It cannot be revoked, we are all mortal, and these all-commanding gods and princes die like men: —— involvit humile pariter & celsum caput, æquatque summis infima. O weak condition of humane estate, Sylvius exclaims: Ladislaus King of Bohemia 18 yeeres of age, in the flower of his youth, so potent, rich, fortunate and happy, in the midst of all his friends, amongst so many Physicians, now ready to be married, in 36 houres sickned and died.

We must so be gone sooner or later all, and as Calliopeius in the Comedy took his leave of his Spectators and Auditors,

Vos valete & plaudite, Calliopeius recensui.

must we bid the world farewel, (Exit Calliopeius) and having now plaid our parts, for ever be gone. Tombs and monuments have the like fate, data sunt ipsis quoque fata sepulchris, kingdomes, provinces, towns and cities have their periods, and are consumed.

In those flourishing times of Troy, Mycenæ was the fairest city in Greece, Græciæ cunctæ imperitabat, but it alas, and that Assyrian Ninive are quite overthrown: The like fate hath that Egyptian and Bœotian Thebes, Delos, commune Græciæ conciliabulum, the common councel-house of Greece; and Babylon the greatest city that ever the sun shone on, hath now nothing but walls, and rubbish left.

Quid Pandioniæ restat nisi nomen Athenæ?

Thus Pausanias complained in his times. And where is Troy it self now, Persepolis, Carthage, Cizicum, Sparta, Argos, and all those Grecian cities? Syracuse and Agrigentum, the fairest towns in Sicily, which had sometimes 700000 inhabitants, are now decayed: the names of Hieron, Empedocles, &c. of those mighty numbers of people, only left. One Anacharsis is remembred amongst the Scythians; the world it self must have an end; And every part of it.

Cæteræ igitur urbes sunt mortales, as Peter Gillius concludes of Constantinople, hæc sane quamdiu erunt homines, futura mihi videtur immortalis; but ’tis not so: nor site, nor strength, nor Sea nor land can vindicate a city, but it and all must vanish at last. And as to a traveller great mountains seem plains afar off, at last are not discerned at all; cities, men, monuments decay. —— nec solidis prodest sua machina terris, the names are only left, those at length forgotten, and are involved in perpetual night.

Returning out of Asia, when I sailed from Ægina toward Megara, I began (saith Servius Sulpitius in a consolatory Epistle of his to Tully) to view the country round about. Ægina was behind me, Megara before, Pyræus on the right hand, Corinth on the left, what flourishing towns heretofore, now prostrate and overwhelmed before mine eyes? I began to think with my self, Alas, why are we men so much disquieted with the departure of a friend, whose life is much shorter? When so many goodly cities lye buried before us. Remember O Servius thou art a man; and with that I was much confirmed, and corrected my self.

Correct then likewise, & comfort thy self in this, that we must necessarily dye, and all dye, that we shall rise again: as Tully held; Jucundiorque multo congressus noster futurus, quam insuavis & acerbus digressus. Our second meeting shall be much more pleasant, then our departure was grievous.

I but he was my most dear and loving friend, my sole friend,

Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus Tam chari capitis?

— And who can blame my woe?

Thou mayst be ashamed, I say with Seneca, to confess it, in such a tempest as this to have but one anchor, go seek another: and for his part thou dost him great injury to desire his longer life.

Wilt thou have him crazed and sickly still, like a tired traveller that comes weary to his Inne, begin his journey afresh, or to be freed from his miseries? thou hast more need rejoyce that he is gone.

Another complains of a most sweet wife, a young wife, Nondum sustulerat flavum Proserpina crinem, such a wife as no mortal man ever had, so good a wife, but she is now dead and gone, lethæoque jacet condita sarcophago.

I reply to him in Seneca’s words, if such a woman at least ever was to be had, He did either so find or make her; if he found her, he may as happily find another; if he made her, as Critobulus in Xenophon did by his, he may as good cheap inform another, & bona tam sequitur, quam bona prima fuit; he need not dispair, so long as the same master is to be had.

But was she good? Had she been so tryed peradventure as that Ephesian widow in Petronius, by some swaggering souldier, she might not have held out. Many a man would have been willingly rid of his: before thou wast bound, now thou art free; and ’tis but a folly to love thy fetters though they be of gold.

Come into a third place, you shall have an aged father sighing for a sonne, a pretty childe;

Impube pectus quale vel impia Molliret Thracum pectora.

—— He now lyes asleep, Would make an impious Thracian weep.

Or some fine daughter that dyed young, Nondum experta novi gaudia prima tori. Or a forlorn son for his deceased father. But why? Prior exiit, prior intravit, he came first, and he must go first. Tu frustra pius, heu, &c. What wouldst thou have the laws of nature altered, and him to live alwayes? Julius Cæsar, Augustus, Alcibiades, Galen, Aristotle, lost their fathers young. And why on the other side shouldst thou so heavily take the death of thy little son?

Num quia nec fato, merita nec morte peribat, Sed miser ante diem ——