and all the people of Bethuliâ— laden with Palme to make her triumphall wreaths cryed out in her favour Behold the glory of Hierusalem and the joy of all her Nation Ioseph shewes himselfe in Triumpâ— also upon the Chariot of Pharaoh Gen. 41.41 42 c. whâ— puts his Royall Ring upon his finger gives him his Chaine of gold and makes him publikely to be acknowledged for the second person of Egypt David triumphs o're Goliah with magnificence worthy of his victory and the Virgins chant to his glory Saul hath kill'd his thousand 1 Sam. 18.7 and David his ten thousand Mordecai also had his turne of Triumph mounted upon the horse of Ahasuerus and had his prayses Heraldized by Haman in these termes Esther 6.11 Thus shall it be done to the man whom the King will honour All these Triumphs are worthy of admiration I avouch it but the Triumph over our selves is worthy astonishment as having to combate our passions and consequently the winning'st enemies of the
the window and thou shalt see carryed to the grave some not so old as thy selfe If thou relye upon the health which thou now enjoyest 't is but a false going-dyall The calme of a perfect health Saepe optimus status corpotis periculâ— susimuuuml s. hath oftentimes ushered the Tempest of a suddaine Death What hopest thou for Hip. hope is deceitfull what stayest thou soâ— Sera nimis Vita est crastina vive hodie A wise man ought never to defer till to morrow what should be done to day Lastly what desirest thou The peace of conscience is the only desirable good Goe on then right forward thou canst not misse the way which I have chalk't thee FINIS PERLECTORI The TRANSLATOVR'S COROLLARIE SO Now 't is done although it be no Taske That did much Braines or toylesome Study aske The meaning I ' vouch good but Merit small In rendring English the FRENCH PRINCIPALL It is but a Translation I confesse And yet the Rubs of Death in 't nerethelesse May trippe some cap'ring Fancies of the Time That Domineere and Swagger it in Rime That Charge upon the Reader and give Fire On all that doe not as they doe admire Either their rugged Satyrs cruell veine Or puffe-paste Notes 'bove Ela in high straine Then in prevention quarrell like a curst Scold who being guilty yet will call Whore first When any dyes whose Muse was rich in Verse They claime Succession and prophane his Herse They onely are Heires of his Braine-estate Others are base and illegitimate All but their owne Abettors they defie And LORD-it in their Wit-Supremacy Others they say but Sculke or lye i' th' lurch As we hold Schismaticks from the true Church So hold they all that doe decline their way Nor sweare by Heaven Al 's excellent they say T were well they 'd see the fing'ring on these frets Can neither save their Soules nor pay their Debts Or would they they thinke of Death as they should doe They would live better and more honourd too T is base to doe base deeds yet for false fame To Keepe a stirre and bustle into Name Whilst each applauds his owne contemnes an others Becons his owne deserts but his he smothers They feare Fame's out of breath and therefore they Trumpet their owne praises in their owne way Or ioyne in Tricke of Stale Confed'racy Cal'd Quid pro Quo Claw me and I le claw thee Marry at others Tooth and Naile they flye That do not tread their Path but would goe bye Farewell to these my ayme not here insists Leave we these wranglers unto equall lists To Nobler Natures I my brest expose The Good I bow to in an humble Cloze To such as knowing how vaine this Life is Exalt their thoughts to one better then This. 'T is the best Method to be out of Love With things below and thence to soare above To which effect my soules integrity In L'envoy thus salutes each courteous eye L'ENVOY INgenuous READER thou do'st crowne The Morall active course layd downe By De la SERRE what is pen'd If thy ACTIONS recommend Relating to the first EMBLEME WHen haughtie thoughts impuffe thee than Dictate thy selfe Thou art but Man A fabricke of commixed Dust That 's all the prop of humane trust How dares a Clod of mouldring Clay Be Proud decaying every day And yet there is away beside Wherein may be a lawfull Pride When sly Temptations stirre thee Than Againe the Word Thou art a Man Rouze up thy Spirits doe not yeeld A brave resistance winnes the Field Shall a soule of Heavenly breath Grovell so farre its worth beneath Fouly to bee pollute with slime Of any base and shamefull crime Thou art a Man for Heaven borne Reflect on Earth disdainefull scorne Bee not abus'd since Life is short Squander it not away in sport Nor hazard heavens eternall Joyes For a small spurt of wordly Toyes Doe Something ere thou doe bequeath To Wormes thy flesh to Aire thy breath Something that may when thou art dead With honour of thy name be read Something that may when thou art cold Thaw frozen Spirits when t is told Something that may the grave controule And shew thou hadst a noble Soule Doe something to advance thy blisse Both in the other World and This. Relating to the second EMBLEME WEre both the Indias treasures Thine And thou LORD of every Mine Or hadst thou all the golden Ore On Tagus or Factolus Shore And were thy Cabinet the Shrine Where thousand pearles and Diamonds shine All must be left and thou allowd A little linnen for thy Shrowd Or if 't were so thy Testament Perhaps a goodly Monument What better is a golden Chase Or Marble then a Charnell place Charon hence no advantage makes A halfe-penny a soule he takes Thy heires will leave thee but a Shirt Enough to hide thy rotten Dirt. Then bee not Greedy of much pelfe He that gets all may lose himselfe And Riches are of this Dilemme Or they leave us or we must them Death brings to Misers double Woe They loose their Cash and their soules too Change then thy scope to heavenly gaines That wealth eternally remaines Relatory to the third EMBLEME BE not curious to amaze With glitt'ring pompe the Vulgar gaze Strive not to cheat with vaine delight Those that are catcht with each brave sight How soone will any gawdy show Make their low Spirits overflow Whose Soules are ready to runne-ore At any Toy nere seene before Rather thy better thoughts apply For to addresse thy selfe to dye Bee ne're so glorious after all Thy latest pompe's thy Funerall Shall a dresse of Tyrian Dye Or Venice gold Embroyderie Or new-fash'on-varied Vest Tympanize thy out-strutting brest There 's none of these will hold thee tacke But thy last colour shall be Blacke Bee not deceiv'd There comes a Day Will sweepe thy Gloryes all away Meane while the thought on 't may abate Th' Excesses of thy present ' state Death never can that Man surprize That watches for 't with wary Eyes Doe Soe And thou shalt make thereby A Vertue of Necessitie And when thy Dying-day is come Goe like a Man that 's walking home Heav'n Guard thee with Angelicke pow'r To be prepared for that houre When ev'ry Soule shall feele what 'T is To have liv'd Well or done Amisse Relating to the fourth EMBLEME LEt not the Splendour of high Birth Bee all thy Glosse without true worth Let neither honour nor vast wealth Beautie nor Valour nor firme health Make thee beare up too high thy head All men alike are buried Stare not with Supercilious brow Poore folkes are Dast and so art Thou Triumph not in thy worldly Odds They dye like men whom we count Gods And in the Grave it is all one Who enjoy'd all or who had none Death cuts off all superfluous And makes the proudest One of us Nor shall there diffr'ence then betweene The dust of LORDS or slaves be seene Together under ground they lye
diffiâ—ile to the proud where lies the difficulty to arrive to this knowledge when the very wind of our sighes carries away every moment some of that polluted dust whereof wee bee made Where is this paine say I yet since our senses and spirits can have no other object then this of Inconstancy as unseparable to their nature as it is proper to our condition And what can bee this difficulty when we are capable of no action more then to destroy our selves We must breake this rinde farther Humility is a skilfull Schoolemaster to teach us to know our selvs I will beleeve that every one knowes from whence he comes and whither he goes that his body is but a worke of rottennesse and that the wormes attend therof the prey as a nourishment which to them is destinated but it is important to consider that these truths though sensible are oftenest put in oblivion and this default of memory denotes that of knowledge He which museth upon his slightnesse undervalueth except God all things A man knowes no more then hee remembers and vanity would never be able to surprise us during the interim of this meditation Man knows very well that he is Mortall The remembrance of Death makes us forget the vanities of Life but whilst he never thinkes seriously of the necessity of dying this knowledge is forgot though he dye without cease and in loosing the remembrance of his condition looses the knowledge therof The way to passe our dayes contentedly is to think every houre of the last Remember that you are a Man said his page every morning to Philip of Macedon This great Monarch made himselfe to be rouzed every day from sleep with the Newes of Death fearing to be charmed with the sweetes of Life Greatnesses environ him on all parts to make him forget his humility but understand you not the delicate Aire which he causes to be sung to the tune of his miseries The remembrance of the poorenesse of Death is a potent charme to resist the memory of greatnesse of Birth the pompe and Magnificance of his riches dazle his eyes with their lustre that he might never consider the wretchednesse which is proper to him But you see how he makes himselfe to be awaked with the noyse of this truth ever to cherish its remembrance Sir remember that you are a Man oh how many Mysteries are comprised in these wordes behold the Allegory on 't Great Kings remember you are subject to many more Miseries then you have subjects in your Empire If we be different in manner of life we are all'equall in necessity of dying Great Monarchs remember that of all the great extention of your Territories there shall not remaine you one onely foot So jealous are the wormes of your glory Great Princes remember that your Scepters and your Crownes are such feeble markes of greatnesse that fortune sports with them Time mocks at them and the Wind shal sweep away their Dust Soveraigne Judges of the Life of Men remember that although you are above the Lawes this of Dying is inviolable The Fable is pretty of the resolution which the flowers and plants took to elect a King and Queene Cares and anâ—ieties surpasse in number the pleasure of Kings and as the number of Voyces gave the election the Marigold was declared to bee the King of the Flowers and the Bryar Queene of Plants and under this toy lies hid serious verities Is there any thing fairer in all the borders of the Garden of Nature then the flower of the Marigold It s golden Tincture of the colour of the Sun at first view dazeleth so delightfully that the Eye amazedly gazing with admitation of its fresh-displayed beauty can hardly retire its regards from an object so agreeable But gather it and dight it on you and its sentproduces a thousand disliks in the Mind for that one onely which you hold in your hand for hence of a suddaine the humours become dull and melancholy having beene annoyed with so faire a fulsomnesse Royalty is absolutely the same The Scepters are as fresh flowers of Marigold If Crownes and Scepters were to be sould wise men would never buy them whose lustre and beauty equally ravishing attract at first glance to their admiration the Soule by the eyes but if a Man take them into his graspe or deck his head with â—hem hee shall find himselfe fill'd with anxious cares by this coverâ—ure If you doubt of this aske Seleuâ—us hee will answere That the first â—oment of his Raigne was the last of â—is Quietnesse The Sweet-bryar also bore away â—he Royaltie for who would not love 〈◊〉 with its Rose O how both togeâ—her have powerfull attractives to â—â—mpt equally both the heart to desire them and the hand to plucke them And 't is in vaine that Nature hath given armes to the jealousie of its prickles Thornes are the Roses of Kings gardens to serve for the defence of its flowers since these sharpes are as so many baits which irritate us rather with Desire then Feare All the world insert it in their nose-gayes but the prickles remaine the Rose withers Say we then also that Royalty is a faire Sweet-bryar accompanyed with its Roses I meane many contentments of the same nature Both together have great charmes to affect us both with love and desire but the Bryars of the Crowne remaine Great miseries are destinated to great fortunes the Rose of delights withers O how ponderous is the loade of this greatnesse And if you beleeve not me enquirâ— hereof of the puissant King Mithridates The felicity of Kings hath much more lustre then Reality hee will often reiterate to you That he never sigh'd but for the ponderouâ— burden of his Crownes SIR REMEMBER YOV ARâ— A MAN But what is there here to pride in 〈◊〉 May it be of the greatnes of his Dâ—minions This is but an alien good which admits not to be possest but by vanity Kings may trouble themselves to conquer the earth it still triumphs over them since its honours and pleasures have nothing else more in propriety To be an amply landed-man is to have miry soyle to sell and small profit to make thence Sir remember you are a Man What may be his ambition may it be to conquer the whole world what will he doe with it after conquest since it is a Ball of snow which Time melts by little and little tumbling it without cessation Sir remember you are a Man What might be his designes Should hee pretend to Altars and Temples what oblations can be made to a Victime He which makes himselfe to be adored is rather fi to be Deaths Victime then to be idolatrized â—hom Death holds conrinually at a â—ay can Incense be offered to a â—ung hill or an Idoll made of a Sink â—e very thought shockes common â—nse Sir remember that you are a Man What can hee doe with his absolute â—ower
Man is so miserable that I am amiz'd â—ee pâ—tiâ—s not himselfe A little stone makes him â—umble a straw can blind him a â—adow an Atome a thing of nothing are capable to reduce him to nothing at all And is not this an object of pity rather then of envy Great Kings these are truths too important for you to loose their remembrance Well may you out-brave the heavens with a bristling eye-brow the onely imagination of its Thunder-claps holds you already in alarme Boldly may you tread vpon the Earth with a disdainefull foot the Same whereof you are made shall shortly be so troden when the wormes are glutted with it I have said to corruption Thou art my father and to the worme thou art my mother and mysister Iob. 17.14 Remember that you art Men and that all the objects of riches and honours which environ you are of the same Nature as you are You are dying every moment and every thing falls away withouâ— cease When I represent to mind you heads The head that weares the crowne weares away with it diadem'd with a rich Crowne I conceive it a little point infirm'â— and closed in a circumference whosâ— lines abut at the center of corruptâ—â— on lines of magnificence which teâ—minate at the point of wretchednesse If I consider you with Scepter in hand Scepters and the hands which hold them are equally perishable me thinks I see a simple shrub planted upon worser earth the shrub dries up and is reduced to dust the ground remaines that it was before Let me contemplate you seated upon your Thrones deckt with your richest ornaments my imagination shewes me a Iupiter in picture holding the Thunder in his hand for you are so weake for all your absolute power that if you presume hardily to raise your head A strange thing that the clarity should blind us though it be the principall of the view but to looke upon the Sunne your eyes will water at the same time to expiate with your teares the crime of your arrogance Great Kings Remember then that you are not Great but in miseries Soveraigne Monarchs Remember that your Empiredome is but a servitude since you are subject to all the disasters of your subjects Powerfull Princes one gust of wind defies to the struggle your absolute power Sacred Majesties All the attributes of worldly glory accompany us but to the grave I salute you to day by this name but to morrow I will change termes and call you Skelitons and carkasses to the end that in speaking this truth all the world may know you I will change my tone How ingenious are the Poets in their fancies They recount us how that Inconstancy being banisht from heaven descended upon earth with designe to have her picture drawne and upon the refuse that Painters made of it shee addrest herselfe to Time Man serves for shaâ—le-cocke to all things since all things concurre to his ruine who after he had considered her in all her diversities made use at last of the visage of Man for the finishing cloth wherein having represented her to the life all the world tooke her for Man himselfe since in effect 't is but one and the same thing O faire truth discovered by a fable Man is Inconslaâ—â—vit selfe â—ather then us pourâ—â—â—ct He then that now would see the Image of Inconstancy let him consider the Lise-touches and lineaments of it upon his owne visage Our fore-head which wrinkles every moment is it not the very same as hers Our Eyes which by continuall use every houre doe already require spectacles are they not as hers Our cheekes which now chap-fall are in nothing different from hers In fine our visages are the onely MIRROVRS WHICH FLATTER NOT. But what shall we answer notwithstanding to the objection of this truth that that which we see of MAN Though a Man hides himselfe under the vayle of hypocrisie his defects alwayes breake through is not the MAN If his visage like a false Horologe index false this our pourtraict of Inconstancy is meerely imaginary But is there any thing more inconstant then the spirit of Man 't is a weather-cocke for all winds behold againe the first draughts of the visage of Inconstancy must wee not of necessity compare his changing humour to hers The spirit of Man is much more changing then his body for this changes onely in growing old but that growes oâ—d onely in changing if a man would exhibit thereof but one example and these are yet new lineaments which represent us this levity In fine his thoughts his desires and all the passions of his mind are but objects of vicissitude capable of all sorts of impressions so that in the perfection of the portraicture of Man Inconstancy is found perfectly depainted Let us proceed The fictions of Poets are yet serious enough to serve us often for sufficient entertaine of the time Vertue onely can render us invulnerable A vertuous Man feares nothing 'T is they which tell us of one Achilles immortall in all the parts of his body save onely his heele Great Kings I will if you please take you for Achilles's and will give out you are like him invulnerable but onely in the heele But of what temper soever your Armes be to what purpose serve they you with this defect This onely blot duskes the luster of your glory Nature has done surely well Every Man would be immortall but none takes paine to acquire immortality to prodigallize upon you thus both her graces and favours she hath immortaliz'd you but by halfes All your apparences are divine but something within spoiles all each particular is a heele by which Death may surprize you Shall I say then that you are Achilles's who will beleeve mei since your heads serve but as Buts to the shafts of Fortune 'T is onely the conscâ—ence of a just Man is of proofe against the stroake of Time and Fortune To preach you invulnerable a small scratch may thereon give me the lye Truth more powerfull then flattery constraines me to call you by your name for in remembrancing you that you are but Men I suggest you to the life all the disasters which accompany your Life Man is so poore a thing that one cannot give him a name but is advantagious to him Thou hast much to doe to make Panegyricks in praise of Man O Mercury Trimegistus and to maintaine so confidently that he is a great Miracle it must be then a Miracle of misery since Nature produceth nothing so miserable as he is And thou Pythagoras which hast had the fore-head to perswade us that Man was a mortall God if thou hadst made Anatomie of his carkasse the stench of his filth had soone made thee change this language Plato thou reason'st well upon this subject yet without sound consideration then when with an enforcement of spirit and eloquence thou wouldst oblige us to beleeve There
sayes hee which beat at the eares to enter into your hearts A Voyce which rustles in a moment and passes away at the same instant What Humility Is there any thing which is lesse any thing then a Voyce 'T is a puffe of wind which a fresh one carries I know not where since both lose themselves in the ayre after its ne're solittle agitation with their gentle violence 'T is nothing in effect yet notwithstanding the proper name of this great Prophet Christus verbum Iohannes vox They would elevate him and he abaseth himselfe so low that he would render himself invisible as a Voyce so much he feares to be taken for him whose shooe-latchet he judgeth himself unworthy to unloose Lord what are we also but a little Wind enclosed in a handfull of Earth to what can one compare us Iohn 1.27 A man is to bee estimated in proportion to the undervalue bee makes of himself without attributing us too much vanity True it is that we are the works of thy hands but all other created things beare the same Title but if thy bounty hath beene willing to advantage our nature with many graces proper and ordinated to it alone these are so many witnesses which convince us not to have deserv'd them since our very Ingratitude is yet a Recognizing of this Truth Insomuch that as our Life is nothing but sinne and sinne is a meere privation it may be maintained that wee are nothing else and consequently nothing at all The most just man sinneth seven times a day But how Proud am I O Lord every time I thinke thou hast created me of Earth for this is a Principall which drawes me alwayes to it selfe by a right of propriety from whence I cannot defend my selfe All things seeke their repose in their element What is 〈◊〉 for a man to trumph here of the noâ—â—d the earth expects his spoyle O how happy am I to search mine in that of Dust and Ashes whereof thou hast formed me The Earth demands my Earth and my body as a little Gullet separated from its source speeds by little and little to the same source from whence it had its beginning And this is that which impeaches me from gathering up my selfe to take a higher flight I should doe bravely to hoyse my selfe above my Center Pride hoyses up only to give a fall when the assay of my Vanity and the violence of my fall are but the same thing I give still downewards upon the side of my weakenesses and the weight of my miseries overbeares upon the arrogance of my Ambition O happy deffect A man no doubt may misknow himselfe yet the least hit of mishap teares the vaile of his hoodwink'tnesse and yet more happy the condition which holds me alwayes enchained to the dunghill of my Originall since the links of this easie servitude are so many Mirrours which represent me that I am nothing whensoever I imagine my selfe to be something Let us change our Tone without changing subject Ladyes Remember that you dye every houre behold here a MIRROVR WHICH FLATTERS NOT. It shewes you both what you are and such as you shall be But if notwithstanding you still admire your selves under an other visage full of allurements and sweets A strange thing that death is still as neare us as life and yet wee never thinke on 't This is but Death himselfe who hides him under these faire apparences to the end you may not discerne him It is true you have gracefull Tresses of haire which cover your heads and his is all Bald but doe not you heed how hee pulls them off from yours by little every day and makes those which he leaves you to turne White to the end you may pull them out your selves It is true your Eyes have a sparkling lustre and beauty but of his is seene onely the hideous place where Nature had seated them But doe you not consider how with continuall action hee Dusks the glory of this beauty and in conclusion puts to Eclipse these imaginary Pety-Suns It is true your hue is of Lillyes and your mouth of Roses upon his face is seene onely the stubs of these flowers but call to mind that he blasts this Lilly-teint Ci me and Death are the onely inexorables as well as Lillyes themselves and that the vermillion of this Rosie-mouth lasts but as Roses and if yet you differ to day from him in some thing you may resemble him to-morrow in all I leave you to meditate of these Truths Man is a true Mirrour which represents to the naturall all things which are oppos'd unto it If you turne it downward to the Earth Man is as one picture with two faces and often the most naturall is falsest we can see within nothing but objects of Dust and Ashes but if you turne him to the Heavens-ward there is to be admired in it beauties and graces purely celestiall In effect if we consider Man in his mortall and perishable condition hardly can one find any stay in this consideration since hee is nothing else but a Chimera whose forme every Moment by little and little destroyes to reduce it to its first nothing And indeed not to lye to ye Man is but a Puffe of Wind since he lives by nothing else Man is nothing in himselfe yet comprehends all things is filled with nothing else and dyes onely by Privation of it But if you turne the Medall I would say the Mirrour of his Soule towards his Creator there are seen nothing but Gifts of Immortality but graces of a Soveraigne bounty but favours of an absolute Will The heavens and the Stars appeare in this Crystalline Mirrour What though man be made of earth he is more divine than mortall not by reflection of the object but by a divine vertue proceeding from the Nature of his Cause Let us to the End The slumber of vanities is a mortall malady to the soule Me thinks This Page returnes againe to day within the Chamber of Philâ—â—â— of Macedon and drawing the Câ—â—â—taine cryes out according to his â—â—â—dinary Sir Awake and Remember that you are a Man but why rouzes hee him to thinke of Death since sleepe is its image Alexander knew himselfe mortall by his sleeping and in effect those which have said that sleepe was the Brother of Death have drawne their reason of it from their reciprocall resemblance Awake then Great Kings Not to ponder that you are mortall your sleepe is a trance of this but rather that you are created for immortality Remember you are Men. I will not say A man should not forget his heavenly beginning having heaven for a daily object subject to all the miseries of the Earth but rather capable of all the felicities of heaven Remember that you are Men. I will not say the shittlecocke of Time and the But to all the shafts of Fortune but rather victors over ages and all sorts
and ret orts upon it's own paces Man may be sayd to be happy in being subject to all mishaps But Man contrarily being setled upon the declining stoop of his ruine rouls insensibly without intervall to the grave his prison Death is a grace rather than a paine O deare ruine 〈◊〉 O sweet captivity since the soule recovers her freedome and this Sepulture serves but as a Furnace to purifiâ—â— his body The Aire although it corrupt is not for all that destroyed thâ— corruption of Man destroyes its materiall O glorious destruction since iâ—steades him as a fresh disposition to render him immortall The Fire thougâ— it fairely devoure all things is yet preserved still it selfe to reduce all thâ— World into Ashes But Man perceive himself to be devoured by Time with out ability ever to resist it Oh benâ—ficiall Impotence since hee findes hâ—â— Triumph in his overthrow The â—elâ—citic of man in this world consists in the necâ—ssity of death the Sunnâ— causeth alwayes admiration in its oâ—dinary lustre but Mans reason is impaired in the course of Times Oh weâ—come impairement since Time ruinâ— it but onely in an Anger knowing thâ— it goes about to establish its Empire beyond both time and Ages In find the Heavens may seem to wax old 〈◊〉 their wandring course How happy is man in decaying evermore since he thus at last renders himselfe exempt from all the miseries which pursue him they yet appear the same still every day as they were a thousand yeeres a'gon Man from moment to moment differs from himselfe and every instant disrobes him somewhat of his Beeing Oh delightfull Inconstancy since all his changes make but so many lines which abut at the Center of his stability A long life is a heavie burthen to the soule since it must render an account of all its moments How mysterious is the Fable of Narcissus the Poets would perswade â—â—s that Hee became selfe-enamoured â—â—ewing Himselfe in a Fountaine But 〈◊〉 am astonish't how one should become amorous of a dunghill though â—overed with Snow or Flowers A face cannot be formed without Eyes Nose â—nd Mouth and yet every of these â—arts make but a body of Misery and Corruption as being all full of it This Fable intimates us the repreâ—ntment of a fairer truth since it inâ—â—tes a Man to gaze himselfe in the â—ountaine of his teares thus to become morous of himselfe not for the liâ—eaments of dust and ashes whereof â—s countenance is shap't but rather of â—ose beauties and graces wherewith his soule is ornamented and all these together make but a rivelet If a man could contemplate the becauties of his soule in innocence he would alwaies be surprized with us love which leads him to the admiration of that source from whence they tooke their originall Oh how David was a wise Narcissus then when hee made of his Teares a Mirrour If a man would of en view himselfe in the teares of his repentance be would soon become a true selfâ—over so to become enamour'd of himselfe for he was so selfe-loving in his repentance that in this Hee spent both dayes and nights with unparelleled delights But if Narcissus ship-wrack't himselfe in the fountaine of his selfe-fondnesse This great King was upon point to Abysse himselfe in the Sea of his tâ—eres All the vaine objects of the world are so many fountaines of Narcissus wherein prying men may shâ—pwracke themselves for their liquid Crystalline shewd him to himselfe so beautifull that hee burned with desire thus to drowne himselfe Ladies vieâ— your selves in this Mirrour since you are ordinarily slaves to your owne selve love You will be faire at what price soever see here is the meanes The Crystall Mirrour of your teares flatter not contemplate therein the beauty of this grace which God hath given you to bewaile your vanities This is the onely ornament which can render you admirable All those deceitfull Chrystals Teares are the faithfullest Mirours of penitence which you weare hang'd at your Girdles shew you but fained beauties wherof Art is the work-mistresse and cause rather then your visages Would yee be Idolaters of the Earth which you tread on your bodies are but of Durt but if you will have them endeared where shall I find tearmes to expresse their Noysomnesse Leave to Death his Conquest and to the Wormes their heritage If Ladies would take as much care of their souls as of their bodies they would not hazard the losse both of one and to'ther and search your selves in that originall of Immortality from whence your soules proceed that your actions may correspond to the Noblenesse of that cause This is the most profitable counsell which I can give You It is time to end this Chapter Great Kings I serve you this Morning instead of a Page to awake You and remembrance You that you are Men I meane Subjects to Death and consequently destinated to serve as a Prey to the Wormes a Shittle-cocke to the Windes and matter for to forme an object of horror and astonishment to you altogether Muze a little that your life passeth away as a Dreame The meditation of our nothingnesse is a soveraigne remedie against vanitie thinke a little that your thoughts are vaine consider at the same time that all that is yours passes and flies away You are great but this necessity of Dying equals you to the least of your subjects Men are so neare of blood together that all beare the same name Your powers are dreadfull but a very hand-worme mocks at 'em your riches are without number but the most wretched of men carry as much into the grave as you In fine may all the pleasures of Life make a party in Yours yet they are but so many Roses whose prickles onely remaine to you at the instant of Death Man hath nothing so proper to him as the misery to which hee is borne The horror which environs You chaseth away your greatnesses the weakenesse which possesseth you renders unprofitable your absolute powers and onely then in that shirt which rests upon your backe are comprised all the treasures of your Coffers Are not these verities of importance enough to breake your sleepe If the earth be our mother heaven is our father I awake you then for to remembrance you this last time that you are Men but destined to possesse the place of those evill Angels whose Pride concaved the Abysses of Hell that you are Men but much more considerable for the government of your reason then your Kingdome That you are Men but capable to acquire all the felicities of Heaven if those of the Earth are by you disdained That you are Men but called to the inheritance of an eternall Glory if you have no pretence to any of this world Lastly that you are Men but the living images of an infinite and omnipotent one Though the body and soule together make up the man there is yet as
upon these Thrones of magnificence but as it were to take leave of the assembly All the speeches of Men are but discourses of adieu leave-taking since every day be marches straight forward toward Death continuing still to give your last God-bwyes like a man who is upon point to depart continually since he dyes every moment Insomuch that all this Pompe which accompanyes you and which gives shadow to the luster wherewith you are environed vanishes away with you and all those who are its admirers and idolaters runne the same fortune being of the same nature Be it from me granted that the report of your glory admits no vacuity no more then the Ayre does and that your name is as well knowne as the Sunne and more redoubted then the thunder This voyce of renowne is but as the sound of a Bell To what purpose doth the renown of a Man make a noyse in the world the noyse â—eâ—seth the renowne passeth which redoubles a noyse to its owne detriment to advertise those that doubt on 't and this name so famous and dreadfull finding no memory here below to the proofe of ages buryes it selfe at last in the nothingnesse of its beginning Be it againe that all the Gold of the Indies can be valewed but to a part of your Estate and that all the world together possesse lesse treasure then you alone what advantage thinke you to beare away more then the most miserable of the world that in this you should be vaine Enjoyes not he the same Sunne which lights you hath not he the same usage of the Elements The tranquillity of tâ—e mind and the health of body are the only riches of the world whereof you make use But if you have more then he a gloriousnesse of apparell and a thousand other superfluous things which are altogether estranged to vertue as being imaginary goods whose appearance alone is the onely foundation hee may answere you with Seneca that with whatsomever coverture a Man hides the shame of his nakednesse he shall passe for well-clothed among wise men And to come to the point a Man hath alwayes enough wherewith to follow his way and to finish his voyage The surplus is but a burden of cares which are metamorphosed into so many bryars when Death would discharge us of them Besides Riches consists but in opinion though their treasures be palpable and sensible A man is Rich equall to that which he beleeves himselfe to be He is the most rich who is most conient And though hee hath nothing this Grace wherewith hee is treasured to finde rest in his miseries is above all the Gold of the world What difference thinke you there is betwixt the Rich and the poore both the one and the other are equally pilgrims and travellers and goe alike to the same place Then if the Rich passe through the fairer way they rencounter when they dye All Mortals togethâ—r make a dance of blind men who in dancing runne to death without sâ—â—â—g the way they passe all the thorns of those roses which they have past upon There is no arrivall to the Haven of the grave without being tempested sooner or later in the storme of those miseries which accompany us And me thinks it is a comfort to suffer in good time those evils which we cannot avoyd Rich-ones how miserable doe I hold you if the goods of the earth be your onely treasures Rich-ones how unhappy are you if your felicities be but of Gold The treasure of good workes only inriches us eternally and Silver Rich-ones how you compell my pity of your greatnesses if you have no other titles then those of your Lord-ships Rich-ones how frightfull only at the houre of Death are your names since the misery wherein you are borne accompanyes you in the sepulchre True it is that the Ayre of the Region where you dwell may be very temperate the Seasons of it faire and the lands fertile but you consider not that while you live you often sigh backe the ayre which you receive that this sweet time which smiles on you entraines you in flying to the season of teares The content of riches is like an odor ferous fume but it passes and so doth their enjoyment also and there is all and that very soone the dunghill of your bodyes shall perhaps render the lands yet more fertile The Rich Men of the world have done nought but passe away with the ages that gave them birth you are borne in this and this very same goes away and leads you with it and all the rest of Men without skilling what you are or in what fashion you are vested well may you possesse an infinite number of treasures you must alwayes trot and rise as soone i' the morning as others but if you play the slugs and sleep too long 'T is strange whether we shift place and sâ—at or no we yet runne incessantly to Death Death comes in the end to awake you and interrupt your repose with an eternall disquiet What will you say to this The fable of Midas comprehends in it important verities Apollo grants him all that hee demands he satiates the appetite of his unmeasurable ambition by the vertue which he gives to his touch to be able to turne all things into gold See him now rich for a day his hands are as new Philosophers-stones which make the grossest and most impure metals change both nature To what purpose is it to be environed with riches they are a strange kind of good whereof one can enjoy the usage but for a moment onely and price he sees himselfe enrounded in a moment with so great a number of treasures that he begins to apprehend the enjoyment of those goods which he desired with so much passion and from feare hee comes to astonishment then when prest with hunger all the Viandes which he touches with his hands lips or tongue are metamorphosed into Gold O inseparable amazement from a mortall griefe caused by a semblable regreet that hee could not limit his ambition but to the desire of his owne ruine Rich-men you are as so many Midasses since with all your treasures you never importune heaven for any other thing but to increase their number to which effect you destinate your cares your watchings and your labours But make no more imploring vows behold your selves at last heard The glistering of your riches dazles me your greatnesses and magnificences give you cheerefull tincture yet let us see the reverse of the Medall After your so many strong wishes for Gold and Silver The covetous growes poore in measure as hee growes rich since in encreasing his treasures encreases the famine of his insatiable avarice and thus of what he possesses he enjoyes nothing their treasures remaines to you for to satiate at least in dying the unruled appetite of the ambition of your life Riches I say environ you on all sides after your so passionate covetize
of them But in this last instant their possession is the saddest object which can be presented to your thoughts And notwithstanding 't is the onely nourishment which rests to you amid the hunger which torments you uncessantly as if for punishment of part of your crimes heaven did permit that the instruments of your pleasures A Man carryes away nothing with him at his Death but either a regreet or else a satisfaction of an evill or a good Life should also be the same of your punishments considering the greatnesse of your miseries by that of your unprofitable treasures for after all you must dye and though you carry with you this desire to beare away with you your riches into the tombe they remaine in your coffers for to serve as witnesses to your heires of the vanity of their enjoyment The Silke-wormes which have so much trouble to spin out their mouths their little golden threads thinke to stablish to themselves a shelter of honour to the proofe of all sorts of atteints and on the contrary they warp the web of their owne ruine Just so is it with the Rich-ones of the world who an ingenious industry To what effect is' t to seeke repose in this world 't is never to be sound but in God employ all their assayes to lay solide foundations here below of an immortall life and yet all their actions cannot but terminate in an end contrary to their designes since they search Eternity in the circles of Ages alwayes in revolution and repose in the perpetuall instability of all worldly things Insomuch that they trouble themselves to suffer much and all their cares and paines are but as fresh sowings of * See the ambiguity of the French word Soucies in the first Chapter Marigolds which dying in their gardens respring in their hearts there to dye never Behold the end of their jorney-worke Treasures to what effect serve you me if I must enter all naked into the grave Pleasures what becomes of your sweets if my last sighs are but bitternesse Grandeurs of this life in what stead you me if you cannot exempt me from the miseries of Death LORD I am rich enough in that I serve for an object of pity to thy adorable Providence whose o're-liberall bounty furnishes me for all my dayes nourishment enough to passe them what can I wish more on what side somever I take my way to goe the course of Death Heaven is an object of consolation to the most miserable I can never loose from view the heavens which are the Gates of thy Palace Insomuch as if any thing faile me I have but to strike there with my regards thou art alwayes upon a ready watch to succour the miserable Supply me then O LORD if it please thee with thy ordinary charities and since that hope dyes after me I will rather cease to be then to hope in thee These are the strongest resolutions of my soule We beg of God every day new favours every day we render our selves unthankefull for those we have received We reade of the children of Israel that having received of God and infinity of riches at their comming out of the red Sea by the wracke of their enemies they made of their treasures Idols and joyning in this sort Idolatry to Ingratitude they erected altars to their brutality since under reliefe of a brute beast they represented their God But leave wee there the children of Israel and speake of the Fathers of BABYLON I meane those wicked rich ones of the world to whom God hath done so great favours in heaping them with so many goods Are not they every day convicted of Idolatry in their unacknowledgement since the coffers of their treasures are the Idols of their temples Are we worthily Christians when idolatry is more familiar to us then to infidels since we make idols of all the objects of our passions More beasts then brutes in their voluntary depravednesse they offer incense to their brutish passions and no otherwise able but to erect them secret altars in their soules they there sacrifice every houre a thousand sighs of an unsatiable ambition Insomuch that the God of heaven is the God of their dissimulation and the Calfe of Gold the God of their beleefe and opinion Say wee then boldly that the objects of our passions are Golden Calveâ— to us since our hearts become their Idolaters One here will sigh for love of honours as well as for his Mistresse with designe to hazard a thousand lives and as many soules for the conquest of their vaine felicities and see here his idolatry making his God of these Chimera's of honour which vanish away like a Dreame at the rouzing up of our reason What folly is' t to seeke repose in the world which subsists onely in revolution Another there will lose quite and cleane all the peace wherein he is of a quiet life for to set up a rest purely imaginary in the amassement of treasures And of heaven hearing his votes with designe to punish him give some favourable successe to his cares and watchings hee becomes and Idolater now indeed an Idolater of those goods which as yet he adored but in hope and renders himselfe miserable for having desired too ardently felicities which onely beare the voyce to be so but their usage and possession may prove as dangerous upon the earth as Rocks within the Sea The goods of the earth are right evils and at Death each one shall so experiment ' em One will have his heart wounded and his Soule atteinted with a new tricke of ambition and as all his desires thoughts are terminated to the objects of his designes hee is never in health while the feaver of his passion is continuall I leave you to consider of what ratiocination hee can be capable during the malady of his spirit All sorts of wayes seeme equally faire unto him for to guide him unto the port whither hee aspires having no other ayme but this to acquire aâ— what rate somever that good whereof he is in Quest and of this Good it is where of he makes his Idoll after a shameful immolation of the best dayes of his Life to the anxieties of its possession Another will establish his repose in the turmoyle of the word turning his spirit to all winds to be under coverâ— from the tempests of fortune Blind as he is hee followes this Goddesse with the hoodwinckt eyes Wavering as he is he aspires but after the favours of this inconstant Deity of which he is secretly an idolater but if perchance she elevate him very high there is no more hazard of his fall the lawes oâ— this necessity are inviolable and one cannot avoyd the rigour of them if not avoyding their servitude Insomuch that after hee hath sneak't himselfe a long time amongst the grandeurs of the earth hee finds himselfe enlabyrinthed in the miseries wherein hee is borne without possessing any thing
in propriety but the usance of a puffe of wind which enters once againe at last into his entrals to force thence the last sigh And thus hee becomes the Victime of the Idoll of his passions without purifying ne're the lesse from the sacrifice of his life the soyle of those offerings which hee hath made upon the altars of Vanity Behold the sad issue of this Dedalean labyrinth wherein so many of the world take pleasure to intricate themselves in O how Rich is he LORD who hath thy love feare for his treasure O how happy is he If the fruition of all the world together were to be sold it were not worth so much trouble as to open the mouth onely to say I will not buy it who hath for object of felicitie the contempt of these things of the world O how Contented is hee who thinkes alwayes of eternall delights To have many riches for a hundred yeeres is not this to possesse at the end of that terme a Good which is as a good as never to have beene To taste greedily the sweets of every sort of prosperity during the raigne of a long life is it not already to dye by little and little for griefe to abandon them since in flying away they intraine us into the grave To pant continually for joy in the presence of a thousand pleasures is it not to prepare in one's breast the matter of as many griefs since every contentment is a disposition to a kind of martyrdome by the necessary and infallible privation of its sweets whereof while we taste on 't it menaceth us In fine to have all things at wish is it not to possesse vaine businesses since the world has nothing else to offer us The riches which Fortune gives and takes away againe when she will A wicked rich Man is much astonisht at his Death to have his conscience voyd of good works and his coffers full of mony since with all the gold of the world hee cannot purchase the grace of the least repentance can never enrich a Man it behooves him to seeke his treasure in the mines of his conscience so to be under covert from sinne for otherwise hee runnes the same hazard as of the goods which hee possesses I meane in their decay to loose himselfe with them The prosperities of the earrh are once more fresh flowers of the garden faire to the eye and of good sent but 't is to much purpose to gather them and make nose-gayes in holding them one holds nothing because their fragility renders them so slipperie that they ' scape both from our eyes and hands and though their flight be slow one day only is all their durance The pleasures of the world are of the same nature I grant they may have some agreeablenesse to charme our senses yet 't were too vaine to vaunt of their possession though one enjoyes them forsomuch as they slip away The arrivall of pleasures annunciates us alwayes their fueedie departure and vanish without cease from our eyes like the alwayes-flitting water trills Their sway hath so short limits that each moment may be the terme on 't Solid contentments are onely found in heaven and the onely meanes to rellish them beyond all sweetes is continually to Muze on them for having alwayes our spirit arrested upon meditation of an object so delitious our thoughts draw thence by their vertue this efficacy to ravish us with joy I returne to my first proposition The good or ill which we doe accompanies us to the grave That the greatest MONARCH of the world after possession of all things to his wish and having led a thousand times fortune herselfe in triumph upon the territories of his Empire should in conclusion be exposed all naked in his SHIRT at the end of his carreere to serve for a prey to the wormes and a shitlecocke to the winds certes a man must needs be very insensible not to be toucht with affright at these truths The misprizall of riches is the onely treasure of life GREAT KINGS if you have not other Mines of Gold more precious then those of the India's you shall dye as poore as you were borne and as Teares were the first witnesses of your misery sighs shall be the last of your poverty carrying with you this regreet into the grave to have possessed all things and now to find your selves in estate of enjoying nothing If we would acquire Heaven we ought to have no pretence to Earth GREAT KINGS if you have no other marks of soveraignty but this of the large extent of your territories the tribute which your subjects shall render you at the end of the journall shall be very little since the long spaces of your Empire shall be bounded with seven foot GREAT KINGS if you have no other treasures then those of the rent of your Demeanes all those goods are false and the regreet of their privation too true The rents of vertue 's demeanes are not subject to fortune But if you doubt of this yet consult the dumbe oracle of the Ashes of your Ancestours and the truth will answere for them that they never have had any thing more proper to them then miserie nothing more sensible then disasters and that with all the riches which they have enjoyed during life they have not beene able to procure at the houre of Death more then that piece of linnen wherein they are inveloped True valour ha's no other object but the conquest of eternall things GREAT KINGS if you have no other Philosopher-stone but this the Conquest which your Valour may make all your greatnesse and all your riches shall bee enclosed in the coffins wherein you shall be buryed For all that Fortune shall give you to day DEATH shall take from you to morrow and the day after one may count you in the ranke of the most miserable I will againe change tone What a contagious maladie in this age wherein we are is this passion of amassing treasures All the world would be rich as if Paradise were bought with ready mony If one knew the perill of being rich he would onely be in love with povertie and that the commerce of our safety were a publike Banke where the most covetous render themselves the most happy Every one makes bravado of his acquists and poyzeth his felicities to the balance of his riches being never able to be otherwise content but in reference to the measure of what he is estated in There one will assume a pride to have ten thousand Acres of wood whose revenue nourisheth his passions and entertains his pleasures We may call Man a Tree whose root is the immortall soule and the fruits which it beares are of the same nature either for glory or punishment Insomuch that he considers not that these Trees are laden but with the fruit of these world-miseries of all together he shal bear away but the branch of one
only which shall serve very soone for a Beere to his carkasse See in what consists the profit of his rents after their account made Another will be rich onely in Medowes and changing his hay into Gold which is but Earth he fills therewith his coffers But Foole that he is hee thinks not that his life is a Medow his body the hay thereof and Time the Mower The World is a Medow and all the objects which therein we admire are flowers which fade every houre who by his example makes publicke trafficke of the same marchandize changing by little and litle the hay of his body into Earth And is not this to be very ingenious to cheat a man's selfe Anothers ayme is onely to be rich in buildings some ' the' Country some ' th' City and assuming vanity from the number as well as the magnificence of his Pallaces hee beleeves that they are so many Sanctuaries of proofe against the strokes of fortune or the thunders of heaven What a folly 's this to esteeme ones selfe happy for having diverse Cabbins upon earth to put himselfe under couvert from the raine and wind during the short journey of life The raine ceases the wind is past and life dyes and then the tempest of a thousand eternall anguishes comes to entertaine him without possibility of discovery even from hope one onely port of safety To be onely rich then in aedifices is to be rich in castles of paper and cards such as little children lodge their pety cares in We must build upon the unshakeable foundations of eternitie if a man would be sheltered from all sorts of stormes To what purpose steads it us to be richly lodged if every houre of the day may be that of our departure Men trouble themselves to build houses of pleasure but the pleasures fade away and we also and these houses remaine for witnesses of our folly and for sensible objects of sorrow and griefe in that cruell necessity to which wee are reduced to abandon them It is to be considered that wee are borne to be Travellers and Pilgrims and as such are wee constrain'd to march alwayes straight to the gist of Death without ever resting or being able to find repose even in repose it-selfe To what then are all these magnificent Pallaces Though we say the Sunne sets every night yet it rests not and so Man though he lay himselfe to sleepe rests not from his voyage to Earth when our onely retreat beats on to the grave To what end are all this great number of structures when wee are all in the way and point to end our voyage O how well is hee housed that lodgeth his hope in God and layes the foundations of his habitation upon ETERNITIE A good conscience is the richest house that one can have Another designes his treasures in numerous Shippings traficking with all winds in spight of stormes and tempests but be it granted a perpetuall calme as heart could wish and imagine we as himselfe does that hee shall fish with Fortunes nets all the Pearles of the OCEAN what can he doe at the end with all his ventures if he trucke them away hee can gaine but stuffe of the same price if hee sell them he does but change white purified earth for yellow which the Sunne purifies as well within the mines what will hee doe now with this new marchandise or this his gold behold him alwayes in trouble to discharge himselfe of so many burdens If gold were potable hee might perhaps nourish himselfe therewith for a while but as MIDAS could not doe it in the fable he will ne're bring it to passe in the verity he must needs keep watch then day and night to the guard of his riches and well may hee keep sentinell Death comes to robbe him of them since at his going out of the world she takes them away from him What apparence is there that the treasures of the Sea should be able to make a man rich since the possession of all the world together cannot doe it A hundred thousand ships are but a hundred thousand shuttle-cockes for the winds The treasure of good workes is eternall riches and a hundred thousand objects of shipwracke Suppose they arrive to the Port the life of their Master is alwayes among rocks for 't is a kind of ship which cannot arrive at other shore but at the banke of the grave And I leave you to consider what danger he may runne if there the storme of his avaricious passion cast him The sand-blind-sighted may foresee his ruine and the most judicious will beleeve it infallible Behold in fine a man rich to much purpose Our life is a Ship which loosing from the Haven of the Cradle at the moment of our birth never comes ashore againe till it run aground upon the grave that would have drayn'd by his ambition the bottomlesse depths of the Ocean and now to find himselfe ith'end of his carreere in the abysses of hell having an eternitie of evils for recompense of an age of anxieties which hee hath suffered during his life LORD if I would be rich in wood let it be in that of thy CROSSE and from henceforth let its fruits be my revenues and my rents If I would traficke in meads Let the meditation of the hay of my life be my onely profit If I set my selfe to build houses He which puts his trust in God is the richest of the world how poore somever he be let it be rather for my soule then for my body and in such sort that my good workes may be the stones and the purity of my conscience the foundation And lastly If I would travell the Seas to goe to the conquest of their treasures let my teares be the waves thereof and my sighs the winds and thy grace alone the only object of my riches Make me then rich O LORD if it please thee by the onely misprise of all the treasures of the Earth 'T is alreadie a sufficient enjoyment of rest and quiet to set up ones rest in God onely and teach this secret language to my heart never to speake but of thee in its desires nor of other then thy selfe in its hopes since of thee alone and in thee onely lies the fulnesse of its perfect felicity and soveraigne repose Let us not rest our selves in so faire a way I cannot comprehend the designe of these curious Spirits who goe seeking the Philosophers-stone in that Spitle where an infinite number of their companions are dead of regreet to have so ill imployed their time They put all they have to the quest of that which never was and burning with desire to acquire wealth they reduce all their owne into cinders and their lungs also with vehement puffing without gaining other recompence at the end of their labours but this now to know their folly The love of God is the onely Philosopher-stone since by it a man may
but for that time and as you are not the owners they take them away againe when they will and not when it pleaseth you So then I will have no Scepters for an houre nor no Crownes for a day If I have desire to raigne 't is beyond Time that I may thus be under shelter from the inconstancy of Ages Trouble not your selves to follow me This world is a Masse of mirâ— upon which a Man may make impresse of all sorts of Characters but not hinder Time to deface the draught at any time Ambitious Spirits faire leave have you to draw the Stell of your designes upon this ready prim'd cloth Some few yeeres wipe out all Some ages carry away all and the remembrance of your follyes is only immortall in your soules by the eternall regreet which remaines you of them SCIPIO made designe to conquer Carthage and after he had cast the project thereof upon mould he afterwards tooke the body of this shadow and saw the effect of his desires But may not one say that the Trophies of his valour have beene cast in rubbidge within that masse of durt whereof the world is composed since all the marks thereof are effaced Carthage it selfe though it never had life could not avoyd its Death Time hath buried it so deep under its owne ruines that we seeke in vaine the place of its Tombe I leave you to ruminate if its subduer were himselfe able to resist the assaults of this Tyrannie If ALEXANDER had sent his thoughts into heaven there to seeke a new world as well as his desires on earth there to find one he had not lost his time but as he did amuze himselfe to engrave the history of his ambition and triumphs upon the same masse of clay which he had conquered he writ upon water and all the characters on 't are defaced The Realmes which hee subdued There is more glory to despise the world then to conquer it for after its conquest a man knewes not what to doe with it have lost some of them their names and of this Triumpher there remaines us but the Idea as of a Dreame since men are ready to require Security even of his Memorie for the wonders which it preacheth to us of him May wee not then againe justly avow that of all the conditions to which a man may be advanced without the ayde of vertue either by nature or Fortune there is none more infortunate then to be to these a favorite nor any more miserable then to be a Great-one This inconstant Goddesse hath a thousand favours to lend All those who engage themselves to the service of fortune are ill payd and of this every day gives us experiâ—â—â—â— but to give none but haltars poysons poniards and precipices 'T is a fine thing to see Hannibal begging his bread even in view of Scipio after he had cal'd into question the price of the worlds Empire-dome Is it not an object worthy of compassion to consider Nicias upon his knees before Gillippus to beg his owne and the Athenians lives after he had in a manner commanded the winds at Sea and Fortune ashore in a government soveraignly absolute Who will not have the same resentiments of pity reading the history of Crassus then wheÌ„ by excesse of disaster he surviv'd both his glory reputation being constrained to assist at the funerals of his owne renowne All those who hound after fortune are well pleased to be deceived since her deceits are so well knowne and undergoe the hard conditions of his enemies attending death to free him from servitude Will you have no regreet to see enslav'd under the tyrannie of the Kings of Egypt the great Agesilaus whose valour was the onely wonder of his Time What will you say to the deplorable Fate of Cumenes to whom Fortune having offered so often Empires gives him nothing in the end but chaines so to dye in captivitie You see at what price Men have bought the favours of this Goddesse when many times the serenity of a happy life produceth the storme of an unfortunate Death You may judge also at the same time of what Nature are these heights of honour when often the Greatest at Sun-rise find themselves at the end of the Day the most miserable And suppose Fortune meddle not with 'em to what extremitie of miserie thinke you is a man reduc't at the houre of his departure All his Grandeurs though yet present are but as past felicities he enjoyes no more the goods which he possesses griefes only appertaine to him in proper and of what magnificences so'ere hee is environed this object showes him but the image of a funerall pompe I wonder not if rich men be afraid of death since to them it is more dreadfull then to any his bed already Emblemes the Sepulcher the sheets his winding linnen wherein he must be inveloped So that if he yet conceit himselfe Great 't is onely in misery Since all that hee sees heares touches smells and tasts sensibly perswades him nothing else Give Resurrection in your thoughts to great Alexander and then againe conceive him at last gaspe and now consider in this deplorable estate wherein hee finds himselfe involv'd upon his funerall couch to what can stead him all the grandeurs of his life past they being also past with it I grant that all the Earth be his Fortune sells every day the glory of the world to any that will but none but fooles are her chap-men yet you see how the little load of that of his body weighs so heavy on his soule that it is upon point to fall groveling under the burden I grant that all the glory of the world belong to him in proper hee enjoyes nothing but his miseries I yeeld moreover that all Mankind may be his subjects yet this absolute soveraignety is not exempt from the servitude of payne Be it that with the onely thunder of his voyce he makes the Earth to tremble yet he himselfe cannot hold from shaking at the noyse of his owne sighs I grant in fine that all the Kings of the world render him homage yet hee is still the tributary of Death O grandeurs since you fly away without cease Omnis motus tendit ad quietem what are you but a little wind and should I be an Idolater of a litle tossed Ayre and which only moves but to vanish to its repose O greatnesses since you doe but passe away what name should I give you but that of a dreame Alas why should I passe my life in your pursuite still dreaming after you O worldly greatnesses since you bid Adieu to all the world without being able to stay your selves one onely moment Adieu then your allurements have none for me your sweets are bitter to my taste and your pleasures afford me none I cannot runne after that which flyes Worldly Greatnesses are but childrens trifles every wise man despises them I can have no love for
things which passe away and since the world hath nothing else 't is a long while that I have bidden adieu to it It had promised me much and though it had given me nothing yet cannot I reproach it finding my selfe yet too rich by reason of its hardnesse But I returne to the point Men of the World would perswade us that it is impossible to finde any quiet in it to say a firme settling of Spirit The onely meanes to be content is to settle the conscience in peace wherein a man may be content in his condition without ever wishing any other thing And for my part I judge nothing to be more easie if wee leave to reason its absolute power What impossibilitie can there be to regulate a mans will to God's And what contradiction in 't to live upon earth of the pure benedictions of heaven What greater Riches can a man wish then this to be able to undergoe the Decrees of his Fate without murmuring and complaint If Riches consisted onely in Gold Diamonds Pearles or such like things of like raritie those which have not of 'em might count themselves miserable But every man carryes his treasure in his conscience Hee which lives without just scandall lives happily and who can complaine of a happy life Riches are of use to humane life but not of necessitie for without them a man may live content But if to have the hap of these felicities of this life a man judge presently that hee ought of necessity to have a great number of riches This is to enslave himselfe to his owne opinion abounding in his proper sense and condemning reason for being of the contrary part I know well that a man is naturally swayed to love himselfe more then all things of the world Philautia that this love proceeds from the passion of our interests seeking with much care and paine all that may contribute to our contentments and whereas Riches seeme to be Nurses of them this consequence is incident to be drawne that without them is no contented living But at first dash it is necessary to distinguish this love into Naturall and Brutall and beleeve that with the illumination of reason When Reason reignes the passions obey wee may purifie the relishes of the first even to the point of rendring them innocent without departing from our interests and consequently the enjoyment of our pleasures giving them for object the establishment of our setled content in misprision of all those things of the world which may destroy it As for this brutish Love which estranging us from God separates us also from our selves the passion of it becomes so strong by our weaknesse that without a speciall grace wee grow old in this maladie of Spirit of contenting our Senses rather then obeying our Reason making a new God of the Treasures of the Earth But in conclusion these Gods abandon our bodies to the Wormes and our soules to the Devils And for all their riches the greatesâ— Great ones can onely purchase a glorious Sepulture Is not this a great advantage and a goodly consolation He whose will submits to Gods will lives ever content Maintaine we boldly that a man may finde quietnesse of life in all sorts oâ— condition with the onely richenesse of â—tractable Soule resign'd to take the time as it comes and as God sends it without ever arguing with his providence There is no affliction The Spirit of a Man will beare his infirmitie whereto our Soule cannot give us asswage There is no ill whereto it selfe is not capable to furnish us a remedie A man how miserable somever may finde his contentment amidst his miseries if he lives for his soule more then for his bodies behalfe God makes us to be borne where he will and of what Parents hee pleases if the poorenesse of our birth accompanie us even to death hee hath so ordained it what can wee else doe but let him so doe Can he be accounted miserable that obey's with good grace his soveraignes decrees 'T is a greater danger to be very rich then very poore for riches often make men loose their way but povertie keepes 'em in the streight path O how is it farre more easie to undergoe the burthen of much povertie then of great riches For a man extremely poore is troubled with no thoughts more important then onely how to finde meanes to passe his life in the austerities whereto hee is alreadie habituated without repining after other fortune as being estranged equally both from his knowledge and reach in which respects hee may well be stil'd happie But a man very rich dreames of nothing but to eternize the continuance of his dayes although this fancie be in vaine in stead of letting them quietly slide away insomuch that being possest with no passion more then love of life hee thinkes alwayes to live and never to die Death cannot be said to deceive any body for it is infallible and yet the world complaines of it But Death comes ere hee thinks on 't and taking from him all to his very Shirt constraines him to confesse that riches are onely profitable by misprision since by the contempt a man makes of them he may become the richest of the world O what a sensible pleasure 't is to be Rich say wordly men alwayes but I would faine know in what consists this contentment what satisfaction can there be had to possesse much treasure knowing what an infinit number of our companions are reduc'd to the last point of povertie Some in Hospitals where they lye in straw o'rewhelmed with a thousand fresh griefes Others at the corner of a street where a piece of a Dung-hill serves them at once both for bed and board Some againe in Dangeons where horrour and affright hunger and despaire tyrannize equally over their unfortunate spirits And others in some Desert to which ill fate has confined them to make their ills remedilesse as being farre removed from all sorts of succours There is no emptinesse in nature for miseries fill all How with the knowledge of these truths a man shall be able to relish greedily the vaine sweets of wordly riches it must needs be for want of reason or pity and consequently to be altogether brutish or insensible I shall have suppose a hundred thousand crownes in rents and all this revenue shall serve but to nourish my body and its pleasures without considering that a hundred thousand poore soules sigh under the heavy burden of their miseries every Day and yet men shall esteeme me happy in being rich in this fate O how dangerous are the treasures which produce these felicities 'T is a brave generositie to be sensible of other mens miseries Is it possible that the Great-ones of the world doe not thinke at all in the middle of their Feasts of the extreame poverty of an infinite number of persons and that in themselves they doe not reason secretly in
world I say the winning'st or the pleasing'st since they guard themselves onely with such kind of weapons whose hurtings makes us often sigh rather for joy then griefe Certainely the Victory of Reason over all the revolted faculties of our â—oules merits alone the honour of a Triumph and what advantage somâ—â—er a man has over his enemies hee â—imselfe is yet still vanquisht if his â—ices be not subdued I pursue my deâ—â—gne They which have enthronized Vertue in their breasts have laid their foundations upon the ruines of their passions to testifie to us that a Man cannot be vertuous with their predominancy And after essay of diverse meanes upon designe to vanquish them I have found none more powerfull then this The Meditation of Death but if any doubt this the tryall on 't will be profitable for him How is it possible that a Man should let himselfe be mastered with the passion of Revenge if he but muze of that Vengeance which his sins may draw downe every moment upon his head as being every houre in estate to dye Hee shall heare rumble in his eares the thunder of Divine Justice by the continuall murmur of his sighs which advertize him of the approaches of Death What courage can he have to avenge himselfe being upon point himselfe to suffer the torment of eternall vengeance Thou that art Vindicative wilt thou then quench the ardour of thy Choller feele thine owne pulse and consider that this pety slow feaver wherewith thou art stormed leads thee by little and little into the grave 'T is more honour for a man to avenge himselfe of his choler then of his enemie Who can be Ambitious if musing of Death since hee must quitt all with his life Let us ponder a while the fate of those arrogant spirits which ha' muz'd themselves to conquer the vaine greatnesses of the Earth What hath beene in fine their share at the end of the carriere They have had nothing but unprofitable regreets to have so ill employ'd their time finding themselves so poore with all their treasure as if they had beene borne the wreched'st of the world Thou Ambitious-one willt thou be cured of the disease of thy Passion think each houre of the day that that which thou now hearest strike may be thy Last Who would sigh for prophane Love after these objects of dust and ashes Mortall frailtie brings blemish to the fairest visages and mightily takes from their opinion being well considered if he often considered that hee himselfe is made of nothing else and that this noysome and corruptive matter seekaes nothing more then abysses of the grave there to hide within its loath somenesse in effect who would give his flesh a prey to pleasures if he would consider that the wormes do in expectation make their fees thereof already The Meditation of Death serves for temperament to all sorts of delights And if a Man bee capable of love in this muze it cannot be other then of his Salvation since this object is eternall but all others of the world perishable Infortunate Lovers search the solace of your immodest passions in the Anatomy of the subject whereof you are Idolaters Be assistant at that dead view Thinke of your owne Death Behold you are cured He which considers of that wretchednesse which is adjunct to Death easily mispriseth the riches of this life What wretched Rich man would be so much in love with his treasures if he would consider that Death robs him from them every day making him dye continually and that at the end of the terme of his life hee carryes along with him but the good or the evill which hee hath done to be either recompenc'd or punish'd but with a glory or a punishment whereof Eternity alone must terminate the continuance Covetous Misers the onely meanes for you to be so no more is to celebrate your owne funerals by your Meditations and often to consider the Account not of your riches but that which you must render one day of their fruition since your Salvation depends thereon Who in fine would make a God of his Belly seeking with passion all the delights which may tickle the sense of Taste if he represented to himselfe the miseries of the body which hee takes so much paines to nourish and the rigour of those inviolable decrees which destinate him a prey to the wormes and the remaines of their leavings to rottennesse This consideration would be capable to make him loose both appetite and desire at the same time to nourrish so delicately his carkasse O soules all of flesh repasting your selves with nothing else there is no invention to make you change nature but this to Heare your selves dye by the noyse of your sighs to See your selves dye by the wrinkles which furrow every day upon your visages and to Feele your selves die by the beatings of your pulse which indexeth this your hecticke feaver wherewith you are mortally attainted This is a Probatum-remedie the experience thereof is not dangerous May not a man then maintaine with much reason that the thought of Death alone is capable to cure our soules of the disease of their passions in doseing them both the meanes If a man should forget all things else but the miseries of his condition this last were enough to exercise the vastest memorie and the Vertue to triumph over them But if of this you desire an example call to mind that which I have proposed you in the beginning of the Chapter How marvellous is it that a great Monarch who is able to maintaine all manner of pleasure in his heart with all the delights which accompany it celebrates himselfe his Funeralls in the midst of his carriere of life beginning to raigne at the end of his raigne since that last object is alwayes present before his eyes His Passions doe assaile him but hee vanquisheth them they give him combate but he leads them in triumph and buryes them altogether in the Tombe which hee prepares himselfe Consider a little the glory which is relucent in this action We read of the Kings of Arabia that they triumphed upon Dromedaries the Kings of Persia upon Elephants of Croatia upon Bulls the Romanes upon horses and yet 't is remarkt of Nero that hee made himselfe be drawne in Triumph by foure Hermaphrodite Mares Camillus by foure white Horses Marke Antony by foure Lions Aurelian by foure Hearts Caesar by forty Elephants Heliogabalus by foure Dogges Moreover the Poets doe assure us that the triumphant Charriot of Bacchus was drawne by Tygers Neptunes by Fishes of Thetis by Dolphins Diana's by Harts of Venus by Doves Iuno's by Peacocks All these objects of pompe and magnificence whereof histories This Vanitie is a most contagious maladie and the onely preservative is the remembrance of Death and Fables would eternize the vanity have for all that done nothing but passe away and though a little remembrance of ' them stay with us 't is but the
memoriall of a Chimera and of a fantosme since it preaches nothing else to us but the ruine and non-entity of that which hath beene other-while O how glorious a Triumph is it These things ruminated on will make us wise when wee our selves are encharioted over our passions now enslaved and subjected under the Empire of Reason There is nothing so glorious there is nothing so magnificent For these Dromedaries these Elephants these Bulls these Horses these Hermaphrodite Mares these Lyons Stags and Tygres afore-mentioned are but brute beasts which draw along in traine after them others as brutish as themselves as suffering themselves to be transported with vanitie which onely reduceth them to this beastly-semblant vanitie Let us turne our face to another side SABELLICUS in his ENNEADS actively perswades us to beleeve that the Christians of Aethiopia doe carry in their processions great vessels full of ashes Let the fire of Divine Love glow upon our ashes to emblematize apparently the frailty of our nature But may not wee say upon too much reason that wee are earthen vessels full of ashes and what object more sensibly can be presented before our eyes to shew us the truth of our miseries then this of our selves From Earth is our production and the same serves us with nourishment and for sepulture also as if ashamed the Sunne should afford his light to our wretchednesse Make we then every day Funerall processions or at least visit in meditation every houre our Tombeâ— as the place where our bodyes must make so long abode Celebrate we our selves our owne Funerals and invite to our exequies The thought of our end is a soveraigne remedie against our passions Ambition Avarice Pride Choller Luxurie Gluttony and all the other Passions wherewith we may be attainted to the end to be Conquerours even by our owne proper defeate For when a Man yeelds to the Meditation of Death then reason commands sense All obey to this apprehension of frailty and feeblenesse Pleasures by little and little abandon us the sweets of life seeme sowre and wee can find no other quiet but in the hope of that which Truth it selfe hath promised us after so much trouble Proud Spirits be ye Spectators of this Funerall Pompe which this great Monarch celebrates to day Hee invites the Heaven and the Earth to his Exequies since in their view hee accompanies his pourtrayed gkeleton unto the Tombe his Body conducts thither its shadow the originall the painted figure in attendance till a Metamorphosis be made both of one and t'other O glorious action where the Living takes a pride to appeare Dead as dying alreadie by his owne choice as well as necessitie O glorious action where the Triumpher takes a glory in the appearance of his overthrow O glorious action where all the honour depends upon the contempt of the worlds honour O glorious action where Garlands of Cypresse dispute the preheminence with Laurell and Palme O glorious action where the Conquerour under-going the Lawes of Nature elevates himselfe above it making his puissance to be admired in his voluntarie weakenesse But I engage my selfe too farre in 't Herodotus remarkes that the Queene Semiramis made her Sepulcher be erected upon the entrances of the principall Gate of the * Babylon Citie to the end that this sad object of wretchednesse might serve for Schoole-master to passengers to teach them the Art to know themselves O blessed Lesson is that no better Schoole then the Church-yard which the Tombes can affoord us O gracious Science is that which they instruct us Strabo testifies that the Persians made Pipes of dead-mens bones which they used at Festivals to the end that the sad harmonie which issued thence might temper the excesse of joy But may not we say our Lungs to be to us such kind of Whistles and that our dolorous sighs which produce thence the harmonie are capable to moderate the violence of our contentments A strange thing it is that all the animated objects which are affected by our senses beare the image of Death and yet wee never thinke but of Life Let our eyes but fairely turne their regards on all sides All that lives they may see dyes and what ha's no life passes away before ' em Our eares are tickled with the sweet harmonie of Voices or Instruments or Tabors or Trumpets But these sounds are but Organs spirited with blasts whose borrowed wind is lost when the motion ceaseth and there behold the Faile of their life And for Instruments 't is true they warble delightfully yet their melodie is often dolefull to the mind The object of our nothingnesse ha's a grace and allurement capable to ravish the best spirits when it considers that it proceedes from certaine guts of dead beasts which Art hath so contrived Tabors being of the same nature must also necessarily produce the same effects and Trumpets also doe but sobbe in our eares since their clangor is forced onely by the violence of a blast of sighs Our Taste cannot satiate the hunger of its appetite but with dead and breathlesse things and all our other senses are subject to the same necessitie Insomuch that Death environs us on all sides though we be alwayes her owne and yet wee never thinke on 't Death is ever present and at hand to our heart but still absent from our memorie but in extremities as if wee were onely to learne at the last instant that wee are Mortall and the hard experience which wee make on 't were the onely Lesson which by Nature is given us LORD render me capable if it please thee of this Science which may effectually teach me the Art to know my selfe to the end that this knowledge may represent to me alwayes the realitie of my wretchednesse Make me that I may see my selfe may understand and feele my selfe to dye every moment but so that I may see it with the eyes of my heart perceive it with the eyes of my soule and feele it by the sense of my conscience therein to finde my repose and safetie I know well that Nature mournes uncessantly the death of its workes which are devoured every houre by time and though no where thus can I see but Sadnesse it selfe yet ne'rethelesse remaine I insensible of the horrour of these objects and though they be terrible my spirit not affrighted Render me therefore if it please thee render me fearefull and make me even to tremble in thinking of it since the thought of it is so important and suffer me not to live a kind of Death without meditating of that life which is exempt from Death and whereof Eternitie is the Limit All my votes doe terminate at this and all my wishes which I addresse to thy bounty that I may one day see the effects of my hopes Let us advance on our first proposiâ—ion O how celebrious and glorious is the Triumph over our selves Let us leave the Laurels and Palmes to those famous
Conquerours of Sea and Land A Man hath no greater enemy then himselfe Their Crownes are now metamorphosed into dust their renowne into wind themselves into corruption and for a surplusage of mishap after the conquest of the whole World they dye in the miseries whereunto they were borne Cyrus could not bound his Ambition lesse then to the vast extention of the Universe and yet a * TOMYRIS simple woman onely prescrib'd him an allay and placed his head in the range of his owne Trophies Arthomides playes Iupiter upon Earth his portraict is the onely Idoll of his subjects and yet one turne of the wheele casts him a sacrifice upon the same altar which hee had erected to his Glory his life glistering with triumphs but his death in such a ruine clouded even the memory of his name All those stately Triumphers There is nothing more vaine then Vaine-glory 't is a body without soule or life having no subsistance but in Imagination of whom Antiquity trumpets-out wonders have had no other recompence of their labours but this vaine conceipt that one day men would talke of them But what felicity is it to be praised in this world to which they are dead and tormented in the other wherein they live even yet and ever I care very little that men should talke of me after my Death the esteeme of men is of so small importance that I would not buy it so deare as with a wish onely It behooves to search reputation in the puritie of the conscience if a man would have the glory of it last for ever The renowne of a good man is much greater then that of Caesar or Alexander for this has no other foundation then the soyle where it was sowed and where the goodlyest things display themselves like flowers and like flowers also have but a morning-flourish But the other having for a firme stay Eternitie this object ennobleth it to perfection The renowne of a good man onely lasts alwayes and thus desiring nothing else but heaven it remaines to us at the end for recompence Blondus in his Treatise of Rome in its triumphant glory reckons up three hundred and twenty triumphs all remarkable but where are now these pompes these magnificences this infinite number of Trophies and a thousand other ornaments which rattled out their glory Where are I say these Conquerours where are their slaves their Idolaters their admirers These pompes have but flash't like lightning 'T is some comfort yet to a wise man though himselfe fade away to see that all things else doe so too and so passed away with the day that accompanyed their lustre These magnificences have beene but seene and so tooke their passage in flight These trophies being onely bravadoes of the time times inconstancy made them vanish in an instant all those other ornaments made but ostentation of their continuall vicissitude as being an inseparable accident of their nature These vanquishers onely had the name on 't since Death led them away also in triumph for all their triumphings Their captives were rather slaves of the miseries whereunto they were borne then so by the absolute power of him who captived theÌ„ Their Idolaters have beene immolated to the fury of yeeres which spare none and their admirers have incurred the same fate with the subject which they admired Insomuch that of all together remaineâ— nothing but a faint remembrance which as it waxeth old is effac't by little and little out of memory and scarcely will it subsist so much in the imagination as to be in the end buryed among fables Since Eternitie onely triumphs over Time wee should onely strive to attaine that Behold here the Anatomie of the glory of the world see the true portraict of its false Image Contemplate meditate you will avouch with me that All is full of vanitie O how stately and magnificent is the Triumph of Ages what trophies may a man see at their ever-rowling Chariot what Conquerours are not in the number of their subjection what soveraigne power can resist their violence what newer can Triumph then this of yeares Who can give in account the number of their victories and â—esse the captives which Death serves â—n for their trophies What newer triumph againe evermore then of moâ—eths of dayes of houres and moâ—ents For consider to your selfe how many Kings Princes and Lords die â—n one age in all the places of the world All these vanquishers are vanquisht â—nd led in triumph to the grave Every Yeare makes its conquest a part gives â—attell and carryes away the victory over so many A righteous man onely stands exempt from the terror of death and so many men that hardly can one conceive so lamentable a truth Months Dayes Houres and Moments triumph in their courses who can number all those who dyed yesterday out-right or are dead to day Nay more how many dye at this houre and at this very instant that I entertaine you with this discourse And all these defeats of mortalitie mark out to us the Triumphs whereof time onely beares away the glory But let us not pretend to share in 't 't is not worthy our Ambition Let Ages Yeeres Moneths Dayes Houres and Moments triumph over us A good conscience is ever under shelter from all the inconstant tempests of ages Vertue alwayes limits their puissance and with it wee may prescribe a bound to all these Triumphants Faire leave may they take to ruinate out-ward beauty but that of innocence is of proofe ' gainst all their strokes Well may they impaire outward graces but those of heaven contemne their assaults No doubt they may change the visage of all the marvels of Art and miracles of Nature Our Resolution is a rocke in midst of all their stormes and may remaine alwayes it selfe without undergoing other rules then its owne So that thus wee may lead Time it selfe along in triumph if wee live for nothing more then for Eternitie He which lives for eternitie dreads no death I scorne the Tyranny of Ages my ayme is beyond 'em all I despise the power of yeeres my Ambition raignes already out of their reach Let Months Dayes Houres and Moments entraile all things along with 'em I for my part franchise their carreere since my scope is much more farther yet Let them triumph fully my very defeat shall lead them in triumph at the end of their terme for the eternity whither I aspire already assignes out their tombe Let us stay no longer in so cragged a way The Emperour Trajan caused his Sepulcher to be enfram'd in the midst of Rome's greatest place as upon a stateâ—y Theater on which his successors were to act their parts Every man dies â—or himselfe Seriùs aut citiùs metam properamus ad unam sooner or later wee must â—rrive to the place to which uncessantly â—ee walke Be it to morrow or today â—t the end of the terme all 's equall Nor old nor yong can
hand and by which himselfe weigheth his actions to the poize of his will and consequently to the measure of his Justice What objection can be made against this truth The envious man is never in health tortured with the Hectick Peaver of this ever-burning passion Envious Maligner adore that which thou can'st not comprehend and then instead of pining for the goods which thou enjoyest not give thankes to heaven for those which thou possessest and how small someover they be they are ever great enough to amuze thee all thy life-long to the study of thankefull acknowledgment The Passion of Detraction is easily overcome by a fresh consideration of our owne proper defects for of all the Vices whereof wee accuse one another our hearts may convince us If I call a man theefe am not I a greater theefe then hee since against the Lawes of charity I rob him of his honour by this injury Suppose he be a false villaine yet in calling him by this name I betray the secret which his fault should â—n charity impose upon me But if he be nothing so loe I my selfe am now a Traytor both at once of his reputation 'T is more important to learne to hold one's peace then to hold up the talke and mine owne conscience There is no fault more unpardonable then this of Obloquie and in regard that for a just expiation of the crime it is fitting that the tongue which did the hurt should give the remedy Thou Detractour if thou canst not moderate thy passion speake ill onely of thy selfe Study thine owne vices Meditate thine owne faults and Accuse thy selfe of them before heaven which is already witnesse of thy crimes and by this way of reproaching thou shalt obtaine one day to be praised eternally Behold mee now at the end of the Chapter He which often muzes of Death will every day learne to live well After all these particular remedies with which a man may learne easily to resist the tyranny of the Passions there is none more soveraigne then this of the Meditation of Death All the rest abbut at this onely as the most authorized by daily experience Great Kings suffer your selves to be led in triumph by your owne thoughts to the grave and by the way consider how your greatnesses your riches your delights and all the magnificence of your Court follow you step by step being brought along by the same fate whose absolute Tyranny spares none And since you may dye every houre think at the least sometimes of this truth to the end that that houre of your lifes dyall surprize you not Much good doe 't you to nourish up your selves deliciously yet all these Viands wherewith you repast your selves are empoysoned as containing in 'em the * Caliditas Frigiditas Humiditas Siccitas foure contrary qualities whose discord puts into skirmish your humours and this battell is an infallible presage of your overthrow wel may you chase away Melancholy by vertue of fresh pleasures these very contentments cheat away your life for though you thinke of nothing but how to passe away the time it passes ere you think on 't Death comes before you have forseen his arrivall Well may you cocker up your bodyes content your senses and satiate the appetite of your desires the Taper of your life has its limited course Pleasures make us grow old as well as griefes as well as that of the day Every man pursues his carreere according to the inviolable Lawes of heaven which hath asigned 'em out at once both the way and the bounds Suffer Time to lead you by the hand to the Tombe Fata volentem ducunt nolentem trahunt for feare he hale you thither But in dying muze at least of that Life which never shall have end All the felicities which you have possest are vanished with the flower of your age and all those which you will yet enjoy will flye away with the rest What will remaine with you then at the last instant of your life Those pleasures cost very deare which are worth nothing but repentance but an irksome remembrance to have tasted a thousand pleasures which are past and to have lost so many meanes of having had others which would have lasted eternally Disinvest your selves then for one houre every day of all your greatnesse and in the presence of your owne selves meaning in review of all your miseries mishaps which are proper to you confesse the truth of your nullitie and of your corruption by this search you shall recover your selves and by this confession thus shall you Triumph o're your selves A PROLVSION upon the EMBLEME of the last Chapter VIewing the Ranges of a Librarie Of Dead-men's bones pil'd in a Coemitarie Great ALEXANDER findes Diogenes And thus they Dialogue Alex. Cynick among these Ruines of fraile Mortalitie what do'st looke Diog. For that wherein I feare to be mistooke I seeke thy Father PHILIP'S Scull among This pell-mell undistinguishable Throng Alex. Let 's see which is it shew me Diog. Sure 't is that Whose nose is bridge-falne Alex. Dead-men's all are flat Diog. Why then 't is that where shrowds perpetuall night Cav'd in those hollow eye-holes void of sight Alex. Still all are so Diog. Why 't is yon' skinlesse brow Chap-falne lip-sunke with teeth-disranked row Yond' peeled scalpe Alex. Thus still all are alike Diog. So shall both You and I. and let this strike Thy knowledge ALEXANDER and Thy sence 'Twixt King and slave once Dead s' no difference L'envoy Mors seeptra ligonibus aequat Hor. THere is no diff'rence Death hath made Equall ' the Scepter and the Spade Noe Dreader Majestie is now I' th' Royall Scalp then Rustick brow Faire NEREVS has no beauteous grace More then Thersites ' ugly face Now both are dead odds there is none Betwixt the fair'st and fowlest One. Tell me among'st the hudled pile Of Dead-mens bones which was ere while The subtil'st Lawyer 's or the Dull And Ignoramian Empty Skull Was yond' some valourous Samsons arme Or one that ne're drew sword for harme Or winke and tell me which is which Irus the poore or Croesus rich What are they now who so much stood On Riches Honours and high Blood Ther 's now no Difference with the Dead Distinctions all are buryed Onely the Soule as Ill or Well Is Diffrenc't or in Heaven or Hell Alexander and Diogenes discoursing among the Sepulchers of the Dead the Cynick tells the King That in the Graue Monarchs and Meaner Men are all alike THE MIRROVR WHICH FLATTERS NOT. CHAP. IV. WHat a horrid spectacle is this what a frightfull object See you not this great number of Dead Mens sculls which heap'd one upon another make a mountaine of horrour and affright whose balefull and contagious umbrage insensibly invites our bodies on to the grave What a victorie is this over these but what an inhumanitie what a defeate but what a butchery May wee not say that
fury and rage have assassinated even Natures-selfe and that we now alone remaine in the world to celebrate its funerals by our lamentations and regreets Fathers Mothers Death is a severe Iudge and pardons none Children Nobles and Plebeians Kings and their subjects are all pell-mell in this stacke of rotten wood which Time like a covert but burning fire consumes by little and little not able to suffer that ashes should be exalted above dust Proud Spirits behold here the dreadfull reverse of the medall All these sad objects of mortality and yet actively animated with horror affright by their own silence enjoyne the same to you thus to amuze your Spirits in the contemplation of their deplorable ruines If you be rich See here those who have possessed the greatest treasures of the world are not now worth the marrow of their owne bones whereof the wormes have already shared the spoyle If you be happy The greatest favorites of fortune are reduced to the same noysomnesse as you see the filth that enrounds them If you be valiant Hector and Achilles are thus here overcome behold the shamefull markes of their overthrow If you be men of Science Death may be contemned but not avoided Here lyes the most learned of the world 'T is the Epitaph on their tombe Reade it I grant more-over you may be the greatest Princes of the earth An infinite number of your companions are buried under these corrupted ruines Suppose in fine that your Soveraignety did extend it selfe over all the Empire of the world A thousand and a thousand too of your semblables have now nothing more their owne then that corruption which devoures even to the very bones Ambitious Heart see here a Mirrour which flatters not since it represents to the life the reality of thy miseries Well maist thou perhaps pretend the conquest of the Universe even those who have borne away that universall Crowne are now crowned but with dust and ashes 'T is no wonder the Miser ne're thinks of Death his thoughts are onely taken up for this Life Covetous wretch behold the booke of thy accounts calculate all that is due to thee after payment of thy debts learne yet after all this that thy soule is already morgaged to devils thy body to wormes and thus notwithstanding all thy treasures there will not abide with thee one haire upon thy head one tooth in thy chops nor one drop of blood in thy veynes nor ne're so little marrow in thy bones nay the very memory of thy being would be extinguish't if thy crimes did not render it eternall both here and in the torments of hell Pride is but like the noone-flourish of a flower which at Sun-set perisheth Proud arrogant man measure with thy bristled browes the dilatation of the earth Brave with thy menacing regards the heavens and the flarres These mole-hills of rottennesse whereof thy carkasse is shap't prepare toward the tombe of thy vanity Seneca Epist These are the shades of Death inseparable from thy body Quotidie morimur quotidie enim demitur aliqua pars vitae since it dyes every houre If thou elevate thy selfe to day even to the clouds to morrow thou shalt be debased to nothing But if thou doubt of this truth behold here a thousand witnesses which have made experience of it Luxurious Wanton give thy body a prey to voluptuousnesse deny nothing to thy pleasures but yet consider the horrour and dreadfulnesse of that Metamorphosis when thy flesh shall be turned to filth and even that to wormes and those still to fresh ones which shall devoure even thy coffin and so efface the very hast markes of thy Sepulture How remarkable is the answere of Diogenes to Alexander What art thou musing on Cynicke says this Monarch to him one day having found him in a Charnell-yard I amuze my selfe here answers he in search of thy father Philips bones among this great number which thou see'st but my labour is in vaine for one differs not from another Great Kings the discusse of this answer may serve you now as a fresh instruction to insinuate to you the knowledge of your selves You walke in triumph to the Tombe followed with all the traine of your ordinary magnificences but being arrived at this Port blowne thither with the continuall gale of your sighs your pompe vanisheth away your Royall Majestie abandons you your greatnesse gives you the last Adieu and this your mortall fall equals you now to all that were below you The dunghill of your body hath no preheminence above others unlesse it be in a worse degree of rottennesse Corruptio optimi pessima as being of a matter more disposed to corruption But if you doubt of this truth behold and contemplate the deplorable estate to which are reduced your semblables Their bald scalps have now no other Crowne then the circle of horrour which environes them their disincarnated hands hold now no other Scepter but a pile of worms and all these wretchednesses together give them to see a strange change from what they were in all the gloryes of their Court These palpable and sensible objects are witnesses not to be excepted against The serious meditation of his miserable condition is capable to make any man wise Let then your soules submit to the experiment of your senses But what a Prodigie of wonder 's here doe I not see the great Army of Xerxes reduced and metamorphosed into a handfull of dust All that world of men in those dayes which with its umbragious body covered a great part of the earth shades not so much as a foot on 't with its presence Be never weary of thinking of these important truths In Hercule Octaeo Seneca in the Tragedie of Herculeâ— brings in Alcmena with grievous lamentation bearing in an urne the ashes of that great Monster-Tamer Ecce vix totam Hercules Complevit urnam quà m leve est pondus mihi Câ—i totus aether pondus incubuit leve And to this effect makes her speake Behold how easily I carry him in my hand who bore the Heavens upon his shoulders The sense of these wordes ought to engage our spirits to a deepe meditation upon the vanity of things which seeme to us most durable All those great Monarchs who sought an immortalitie in their victories and triumphs have miss't that and found Death at last the enjoyment of their Crownes and splendours being buried in the same Tombe with their bodyes See here then a new subject of astonishment The Mathematicians give this Axiome All lines drawne from the Center to the Circumference are equall Kings Princes abate your haughtines The world is a Game at Chesse where every of the Sett ha's his particular Name and Place designed but the Game done all the Pieces are pellmell'd into the Bagge and even so are all motrals into the grave your subjects march fellow-like with you to the Center of the grave If life gave you preheminence
Death gives them now equality There is now no place of affectation or range to be disputed the heap of your ashes and their dust make together but one hillocke of mould whose infection is a horrour to me I am now of humour not to flatter you a whit We read of the Ethiopians that they buryed their Kings in a kind of Lestall and I conceive there of no other reason then according to the nature of the subject they joyned by this action the shadow and the substance the effect with the cause the streame with its source for what other thing are we then a masse of mire dryed and bak'd by the fire of life but scattered againe and dissolv'd by the Winter of Death and in that last putrefaction to which Death reduceth us the filth of our bodyes falls to the durt of the earth as to its center for so being conceived in corruption let us not thinke strange to be buryed in rottennesse 'T is well men hide themselves after death in the Earth or the enclosure of Tombes their filth and noysomnesse would else be too discovert Earth dust and ashes remaine still the same be it in a vessell of gold or in a coffin of wood or in a Mausolean Tombe of marble Great Kings well may you cover your wretchednesse with a magnificent Sepulcher they will for all this not alter condition the noysomnesse of your bones is never without the abhorrement and putrefaction proper to them And if suppose their masse be reduced into dust and the wind carry it away the very wings of the wind are laden with rottennesse and can scatter nothing else in a thousand places where ere they fall I will a little straggle out the way without loosing my ayme Fabius Paulus reports that upon the Tombe of Isocrates there was a Syren seared upon a Ram and holding a Harp in her hand And this gave to understand That this famous Orator charmed mens soules through their eares by the sound of his admirable eloquence But whereas no melodious ayre was heard from the mute Harp of this Syren it was required of the Spectators to take for granted in imagination the harmony of her sweet touches How unsufferable is the vanity of men who even is on their Tombes will have the display of their vaine glory as embleme of the sweetnesse of this great Orators voyce But Death imposeth silence on both and thus remained they a sad sight both in object and mysteries contained under since now of these passages remaines no more but a weake remembrance and whereof Time by little and little effaceth even the Ideas Iohannes Baptista Fontanus relates that upon the Sepulcher of Q. Martius there was ' graven a Ramme supported upon the two fore-feet and a Hare dead by its side The Ramme represented the generosity of this great Captaine in all combats and the dead Hare his vanquisht enemies But what honour now remaines him after their defeat This van quisher of an infinite number of miserable wretches is at the last overcome with his owne miseries Though Triumphant in a thousand combats one marble stone now containes all his trophies and glory O deplorable fate to have but seven foot-earth after conquest of the greatest part of the earth Plutarch assures us that upon the Tombe of Alexander there was represented in Embleme Asia and Europe appearing vanquisht and in the chaines of their captivity with this mot which served as a fresh Trophy The victorie of Alexander O poore victorie O sorry triumph for where are now its Laurels and Palms This great Monarch conquered the whole world but being never able to conquer his ambition This in the end hath taken away all the glory which it made him acquire Great Princes advance then on to the conquest of the Vniverse but I advertise you one thing The misprise of the world is more glorious then all its honours All those that are returned from the same action have much repented themselves to have taken so great paynes for so small a matter * Le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle The Game 's not worth the Candle as the Proverb But if you love to Conquer and triumph your passions will furnish you with such subject every houre Let 's once see the end of our carriere We read of Cyrus that he caus'd to be engraven these words upon the stone of his Monument HERE LYES THE CONQVEROVR OF THE PERSIANS But what excesse of mishap could have reduced so great a Monarch to such an excesse of wretchednesse must it be said Here lyes of one that lately stood so triumphant Would hee have men admire his past glory in view of that vault where he was enterred would he have men adore the magnificences of his Life upon the same Altar where Death exhibits him as a victime Is not this a vanity more worthy of compassion then envy The History of the life of Themistocles was to be read upon the marble of his Sepulcher but 't was forgotten there to depaint also the story of his Death 'T is but a poore satisfaction to have for recompence of so much paines but the ostentation of a glorious Sepulcher Behold the high deeds of Themistocles this was the inscription But to us it may be of importance to consider that although the wonders which he had done were onely graven upon the port of his Monument yet for all that they also made their entrie into it and followed the fate of their author so that now rests nothing of Themistocles but Name for of all that hee hath done the wind hath carryed away the glory and the small remembrance on 't which sticks by us is but a portraict of vanitie There was represented upon the Tombe of Ioshua the Sunne with this inscription Iosh 10.12 Sunne stand thou still upon Gibeon True it is the Sunne stood still in the mid'st of his carreere to give full Triumph to this great Captaine over his enemies But after they were overthrowne this Planet jealous of his glory conducts him also to his grave as not enduring to see any thing upon earth as durable as it selfe So true it is that all things here flit away There is no course swifter then that of Life to Death with the swiftnesse of a Torrent though their flight to us seeme much more slow The Epitaph which some * Sit fides penes Authorem writings report us of Adam has not so much splendour and magnificence as the others Hee is Dead sayes his Epitaph speaking onely of him O excellent Epitaph Men shall say no more of you one day Great Kings Well may you with Q. Martius come off victorious from all combats and enter in triumph into Cities with Alexander Well may you cause to be insculp't the History of your Acts upon the marble of your Sepulchers like as Themistocles and may you Sub-poena the Sun for a witnesse of the reality of your triumphs like
changing are reduceable your allurements and charmes The greatest Princesse of the world and one of the fairest as hath beene being now fall'n from her Imperiall Throne into the grave not one of her attendants can retaine any knowledge of her in so short a space The wormes having effaced the lineaments of her resemblance have inveloped it so deep into corruption that no where is it to be found else being but Rottennesse Reader render up thy selfe to the hits of a Truth so sensible 'T is reported of Semiramis that she caused to be put upon her Tombe this Inscription The King that shall have need of money shall find within this Sepulcher as much as he would have on 't And some time after King Darius transported with a violent passion of Avarice caused this Sepulcher to be opened but found within no other riches then of so much gold as was necessarily employed in the engraving of these words Covetous wretch 'T is an insolence to the priviledges of Nature to trouble the repose of the Dead which comest to disturbe the repose of the dead satiate thy greedy passion upon the treasure of my miseries since this object is powerfull enough to make thee undervalue all the riches of the â—orld You that are Covetous Enter ofâ—en at least in Meditation into Tombes visit to such effect the Church-yards â—nd you shall find therein more riches â—hen you wish for considering the horrour of that rotten earth wherein â—our semblables are enterred you will reason without doubt thus To what purpose at last will stead â—e all the treasures which I amasse â—p in my coffers if the very richest of â—he world be but earth and ashes beâ—ore my eyes What shall I doe at â—he houre of my death with all the â—oods which I now possesse if even â—â—y body be a prey destinated to worms â—â—d rottennesse LORD I ayme at nothing of this world â—ut that glory alone which a man may acquire by the contempt of it but as is a glory whereof the acquisition depends of thy grace more then my force All our hopes depend from grace nothing from our selves give mee the Courage if it please thee to surmount all the temptations which shall oppose themselves against my designe of Victorie to the end that my vowes may be heard and my paines recompensed I returne to my selfe When I consider that all the world together is but as it were a Caemitarie or Churchyard wherein every houre of the day some wretchednesse or other brings to the grave those whom such their miserable condition hath destroyed I have no more passionate desire of life since evils and troubles are proprietaries of it He which meditates of anothers mans death puts himselfe in mind of his owne since we are all slaves to the same fate rather then we Who can keepe account of the number of persons that expire at this very moment that I am now speaking to you Or the different deaths which terminate the course of their carreere All is universally dreadfull and yet wee quake not either in horrour or astonishment A Walke into Church-yards and Charnels though it be sad and melancholy by reason of the dolefull object there obvious In many of the Church-yards of France are thousands of dead mens skulls and bones piled up as at S. Innocents at Paris Saint Croix at Orleans c. hath yet ne'rethetlesse something in it agreeable to content good soules in the contemplation of those very objects which they there find How often have I ta'en pleasure to consider a great number of Dead-mens sculls arranged one in pile upon another with this conceit of the vanitie and arrogance wherewith otherwile they have beene filled Some have had no other care but of their Haire employing the greatest part of their time Meditation upon the vanities of life is a piece of serious felicitie before death either to frizle or to empouder them and represent unto your selves by the way what recompence now betides them for all their paines Others all full of ambition had no other aymes but at Coronall wreaths consider a little in this their miserie the injustice of their pretentions I ha' remark't in sequell how a little worme did gnaw the arme of some late Samson reducing thus all his force to an object of compassion and wretchednesse since that arme heretofore so strong and dreadfull had not now force enough to resist a little worme Reader muze often of these truths and thou shalt finde therein more joy then sadnesse Typotius reports of Iohn Duke of Cleveland that to testifie the frailty of our nature and the miseries of our condition hee had ta'en the Embleme of a Lilly with this device Hodie Lilium Cras Nihilum Hodie hoc cras nihil It flourishes to day to morrow 't is nothing Great Kings your life is like this Lily it appeares like this flower at Sunne-rise with glittering and pompe Even those things which seeme most durable have in effect but a morning prime like flowers but at noone its vivacitie and luster begin to fade and at the end of the day it vanisheth away with it and scarce its being is remembred We read in Appianus of Pompey that after he had triumphed over three parts of the world he carryed nothing away with him to the grave but these words Hic situs est magnus Pompeius Pompey is here buryed with all his pompe O World how poore art thou since thou hast but such a thing of nought to give O Fortune how miserable art thou when thy favorites are exposed to publike view as objects of compassion Let him trust in 'em who will a man shall never be able to escape their tromperies but by despiting their favours Here lyes Hannibal Behold all the honour which posteritie rendred to the memory of so great a Captaine And Time Time is as inexorable as Death and neither of them spare any even jealous of the glory of his name though not able to bury it in the Abysses of Oblivion hath yet devoured the very marble of his Sepulcher Are not these things truths worthy to raise astonishment 'T is remark't in Suetonius of one of the Romane Emperours that being now at last gaspe and as it were at a bay with Death he cryed out in excesse of astonishment Fui omnia sed nihil expedit I have beene all in all but now it nothing helpeth me I have tasted all the pleasures of all the greatnesse of the world but the sweetes are changed into soures and onely their bitter disgust stayes with me Experiment all the delights of the Earth Great Kings the distast will ever at last only remaine to your mouths sorrowes to your hearts and if these doe no good on you a thousand eternall punishments will possesse your soules Represent to your selves that all the felicities of Life are of the same nature as that is That decaies every moment and they slit away
without cease The contentments which men receive here below Contentments causein their privation as extreme discontents are like the pleasures of the Chace which are onely rellish't running I draw to an end Belon in his Monuments of the Kings of Egypt sayes that they were enterred with such a splendour of pompe and magnificence that even those who had diverse times before beene admirers of it were for all that often in doubt whether the people went to place the corps in the Throne againe rather then in their Sepulcher O how ill to the eyes is the luster of this sad kind of honour For if vanitie be insupportable barely of it selfe these excesses of it put the spirits upon the racke Diodorus Siculus speaking of the Tombe which Alexander caused to be erected for his favorite Ephestion assures that the magnificences which were there to be admired were beyond as well all valew as example Marble Brasse Gold and Pearles were profusely offered to most cunning Artisans to frame thereof such workes wherein sadnesse and compassion might be so naturally represented that they might affect the whole world with the like Diamonds Rubies and all other precious stones were there employed under the Image of a Sunne Moone and Stars It seemes this Monarch blinded with Love thought to hold the Planets captive in the glorious enchainments of those faire Master-pieces A Man should never be angry with his 〈◊〉 fates the dâ—â—â—â—â— on 't are â—â—â—â—â—lable as if hee would revenge himselfe of them for their maligne influences which they had powred upon the head of his deare Ephestion But this conceite was vaine for the same starres whose captivity hee ostented upon this Tombe conducted him also by little and little to his grave The Romanes transported with passion to honour the memory of the Dictator Sylla caused his statue to be framed of a prodigious height all composed of perfumes and cast it into the funerall pile where his body whereof of this was also but a shadow was to be burn't to ashes Being desirous by this action to give to understand that as the odour of his statue disperst it selfe through all the City of Rome the much more odoriferous savour of his peculiar vertues would spred it selfe through all the world But to goe to the rigour of the literall sense it is credible they had not cast in this aromaticall statue into the stacke but only to temper the excesse of the stench of the body which was to be consumed with it And I proceed to imagine beside that the odour of this statue the cinders of his body and all the glory of the actions of Sylla had all the same fate since the winde triumph't o're 'em altogether Behold the reverse of the Medall of Vanitie 'T is remark't in the life of the Emperour Severus by the report of DION that hee made to be set at the gate of his Palace an Vrne of marble and as oft as he went in or out hee was accustomed to say laying his hand on it Behold the Case that shall enclose him whom all the world could not containe Great Kings have often the same thoughts in your soules if you have not the like discourses in your mouths the smallest vessell of earth is too great for the ashes of your bodyes which shall remaine of them after the wormes have well fed on them for the wretchednesse of your humane condition reduceth you at last to so small a thing that you are nothing at all But if I must give a name to those graines of corrupted dust which are made of your deplorable remaines I shall call them the Idea's of a dreame Man onely is considerable in respect of his noble actions since the memory of your being can passe for no other together with the time Behold a fresh subject of entertaine Some of our Ethnicke Historians report to us that the Troglodites buryed their kindred and friends with the tone of joyfull cries and acclamations of mirth The Lothophagi cast them into the Sea choosing rather to have them eaten of fishes in the water then of wormes in the earth The Scythians did eate the bodyes of their friends in signe of amitie insomuch that the living were the Sepulchers of the dead The Hircanians cast the bodies of their kindred to the Dogges The Massagetes exposed them as a prey to all manner of ravenous beasts The Lydians dryed them in the Sun and after reduced them to powder to the end the wind might carry them away Amongst all the customes which were practised amongst these strange Nations I find none more commendable then the first of the Troglodites looking for no hell they had good reason to celebrate the funerall of their friends and kindred with laughter and acclamations of cheerefulnes rather then with teares and lamentations For though that Life be granted us by divine favour There is moâ—e of temâ—â—ent in die thâ—â— to live if we â—â—nsider the end which man was created yet we enjoy it but as a punishment since it is no other thing then a continuall correction of our continuall offences Besides the sad accidents which accompany it inseparably even to the grave are so numerous that aâ— man may justly be very glad at the end of his journey to see himselfe discharged of so ponderous a burthen The body of Man being made of earth is subject to earth but the soule holds onely of its soveraine Creator Not that I here condemne the teares which we are accustomed to shed at the death of our neerest friends for these are ressentments of griefe whereof Nature authorizeth the first violences But neither doe I blame the vertue of those spirits who never discover alteration upon any rencounter of the mishaps and miseries of the world The living are more to be bemoned then the dead they being still i th' midd'st â—f this lifes tempest but these are aâ—â—eady arrived to their Port. how extreme soever they be And what disaster is it to see dye either our kindred or friends since all the world together and Nature it selfe can doe nothing else What reason then can a man have to call himselfe miserable for being destinated to celebrate the funerals of those whom he loves best since the divine Providence hath soveraignely established this order and since moreover in this carreere of Death to which all the world speeds the Present on 't being not distinguish't but by Time it will appeare when all is come to the upshot that one hath lived as long as another since all ages though different during their continuance are equall then when they are past Change wee the discourse I advow once againe There is no remedie more soveraigne to cure the passion of arrogance then this the of consideration of Caemitaries and Tombes The most vaine-glorious and ambitious are forced to yeeld themselves at the assaults of these sad objects For a spirit ne're so brave and valourous cannot but be astonish't when
Without distinctive Heraldry Unlesse it be thar some brave Tombe Doe grace the Great-ones in Earths wombe But better 't is that Heaven's dore Is oft'nest open to the poore When those whose backs and sides with sinne Are bunch't and swolne cannot get in Beware the Bulke of thy Estate Shocke thee from entrance at that Gate Give Earth to Earth but give thy Minde To Heaven where it's seates assign'd If as it came from that bright Spheare Thither thou tend not fix it here Live that thy SOVLE may White return Leaving it's Partner in the VRNE Till a BLEST DAY shall reunite And beame them with Eternall Light Ainsi Souhaite Vostre tres humble Serviteur Tho. Cary. TOWER-HILL Antepenultimâ Augusti 1638. To my endeared Friend the Translatour Mr THOMAS CARY 1. 'T Is Morall Magicke and Wits Chymistrie Out of Deaths Uglinesse T'extract so trim a Dresse And to a Constellated Crystall tie Such an imperious spell As who lookes on it well By sprightie Apparitions to the Eye Shall see he must and yet not feare to dye 2. No brittle toy but a tough monument Above steele marble Brasse Of Malleable Glasse Which also wil while Wisedome is not spent Out-price th' adored wedge And blunt Times Sickle's edge Usher'd with gracious safety in its vent For to disfeaver Spirits fairely lent 3. FRIEND here remoulded by Thy English hand To speake it is no feare In hew as slicke and cleare Nay when Thy owne Minerva now doth stand On a Composing state 'T was curt'sie to Translate But most thy choise doth my applause command First for thy Selfe then for this crazie Land H. I. LECTURO COnspice quod vani nudat tectoria Fastûs Et penetrabundi concipe vera Libri O falsis animose bonis Sirenaque rerum Dedoctus vitreas exue delicias Interpres Genium quo vivax Author habebit Nec tantùm Patrii claustra decora soni Tam bene Cinnameâ pingit feralia cannâ Phoenicis miro quae qua si rapta rogo E gemitu solatiolum è paedore venustas Eque cadavereo vita reculta situ Alter in arcanis sapiat subtile docendis Sublimique suus stet ratione liber Alter amet flores bibuli mulcedo popelli Surdescens tandem plausibus ipse suis Praesentem Libitina librum sibi vendicat illa Corripiens artem Rhetoris illa Sophi H. I. ΤΩ ΕÎΤΕΥΞΑΜΕÎΩ ΙΑΜΒΙΚΑ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ΟΛΟΠΚΕÎΟ'Π〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 HEN. IACOB Advertissement au Lecteur Generous READER 'T Was upon occasion of the last Summer's sad effects generally over all England and some ressentments of mine owne when the Reading and Copying English this Authour's French Originall seasonably engaged my thoughts and Pen. I thinke al 's not forgotten yet But in a longer intervall and indeed alwayes there ought still to bee a deepe apprehension of our Mortality This our AUTHOR inculcates to us in Notions quicke and pertinent though in some historicall allusions he may a little o're-trust his Memory Valebis THO. CARY Laudatus abundè Non fastiditus Jmprimatur Lingua Vernacula SA BAKER
cease Mishaps and paines are the fruits of the garden of our life the poorenesse of our way of birth may stead us as a rudiment in the first Classe the cryes and teares of the cradle are our Grammar the creeping weakenesse and pittifull infirmities of Boy-age like soe much Rhetoricke and now can there be a more subtile Philosophy then that of â—he consideration of the calamities which are destined to youth Is it not â—asie to become a great Naturallist by vertue of meditating the fruitfulnesse of our nature in the production both of ils and paines which continually afflict us and what better Metaphysicks He which goes out Doctor in the knowledge of himselfe is ignorant of nothing then contemplations of our Beeing ever rowling to â—ts ruine Let us draw then the conclusion of this Argument and joyne with as much reason as interest to these two Voâ—umes so renowned the Bible and the â—ace of Heaven where al sorts of Scienâ—es are in their source Death and immortality are only separated buâ— with the length of an instant This also of our â—ortall and decaying nature since it intructs us the Art to pry our selves in our Corruptions that wee may recover our â—elves in immortality When I consider that the Earth was â—eated of nothing Man of nothing and Man made of this nothing and the greatnesses which environs him are nothing at all and all the pleasures which hee idolatrizeth are also of the same stuffe The world subsists not but upon the foundation of its continual revolution I remainâ— all confused with astonishment nor eâ—ver able to conceive the subject of his vanity nor the reason of his arrogance poore corrupted Vapour with advancing it selfe A vapour Man elevating himselfe too high measures the depth of the Abysses of his Precipice is soon transformed into a Cloud to conceale its noysomnesse but yet by way of this elevation iâ— resolved into Lightnings and Thunder and afterward retumbles into the ditcheâ— from whence first it had its beginning A Puffe of wind which tumbles in its ownâ— violence A B last angry perhaps that it cannot subsist but in flying and that the action of its continuall flight is the beginning of its ruine Smoake A smoake which with 〈◊〉 vaine assault will needes scale the Heavens and yet hardly can one well distinguish the intervall betweene its firsâ— beeing and extinction Worme Wee are all already but rottennesse fince already wormes begin to devour us A streamâ— a poore glistering Worme which dazles none but purblinâ— spirits and gives light to those wormes which devoure it in private a streame alwayes murmuring alwayes trilling away And now why shall all these goodly nuâ—litie and all these pleasant Chimeraes insinuate to us the vanity which they are of shall these cozening appearances bestablish'd here below with Soveraignty bee it then onely in desire or in dreame Every thing corrupts the very eye which now reads these truths shall not be exempt for with what gilded rine so ere they bee out-sided Corruption is their Forme and Dust their Matter I am astonished that Man should be capable to mistake himselfe even to the point of forgetting what hee was then when hee yet was not what he is now whilst he enjoyes the beauty of the day and what hee must one day bee at the Sun-set of his life Assuredly yes I am astonisht at it Nature exhibites us so many Mirrours of Jnconstancy as she hath produced objects since all created things may serve him for a Mirrour to contemplate therein apparantly the verity of his miseries The Heavens though whirling about with a Motion alwayes equall in the same spaces of their carreere Since that Nature it selfe is mortall this second cause ceasing the ruine of these effects is infallible doe not cease to wax old even their age represents to us naturally our decay Though the Starres shine with a sparkeling Iuster as cleare as at the first Day of their creation yet as they are attached within those circles of Ages whose continual motion is limited they approach by little and little to their last West where their light must be extinct and the pace of their course shewes us the way of our life since time conducts us all together though diversly to our end The Fire so greedy that it devours it selfe when finding no more fuell to nourish it is it not a Mirrour of the Lampe of our life whose kindled weeke goes out when the Oyle of the Radicall moysture failes it The Aire which corrupts continually is it not an Image of our corruption and without doubt the Waters transparent body represents us the fragility of ours and its liquid crystalline alwayes rolling away makes us see in its gliding Every thing flees away from us and in running after them wee runne to Death our flitting nature The earth could not have figured us better then shee doth since wee are to day of the same matter and to morrow of the like forme What fairer Mirrour then that of Flowers where we may see in one day the whole course of our life for at Sun-rise the buds resemble our Infancy at noone the same now full blowne our youth The world is a Nose-gay of flowers which by little and little wither all together and at Dayes-end themselves now quite withered our last age I will not speake of all the other Species of creatures animate how every one in its selfe though living is an Image of death It sufficeth me to cherish this remembrance and leave to you thereof the meditation What shall I tell yee of Fortune of honours riches Fortune hath nothing more her owne then her Inconstancy and all these glorious qualities of valour Beauty and a thousand other besides which vanish away with us This blind Goddesse hath a Mirrour under her feet whose round figure shewes us at once both her instability and our inconstancy as for greatnesse and riches the ashes of those which have possest them are as so many fresh Crystalls of a Mirrour which flatters not wherein we may see the vanity both of their enjoyment and of their possessors Those other qualities of faire and valiant are of the same nature as those sensitive and vegetable soules There is nothing immortall in maâ— but vertue which dye together with the subject which they animate without leaving ordinarily so much as one smal memoriall for marke that they have had a beeing otherwise and in sequell to these truths can you find a truer Mirrour Man is the Mirrour of Man so that by due contemplation of one part he may save the whole then this of our selves since every part nay what say I every action and every sigh is an animate pourtrait of Death Insomuch that wee draw the breath of so many continuate Gaspes without ability of dispose of one onely instant to give internall to this exercise How is it then possible that
Man should mis-know himselfe having such faithful Mirrours before his eyes where at all times hee may see apparantly the Truth of his Nature kneaded in Corruption formed by it and destroyed also by the same Strange thing he can see nothing in the World All the obiects of the world bid us Adten while we but regard 'em since they are alwayes fleeing away but Images of inconstancy and yet will not apprehend his owne change whatsoever shall smite upon his eare will resound nothing but the bruit of his flight and yet he will not thinke upon his retreat Lastly his other Sences and his fancy shall have no other object but this of the continuall vicissitude of all things and yet hee will remaine firme and stable in his vanity To muse alwayes of Death iâ— the way of Immortality till death ruine its foundation Thus in the deceitfull opinion wherein hee is of possessing all things hee looseth the possession of himselfe and having too much dreamed on his pleasures his Life is past as a Dreame without returne I must tell you one of my meditations I shall never be able to comprehend the meaning of those who moane themselves against Fortune A man may well complaine against Fortune these vaine regreetes exempt him not from the paine the World and all the pleasures of this life One forsooth will upbraid to this foolish Deity her deceipts without considering that he deceived himselfe in giving Trust to a Goddesse that nere had any Hee yet will accuse her to have conducted him still through craggy wayes and over-spread with thornes as if in following one that is blind a man should not hazard to run this danger Another will make yet fresh complaints against the Worlds detesting it's Sweetes The world may well bee the instrument of our destruction not the cause cursing it's charmes and calling it a Thousand times deceiptfull but why one would say to hear these plaints that the world began but now to receive its birth I meane were but now newly created that no man knowes it yet and that its first couzenages began but now to be discovered What folly is not this to cheat ones selfe to have commerce with a cheater the world never yet bore any other name or title why then ayme we to nourish our selves with its delights whose after-bitternesse empoysons sensibly our soules But if its charmes be powerfull enough to tempt reason The number of those whom the world hath deceived is so great that they that still trust it are now no more excusable they are yet too feeble to vanquish it provided that the will consent not so that a man remaine convict of all the crimes whereof he may be accused What seeming ground then have we to be enraged against those pleasures which we have received The will is so free that it cannot suffer violence but from it selfe if our selves only give them both being and forme the Fancies conceive these delights and the will gives them birth they are the workes whereof our imaginations form the Species and our desires make the Metamorphosis changing them into objects palpable and sensible which are markes of the seale of our depravednesse Let a man then abhorre pleasures instead of accusing them Pleasures are the greatest enemies of life for in casting flowers upon our heads they fill our hearts with thrones detest their vanity in lieu of complaining of their dedeitfulnesse But if they be criminall they onely beare the staine of their Fathers and if they be complices of our destruction t is we give them Birth to give us death Let men cease to lament of Fortune since the Mirror of its flying scarfe Fortune is stil her selfe he which trusts her takes delight to bee cheated and wings expresse to the life its lightnesse and our folly Let none Argue any more that the world is cause of our ruine since we cannot chuse but tread every houre over the dust and ashes of those who have too late repented to have followed it As for voluptuousnesse t is a vaine Idea to which our passions give a body to make it serve as a sensible object of their brutality insomuch that it can do nothing but by our first motions taking its vigour from our force and its power from our Soveraigntie and this renders us doubly culpable palleating our faults instead of acknowledging them Pleasure still takes its force from our voluntary weakenesse since laments rather than excuses might absolve us them Is it not that St. Iohn Chrysostome toucht with compassion of our miseries cries out in astonishment of our weakenesse ' Oh World how many hast thou deceived 'T is more then folly when the folly of others serves us not for example but this is its trade and profession O Fortune how many hast thou made to fall but even yet still while I am speaking shee gives employment to her treason and exercise to her Tyrannie O Pleasures comfitted in Sweetes and steeped in bitternesse how many have yee poysoned but yet their venome is so common that the whole earth is infected with it What remedy then to all these ils No other then this to pry into ones selfe in the MIRROVR of his owne Ashes Wee can no better contemplate any thing then in the Mirrour of our Nothing a MIRROVR alwayes hanging at the Girdle and which flatters not A MIRROVR whose glasse though more brittle then one of Crystall makes us yet to see that all the objects of the World are false but that of our Corruption a Mirrour which represents us more lively in our pourtraict then in our selves A Mirrour whose kind of shadow and Chimera makes us see in effect that which we are in appearance A Mirrour all miraculous which preserves certaine Species's of nothing to render them sensible to our knowledge A Mirrour all divine which metamorphosing our bodies into shadows yet expresses us so naturally that the most arrogant cannot mistake themselves A Mirrour lastly which Nature hath charmed with it's owne proper spels All the Mirrours of the World flatter except this of our miseries to the end that vewing himselfe herein a Man may be able to resist the charmes of the World's allurements I am greatly astonisht at those that preach us the Knowledge of our selves to be so troublesome and difficult since that at all times and in all places of all sides and all sorts of fashions wee are Nothing at all or if by an excesse of flattery and vanity If a man would still study himselfe he would become the wisest of the World I borrow some names to expresse truely what wee are it can bee no other then those of durt and mire whose noysomnesse takes away all doubt on it from the most incredulous In what then consists this trouble of studying to know one's-selfe since the most ignorant may in this goe out Doctors in the schoole of our miseries Selfe-knowledge onely