me if thou canst then find a thought of thine devoting thee to pleasure and the fugitive toys of life? O what a bubble, what a puff, what but a wink of life, is man! And with what a general swallow death still gapes upon the general world! When Hadrian asked Secundus what death was, he answered in these several truths: "It is a sleep eternal; the body's dissolution; the rich man's fear; the poor man's wish; an event inevitable; an uncertain journey; a thief that steals away man; sleep's father; life's flight; -the departure of the living; and the resolution of all." Who may not, from such sights and thoughts as these, learn, if he will, both humility and loftiness? the one to vilify the body, which must once perish in a stenchful nastiness; the other to advance the soul, which lives here but for a higher and more heavenly ascension. As I would not care for too much indulging of the flesh, which I must one day yield to the worms; so I would ever be studious for such actions as may appear the issues of a nobler and diviner soul.

OF PREPARING AGAINST DEATH.

THE life of man is the incessable walk of time, wherein every moment is a step and pace to death. Even our growing to perfection is a progress to decay. Every thought we have is a sand running out of the glass of life. Every letter that I now write is something cut off from the measure of my being here.

But since no man can be happy in the life that is affrighted with the fear of dying, it ought to be our principal care, either to put off death or overcome the fear of it; else, while we have life we shall not enjoy it, but daily,

To put off death Fixed fate, without him,

with the fear of dying, die.
is not in man to do.
dooms him once to die.

The decree is past, To avoid death totally

and no appeal is left. therefore, it is in vain to try. We may sometimes court him into a forbearance, but the whole world's wealth is a bribe too small to win him to acquittance. Yet the fear of death is not invincible. It is a giant to the weak, but a pigmy to the well-resolved. We may master that, and then, though we cannot totally overcome death, we may contemn him, or so brave him as to make him smile, not frown upon us. It is therefore fit we take heed of

such things as are like multiplying-glasses, a show fears either more numerous or bigger than they are. Such are inexpectation, una quaintance, want of preparation.

Inexpectation. The sudden blow astonish but, foreseen, is either warded or avoided. surprise alone is torture. In it I have not tir to think, till the time of thinking be too la It is falling from a precipice in the dark; man is at the bottom before he knows he from the top. The soul is overwhelmed wi horror, which is infinitely blacker by its n being looked for. Belshazzar's knees had ne er beat each other, if he had expected the har to appear. When accidents, like thieves, u thought on, set upon us, the consternation giv the deeper wound. It is worse for the tim than hanging; for it chokes the spirits as help, but lets them live to cruciate and ve without remedy. Like spirits in the nigh they flash hell-fire into our face, and drive from our wits and hopes; and our terrors a the more, because we dedicate that time rest without expecting aught that should a fright us.

Unacquaintance. Familiarity takes awa fear, when matters not usual prove induction to terror. The first time the fox saw the lion he feared him as death; the second, he feare

him, but not so much; the third time he grew more bold, and passed by him without quaking. The practised seaman smiles at storms that others dare not look on. A lion is not frightful to his keeper; and mastiffs are not fierce but when they meet with strangers. Every report of a musket startles the new-come soldier ; but ranging through the fury of two or three battles, he can then fearless stand a breach, and dares undaunted look death in the face.

Lastly, Want of preparation. Must not he be overcome, that unarmed meets his weaponed enemy? God, that by his providence is akin to wise men, and so does usually protect the prudent, is not obliged to preserve the fool. He that does first abandon himself, by his own example teaches others to do so too. When I am prepared for the worst, the worst cannot dismay me; but unprepared, I must lie down and yield. Even premeditation alone is a piece of defence. Negligence not only invites the foe, but leaves open all our ports and avenues for him to enter at. The difference is not much between not meeting an evil, and being prepared for it.

Lest then I make my death seem more terrible to me than indeed it is, I will first daily expect it. It were madness to think I should never arrive at that to which I am every min

ute going. If an enemy that I cannot resist shall threaten that within such a space he will assault and plunder me, but will not tell me the precise time, shall I not every hour look for him? It was Plato's opinion, that the wise man's life was the meditation of death. And to expect it, is to give the blow a meeting and break the stroke. Not to expect it, is a stupidity, since the world has nothing that is like a reprieve.

And surely then, does not look for brittle, if safely

The philosopher will tell us as well as the divine, that “Omne humanum genus, quodcunque est, quodcunque erit, morti damnatum est." All humanity that either is or shall be, once shall die. he is but dead already that death. A glass, though it be kept, may last long. But man preserved declines. His childhood, youth, virility, and age, they are but several stages posting him to death. He may flourish till about fifty, and may die any day before. But after that, he languishes like an October fly, till at last he weakly withers to his grave.

Secondly, I will grow to be acquainted with it by considering what it is. And certainly, well looked into, he is rather lovely, than a monster. It is fancy gives him those hideous shapes we think him in. It is a soft and easy nothing; the cessation of life's functions, ac