Part 4 (2/2)

And to speak more narrowly, there is no such thing as solitude, nor anything that can be said to be alone, and by itself, but G.o.d;--who is his own circle, and can sub- sist by himself; all others, besides their dissimilary and heterogeneous parts, which in a manner multiply their natures, cannot subsist without the concourse of G.o.d, and the society of that hand which doth uphold their natures. In brief, there can be nothing truly alone, and by its self, which is not truly one, and such is only G.o.d: all others do transcend an unity, and so by con- sequence are many.

11.--Now for my life, it is a miracle of thirty years, which to relate, were not a history, but a piece of poetry, and would sound to common ears like a fable.

For the world, I count it not an inn, but an hospital; and a place not to live, but to die in. The world that I regard is myself; it is the microcosm of my own frame

* ”Cic. de Off.,” I. iii.

that I cast mine eye on: for the other, I use it but like my globe, and turn it round sometimes for my recrea- tion. Men that look upon my outside, perusing only my condition and fortunes, do err in my alt.i.tude; for I am above Atlas's shoulders.<98> The earth is a point not only in respect of the heavens above us, but of the heavenly and celestial part within us. That ma.s.s of flesh that circ.u.mscribes me limits not my mind. That surface that tells the heavens it hath an end cannot persuade me I have any. I take my circle to be above three hundred and sixty. Though the number of the ark do measure my body, it comprehendeth not my mind. Whilst I study to find how I am a microcosm, or little world, I find myself something more than the great. There is surely a piece of divinity in us; some- thing that was before the elements, and owes no homage unto the sun. Nature tells me, I am the image of G.o.d, as well as Scripture. He that understands not thus much hath not his introduction or first lesson, and is yet to begin the alphabet of man. Let me not injure the felicity of others, if I say I am as happy as any.salveth all; so that, what- soever happens, it is but what our daily prayers desire.

In brief, I am content; and what should providence add more? Surely this is it we call happiness, and this do I enjoy; with this I am happy in a dream, and as content to enjoy a happiness in a fancy, as others in a more apparent truth and reality. There is surely a nearer apprehension of anything that delights us, in our dreams, than in our waked senses. Without this I were unhappy; for my awaked judgment discontents me, ever whispering unto me that I am from my friend, but my friendly dreams in the night requite me, and make me think I am within his arms. I thank G.o.d for my happy dreams, as I do for my good rest; for there is a satisfaction in them unto reasonable desires, and such as can be content with a fit of happiness. And surely it is not a melancholy conceit to think we are all asleep in this world, and that the conceits of this life are as mere dreams, to those of the next, as the phantasms of the night, to the conceits of the day. There is an equal delusion in both; and the one doth but seem to be the emblem or picture of the other. We are somewhat more than ourselves in our sleeps; and the slumber of the body seems to be but the waking of the soul. It is the ligation of sense, but the liberty of reason; and our waking conceptions do not match the fancies of our sleeps. At my nativity, my ascendant was the watery sign of . I was born in the planetary hour of , and I think I have a piece of that leaden planet in me. I am no way facetious, nor disposed for the mirth and galliardise<99> of company; yet in one dream I can compose a whole comedy, behold the action, ap- prehend the jests, and laugh myself awake at the con- ceits thereof. Were my memory as faithful as my reason is then fruitful, I would never study but in my dreams, and this time also would I choose for my devo- tions: but our grosser memories have then so little hold of our abstracted understandings, that they forget the story, and can only relate to our awaked souls a con- fused and broken tale of that which hath pa.s.sed. Aris- totle, who hath written a singular tract of sleep, hath not, methinks, thoroughly defined it; nor yet Galen, though he seem to have corrected it; for thoseand night-walkers, though in their sleep, do yet enjoy the action of their senses. We must therefore say that there is something in us that is not in the juris- diction of Morpheus; and that those abstracted and ecstatick souls do walk about in their own corpses, as spirits with the bodies they a.s.sume, wherein they seem to hear, see, and feel, though indeed the organs are dest.i.tute of sense, and their natures of those faculties that should inform them. Thus it is observed, that men sometimes, upon the hour of their departure, do speak and reason above themselves. For then the soul begin- ning to be freed from the ligaments of the body, begins to reason like herself, and to discourse in a strain above mortality.

12.--We term sleep a death; and yet it is wak- ing that kills us, and destroys those spirits that are the house of life. 'Tis indeed a part of life that best ex- presseth death; for every man truly lives, so long as he acts his nature, or some way makes good the faculties of himself. Themistocles therefore, that slew his soldier in his sleep, was a merciful executioner: 'tis a kind of punishment the mildness of no laws hath invented; I wonder the fancy of Lucan and Seneca did not discover it. It is that death by which we may be literally said to die daily; a death which Adam died before his mor- tality; a death whereby we live a middle and moderat- ing point between life and death. In fine, so like death, I dare not trust it without my prayers, and an half adieu unto the world, and take my farewell in a col- loquy with G.o.d:--

The night is come, like to the day; Depart not thou, great G.o.d, away.

Let not my sins, black as the night, Eclipse the l.u.s.tre of thy light.

Keep still in my horizon; for to me The sun makes not the day, but thee.

Thou whose nature cannot sleep, On my temples sentry keep; Guard me 'gainst those watchful foes, Whose eyes are open while mine close.

Let no dreams my head infest, But such as Jacob's temples blest.

While I do rest, my soul advance: Make my sleep a holy trance: That I may, my rest being wrought, Awake into some holy thought, And with as active vigour run My course as doth the nimble sun.

Sleep is a death;--Oh make me try, By sleeping, what it is to die!

And as gently lay my head On my grave, as now my bed.

Howe'er I rest, great G.o.d, let me Awake again at last with thee.

And thus a.s.sured, behold I lie Securely, or to wake or die.

These are my drowsy days; in vain I do now wake to sleep again: Oh come that hour, when I shall never Sleep again, but wake for ever!

This is the dormitive I take to bedward; I need no otherthan this to make me sleep; after which I close mine eyes in security, content to take my leave of the sun, and sleep unto the resurrection.

13.--The method I should use in distributive justice, I often observe in commutative; and keep a geometrical proportion in both, whereby becoming equable to others, I become unjust to myself, and supererogate in that common principle, ”Do unto others as thou wouldst be done unto thyself.” I was not born unto riches, neither is it, I think, my star to be wealthy; or if it were, the freedom of my mind, and frankness of my disposition, were able to contradict and cross my fates: for to me avarice seems not so much a vice, as a deplorable piece of madness; to conceive our- selves urinals, or be persuaded that we are dead, is not so ridiculous, nor so many degrees beyond the power of h.e.l.lebore,<100> as this. The opinions of theory, and posi- tions of men, are not so void of reason, as their practised conclusions. Some have held that snow is black, that the earth moves, that the soul is air, fire, water; but all this is philosophy: and there is no delirium, if we do but speculate the folly and indisputable dotage of avarice. To that subterraneous idol, and G.o.d of the earth, I do confess I am an atheist. I cannot persuade myself to honour that the world adores; whatsoever virtue its prepared substance may have within my body, it hath no influence nor operation without. I would not entertain a base design, or an action that should call me villain, for the Indies; and for this only do I love and honour my own soul, and have methinks two arms too few to embrace myself. Aristotle is too severe, that will not allow us to be truly liberal with- out wealth, and the bountiful hand of fortune; if this be true, I must confess I am charitable only in my liberal intentions, and bountiful well wishes. But if the example of the mite be not only an act of wonder, but an example of the n.o.blest charity, surely poor men may also build hospitals, and the rich alone have not erected cathedrals. I have a private method which others observe not; I take the opportunity of myself to do good; I borrow occasion of charity from my own necessities, and supply the wants of others, when I am in most need myself: for it is an honest stratagem to take advantage of ourselves, and so to husband the acts of virtue, that, where they are defective in one circ.u.m- stance, they may repay their want, and multiply their goodness in another. I have not Peru in my desires, but a competence and ability to perform those good works to which he hath inclined my nature. He is rich who hath enough to be charitable; and it is hard to be so poor that a n.o.ble mind may not find a way to this piece of goodness. ”He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord:” there is more rhetorick in that one sentence than in a library of sermons. And indeed, if those sentences were understood by the reader with the same emphasis as they are delivered by the author, we needed not those volumes of instructions, but might be honest by an epitome. Upon this motive only I cannot behold a beggar without relieving his necessities with my purse, or his soul with my prayers. These scenical and accidental differences between us cannot make me forget that common and untoucht part of us both: there is under these centoes<101> and miserable outsides, those mutilate and semi bodies, a soul of the same alloy with our own, whose genealogy is G.o.d's as well as ours, and in as fair a way to salvation as our- selves. Statists that labour to contrive a commonwealth without our poverty take away the object of charity; not understanding only the commonwealth of a Chris- tian, but forgetting the prophecy of Christ.*

14.--Now, there is another part of charity, which is the basis and pillar of this, and that is the love of G.o.d, for whom we love our neighbour; for this I think charity, to love G.o.d for himself, and our neighbour for G.o.d. And all that is truly amiable is G.o.d, or as it were a divided piece of him, that retains a reflex or shadow of himself. Nor is it strange that we should place affec- tion on that which is invisible: all that we truly love is thus. What we adore under affection of our senses deserves not the honour of so pure a t.i.tle. Thus we

* ”The poor ye have always with you.”

adore virtue, though to the eyes of sense she be in- visible. Thus that part of our n.o.ble friends that we love is not that part that we embrace, but that insen- sible part that our arms cannot embrace. G.o.d being all goodness, can love nothing but himself; he loves us but for that part which is as it were himself, and the traduction of his Holy Spirit. Let us call to a.s.size the loves of our parents, the affection of our wives and children, and they are all dumb shows and dreams, without reality, truth, or constancy. For first there is a strong bond of affection between us and our parents; yet how easily dissolved! We betake ourselves to a woman, forgetting our mother in a wife, and the womb that bare us in that which shall bear our image. This woman blessing us with children, our affection leaves the level it held before, and sinks from our bed unto our issue and picture of posterity: where affection holds no steady mansion; they growing up in years, desire our ends; or, applying themselves to a woman, take a lawful way to love another better than ourselves. Thus I perceive a man may be buried alive, and behold his grave in his own issue.

15.--I conclude therefore, and say, there is no happiness under (or, as Copernicus* will have it, above) the sun; nor any crambe<102> in that repeated verity and burthen of all the wisdom of Solomon: ”All is vanity and vexation of spirit;” there is no felicity in that the world adores. Aristotle, whilst he labours to refute theof Plato, falls upon one himself: for hisis a chimaera; and there is no such thing as his felicity. That wherein G.o.d himself is happy, the holy angels are happy, in whose defect the devils are unhappy;--that dare I call happiness: what-

* Who holds that the sun is the centre of the world.

soever conduceth unto this, may, with an easy metaphor, deserve that name; whatsoever else the world terms happiness is, to me, a story out of Pliny, a tale of Bocace or Malizspini, an apparition or neat delusion, wherein there is no more of happiness than the name. Bless me in this life with but the peace of my conscience, command of my affections, the love of thyself and my dearest friends, and I shall be happy enough to pity Caesar! These are, O Lord, the humble desires of my most reasonable ambition, and all I dare call happiness on earth; wherein I set no rule or limit to thy hand or providence; dispose of me according to the wisdom of thy pleasure. Thy will be done, though in my own undoing.

HYDRIOTAPHIA.

URN BURIAL; OR, A DISCOURSE OF THE SEPULCHRAL URNS LATELY FOUND IN NORFOLK.

TO MY WORTHY AND HONOURED FRIEND,

THOMAS LE GROS, OF CROSTWICK, ESQUIRE.

WHEN the general pyre was out, and the last valediction over, men took a lasting adieu of their interred friends, little expecting the curiosity of future ages should comment upon their ashes; and, having no old experience of the duration of their relicks, held no opinion of such after-considera- tions.

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