able to keep in my soule some little sparkle of thy love What glory and what contentment too is it to be devoured by wormes since thou callest thy self a Worme gnaw O Lord Ego sum vermis non homo Psal 22.6 gnaw both my heart and inâ—rals I offer thee them in prey and regive me new ones that may offend thee no more I know well that my life flits away by little and little but now agreeable is this flight unto me since thou art its object I see well that my Dayes slide away and passe in continuall course But O what consolation is it to be sensible of dying at all houres for to live eternally â— Verities again what ravishments â—ave you to consolate the soules of â—he most afflicted I return to my subject We read of the Priests of the Gentiles Humility is ever heâ—oured by all the world that they writ letters every â—eer to their Gods upon the Ashes â—f the Sacrifices which they made â—pon the top of Mount Olympus 〈◊〉 believe that this was upon design â—â—at they might thus be better received being written upon this â—aper of humility Let us fetch now â—ome truth from this fanoy Let us write every day to heaven upon the paper of our Ashes all the parts of the body are as so many Characters of dust wherein may be read the truth of our nothingness confessing thaâ— we are nothing else and let uâ— make our sighs the faithfull messengers of these letters as the onely witnesses of our hearts I will hide my self under the Ashes O Lord tâ—â— the end that thy Justice may noâ— see me said David What Curtain 's this This Soveraign Justice which makes it bright day in hell cannot pierce the Ashes to find underneath a Sinner No no for the vail has the vertue to reflect the beams of thiâ— revenging light within the source which produced them Remember that I am nothing Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself I wil not bring the evill in his days 1 Kings 21 29. 〈◊〉 Lord and that thou hast made mâ— of nothing and every moment canst reduce me to something lessâ— then nothing cryes out Job in hiâ— miseries He finds no other invention to appease the mild choller 〈◊〉 his God Recordarequâ—â— so quod sicut argillam fecistâ— me in pulverem reduces me Job 10â—9 then putting him in minâ— of his infinite greatnesse and at the same time of the pitifull estateâ— whereunto he is reduced Whâ—â— should you take Arms against meâ—â— O Lord pursues he when thâ—â— breath of your word is able 〈◊〉 undo the same Humility triumphs over all things which it hath made me Remember O Remember that I am but what the benigne influence of your divine regards permits me to be for on the instant that you shall cease to regard me I shall cease to live Deck we then with Ashes our body of Dust Men remember thy beginning for thou art not made of Fire like the Stars nor of Ayre like the winds but of mire from whence it is thou soylsâ— all the world He which can over come himself shail never be vanqui sht by greater Capta in and let us cover with a new earth our own to make Rampirs of proof against the thunders of heaven See you not how its all-powerfull Justice finds limitation in the confession of our being nothing We need fear nothing acknowledging that we are nothing Well may the thunder make a horrid rumbling yet the Hyssope outpraves it in its lowlinesse Fear and humility ever abandon each others company The onely means to triumph over all things is to vanquish Ambition O Lord I durst scarse believe that I am If thy providence alone were not the prop of my being But since thy goodnesse hath drawn me from the Abysse of Nothing â—et thy grace cause me alwaies to keep the remembrance of my originall Before Time was I was Nothing now Time is I am yea Nothing But what happinesse 〈◊〉 it to be Nothing at all since thou art All-things for if I search my self in vain in my self is it not sufficient that I am found in thee I will then forget even mine owe name and muse of nothing but of the Chimera of my being since as a Chimera it passeth away and vanisheth What a joy is it to passe away continually with all things towards him that hath created all things The onely consolation that remains me in my passage is that thou alone remainest firm and stable so that without end thoâ— art the end of my carreere and without bounds limitest the extenâ— of my course as the onely object both of my rest and felicitie Set me now upon return With what and ever to be adored lustre Heaven changes the sighs of the Earth into tears I mean its vapours into dew appears the love of God in his day in the work of Man Would not one say that it seem he made him of earth that he might strow thereon the seeds both of his blessings and graces O fortunate Earth which being diligently cultured may bring forth the fruits of eternal happinesse Since we are of Earth let us suffer this divine Sun of Love to exhale the vapours of our sighs for to metamorphose the minto the tears of Repentance Boast thy self O Man to be Nothing but Earth since the heaven bedews the Earth continually But if with a provoked eye it lancheth out sometimes its thunders upon it her self doth afford hereof the matter Live always Innocent and thou shalt not know what 't is to fear Imploy thy self without cease to measure the depth of the Abysle of thy nothingnesse and though thou never pierce to the bottom hereof thy pains shall not be unprofitable because seeking thy self â—â— thy basenesse thou shalt alwaies recover thy self again much greater then thou art The Sun We are all amorous of our selves not knowing for what for our defects are objects rather of hate then Love this fair Planet of the Day which with a continuall aspect contemplates all created things cannot make reflection of his beams to see himself 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 own proper lustre But the Intellect A Man cannot stumble ordinarily but through perversenesse since reason enligh tens him in the very worst wayes this Sun of our Soules has a faculty with which it can both contemplate our of it self all things and repeale again 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 read of Moses that God commanded him to frame the * forefront of the Tabernacle all of Mirrours The Laver which was before the Tabernacle
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 Sun should afford his light to out wretchednesse Make we then every day Funerall processions or at least visit in meditation every hour our Tomb as the place where our bodies must take so long abode Celebrate we our selves our own Funerals The thought of our end is a soveraign remedy against our passions and invite to our exequies Ambition Avarice Pride Choller Luxury Gluttony and all the other Passions where with we may be attainted to the end to be Conquerours even by our own proper defeat 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 seem sowr and we can find no other quiet but in the hope of that which Truth it self hath promised us after so much trouble Proud Spirits be ye Spectators of this Funeral Pomp which this great Monarch celebrates to day He invites the Heaven and the Earth to his Exequies since in their view he accompanies his pourtrayed Skeleton unto the Tomb 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 appear Dead as dying already by his own choice as well as necessity 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 Laws of Nature elevates himself above it making his puissance to be admired in his voluntary weaknesse But I engage my self too far in 't Herodotus remarks that the Queen Semiramis made her Sepulcher be erected upon the entrances of the principall Gate of the * Babylon City to the end that this sad object of wretchednesse might serve for a Schoole-master to passengers to teach them the Art to know themselves O blessed Lesson is that which the Tombs can affoord us O gracions Science is that which they instruct us Strabo testifies No better Schoole then the Church-yard that the Persians made Pipes of dead-mens bones which they used at Festivals to the end that the sad harmony 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 dolorus sighs which produce thence the harmony 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 bear the image of Death and yet we never think but of Life Let our eyes but fairly turn their regards on all sides All that lives they may see dies and what ha's no life passes away before ' em Our eares are tickled with the sweet harmony of Voices or Instruments or Tabors or Trumpets But these sonnds 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 The objest of our nothingnesse ha's a grace and allurement capable to ravish the best spirits 't is true they warble delightfully yet their melody is often dolefull to the mind when it considers that it proceeds from certain guts of dead beasts which Art hath so contrived Tabors being of the same nature must also necessary produce the same effects and Trumpets also do but sob in our ears 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 necessity Insomuch Death is ever present and at hand to our heart but still absent from our memory that Death environs us on all sides though we be always her own and yet we never think on 't but in extremities as if we were onely to learn at the last instant that we are Mortall and the hard experience which we 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 self to the end that this knowledge may represent to me alwayes the reality of my wretchednesse Make me that I may see my self may understand and feel my self to die every moment but so that I may see it with the eyes of my heart perceive it with the eyes of my soul and feel it by the sense of my conscience therein to find my repose and safety I know well that Nature mourns uncessantly the death of its works which are devoured every hourby time and though no where thus can I see but Sadnesse it self yet ne'rethelesse remain I insensible of the horrour of these objects and though they be terrible my spirit not is afrighted Render me therefore if it please thee render me fearfull and make me even to tremble in thinking of it since the thought of it is so important suffer me not to live a kind of Death without meditating of that life which is exempt from Death and whereof Eternity is the Limit All my votes do 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 proposition O how celebrious and glorious is the Triumph over our selves Let us leave the Laurels A Mnn hath no greater enemy than himselfe and Palmes to those famous Conquerours of Sea and Land 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 die in the miseries whereunto they were born Cyrus could not bound his ambition lesse than 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 plaies Iupiter upon Earth his pourtraict is the onely Idoll of his subjects There is nothing more vain than Vaine-glory t is a body without soule or life having no subsistance but in imagination and yet one turne of the wheele casts him a sacrifice upon the same altar which he 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 of whom Antiquity trumpets-out wonders have had no other recompence of their labours but this vain conceipt that
prevention quarrell like a curst Scold who being guilty yet will call Whore first When any dyes whose Muse was rich in Verse They claim Succession and prophane his Herse They onely are Heirs of his Brain-estate Others are base and illegitimate All but their own Abettors they defie And Lord it in their Wit Supremacy Others they say but Sculke as lye i th‘ lurch As we hold Schismaticks from the true Church So hold they all that do decline their way Nor swear by Heaven Al‘s excellent they say T were well they‘d see the fing‘ring on these frets Can neither save their Souls nor pay their Debts Or would they think of Death as they should do They would live better and more honourd too T is base to do base deeds yet for false fame To Keep a stir and bustle into Name Whilst each applauds his own contemns anothâ—rs Becons his own deserts but his he smothers They fear Fame's out of breath and therefore they Trumpet their own praises in their own way Or joyn in Trick of State Confederacy Call 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 go by 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 vain 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 souls integrity In L'envoy thus salutes each courteous eye Lenvoy INgenuous Reader thou do'st crown The Morall active course layd down By De. la â—erre what is pen'd If thy Actions tecommend Relating to the first EMBLEME WHen haughty thoughts impuff thee than Dictate thy self Thou art but Man A fabrick 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 a way beside Wherein may be a lawfull Pride When sly Tempatations stirre thee Than Again the World Thou art a Man Rouze up thy Spirits do not yeeld A brave resistance wins the Field Shall a soul of Heavenly breath Grovell so tarre its worth beneath Fouly to be pollute with slime Of any base an â— shamefull crime Thou art a Maâ— for Heaven born Reflect on Earth disdainfull scorn Be not abus'd since Life is short Squander it not away in sport Nor hazzard heavens eternall Joyes For a small spurt of worldly Toyes Do Something ere do thou bequeath To Worms thy flesh to Air 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 Soul Do something to advance thy blisse Both in the other World and This. Relating to the second EMBLEME WEre both the Indies treasures Thine And thou Lord of every Mine Or hadst thou all the golden Ore On Tagus or Pactolus Shore And were thy Cabinet the Shrine Where thousand Pearls 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 Charnel place Charon hence no advantage makes A half penny a soul he takes Thy heirs will leave thee but a Shirt Enough to hide thy rotten Dirt. Then be not Greedy of much pelfe He that gets all may lose himself And Riches are of this Dilemne Or they leave us or we must them Death brings to Misers double Wo They lose their Cash and their souls too Change then thy scope to heavenly gains That wealth eternally remains Relatory to the third EMBLEME BE not curious to amaze With glitt'ring pomp the Vulgar gaze Strive not to chear with vain delight Those that are catcht with each brave sight How soon will any gawdy show Make their low Spirits overflow Whose Souls are ready to run-ore At any Toy nere seen before Rather thy better thought apply For to addresse thy self to dye Be ne're so glorious after all Thy latest pompe's thy Funerall Shall a dresse of Tyrian Dye Or Venice-gold Embroydery Or new-fash'on-varied Vest Tympanize thy out-strutting brest There 's none of these will hold thee tack But thy last colour shall be Black Be not deceiv'd There comes a Day Will sweep thy Glories all away Mean 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 Do So And thou shalt make thereby A Vertue of necessity And when thy Dying-day is come Go like a Man that 's walking home Heav'n Guard thee with Angelick pow‘r To be prepared for that hour When ev'ry Soul shal feel what 'T is To have liv'd Well or done Amisse Relating to the fourth EMBLEME LEt not the Splendour of high Birth Be all thy Glosse without true worth Let neither honour nor vast wealth Beauty nor Valour nor firm health Make thee bear up too high thy head All men alike are buried Stare not with Supercilious brow Poor folks are Dust and so art Thou Triumph not in thy worldy 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 differ‘ence then between The dust of Lords or slaves be seen Together under ground they lye Without distinctive Heraldry Unlesse it be that some brave Tombe Do grace the Great-ones in Earths womb But better ‘ t is that Heaven's dore ls oft‘nest open to the poor When those whose backs and sides with sin Are bunch't and swoln cannot get in Beware the Bulk of thy Estate Shock thee from entrance at that Gate Give Earth to Earth but give thy Minde To Heaven where it 's seat's as sign'd If as it came from that bright Sphere Thither thou tend not fix it here Live that thy Soul may White return Leaving it‘s Partuer in the Urne Till a Blest Day shall reunite And beam them with Eternal Light Ainsi Souhaite Vostre treshumble Serviteur Thomas Cary. Tower-Hill Antepenultim â Augusti 1638. To my endeared Friend the Translatour Mr. Thomas Cary. 1. 'T Is Morall Magick and Wis Chymistry Out of Deaths Uglinesse T‘extract so trim a Dresse And to a Constellated Crystalt tie Such an imperious spell As who looks on it well By sprighty Apparitions to the the Eye Shall See he must and yet not fear to dye 2. No brittle toy but a tough monument Above steele marble Brasse Of Malleable Glasse Which also will while Wisdom is not spent Out-price th‘ adored wedge And blunt Times Sickle‘s edge Usher‘d with gracious safety in its vent For
other created things bear the same Title but if thy bounty hath been 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 meer privation The mest just man sinneth seven times a day it may be maintained that we are nothing else and consequently nothing at all But how Proud am I O Lord every time I think thou hast ereated me of Earth for this is a Principall which drawes me alwaies to it selfe by a right of propriety from whence I cannot defend my selfe What is it for a man to triumph hereof the world the earth expects his spoile All things seek their repose in their element 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 that which impeaches me from gathering up my self to take a higher flight I should do bravely to hoyse my selfe above my Center when the assay of my Vanity Pridehoyses up onely to gives a fall and the violence of my fall are but the same thing I give still downwards upon the side of my weaknesses and the weight of my miserie overbeares upon the arrogance of my Ambition A man no doubt may misknow himselfe yet the least hit of mishap teares the vaile of his hood winknesse O happy defect and yet more happy the condition which holds me alwaies 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 self to be something Let us change our Tone without changing subject Ladies Remember that you die every houre behold here a MIRROVR WHICH FLATTERS NOT It shewes you both what you are such as you shall be But if notwithstanding you still admire your selves under an other visage full of allurements and sweets This is but Death himself A strang thing that death is still as neare us at life and yet we never thinke on it who hides him under these faire apparences to the end you may not discern 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 he pulls them off from yours by little every day and makes those which he leave you to turn White to the end you may pull them out your selves It is true your eyes have a sparkling lustre Time and Deathare the onely inexorables and beauty but of his is seen onely the hideous place where Nature had seated them But do you not consider how with continual action be Dusks the glory of this beauty and in conclusion puts to Eclipse these imaginary Pety-Suns It is true your hue is of Lillies and your mouth of Roses upon his face is seen onely the stubs of these flowers but call to mind that he blasts this Lilly-teint as well as Lillies themselves and that the vermillion of this Rosie-mouth lasts but as Roses and if yet you differ to day from him in something 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 natural all things which are oppos'd unto it Man is as one picture with two faces and often the most naturall is falsest If you turn it downward to the Earth we can see within nothing but objects of Dust and Ashes but if you turn 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 consieration since he is nothing else but a Chimera whose form every moment by little and little destroies to reduce it to its first nothing And indeed not to lie to ye man is but a Puffe of wind Man is nothing in himselfe yet compreheods al things since he lives by nothing else is filled with nothing else and dies onely by Privation of it But if you turn the Medall I would say the Mirrour of his Soule towards his Creator there are seen nothing but gifts of Immortality What though man be made of earth he is more divine than mortall but graces of a Soveraigne bounty but favours of an absolute will The heavens and the Stars appear in this Crystalline mirrour not by reflection of the object but by a divine vertue proceeding from the Nature of his cause Let us to the End Me thinks This Page returnes again to day within the Chamber of Philip of Macedon The slumber of vanities is a mortall malady to the soule and drawing the Curtain cries out according to his ordinary Sir Awake and Remember that you are a Man but why rouzes he him to think of Death since sleep is its image Alexander knew himselfe mortall by his sleeping and in effect those which have said that sleep was the Brother of Death have drawn their reason of it from their reciprocall resemblance Awake then Great Kings Not to ponder that you are mortall your sleep is a trance of this but rather that you are created for immortality Remember you are Men. A man should not forget his heavenly beginning having heaven for a daily object I will not say subject to all the miseries of the Earth but rather capable of all the felicities of heaven Remember that you are men I will no say the shittle-cock of Time and the But to all the shafts of Fortune but rather victors over ages and all sorts of miseries Remember that you are men I will not say any more conceiv'd in Corruption brought forth by it and also destroyed by it But rather I say If a man should consider his worth by that which he cost he would love himselfe perfectly born for the glory of God Living for to acquire it and Dying for to possesse it Remember that you are Men I will say no more slaves of Sin the Flesh and the World but rather free for resistance to the first strong enough to vanquish the next and more powerfull yet to give a Law to the third A man may doe every good thing which he desires since in his impuâ— issance his will is taken for the deed Remember that you are men I will no more say the pourtraict of Inconstancy the object of every sort of ill and the pasture of Wormes But rather the Image of God the subject of every sort of good and the sole aliment of eternity as created for it alone Remember that you are men Man is sure a thing something divine
formed and consequently you lodge upon yoâ—r buriall-places whose entrances will be open at all moments To say whoyou are I am ashamed in calling you by your proper names for to remembrance you your miseries Corruption conceaves you Horrour infants you Blood nourishes you infection accompanies you in the Coffin There is nothing so constantly present with us as our miseries since always we are miserable enough at best The treasures which you enjoy are but Chimeras of greatnesse and apparitions of glorie whereof living you make experiment and dying you perfectly know the truth on 't To what end then can stead you your present felicities since at present you scarce enjoy them at all for even at this veric instâ—â— another which is but newly upon passe robs you of part of them and even thus giving you hiâ—â— of the cosenage of his companions cheates you too as well as they and thus they do altogether to your lives as well as your contentments in ravishing these they intrain the others then what remonstrance can you exhibit of esteeming your selâ—es happy for past felicities and which you have not enjoyed but in way of depart And if this condition be agreeable unto you still there is a necessitie of setting up your rest at the end of the carreere and there it is where I attend to contribute to your vain waylings as manie resentments oâ— Pitie How much better it is to be so happy in fishing as to angle for grace in the tears of penitence Take we another track without losing our selves How ingenious was that famous Queen of Egypt to deceive with good grace her Lover Sâ—â— caused underhand dead fishes to be ensnared to the hook of Antonie as often as the toy took his to go a fishing to the end to make him some sport by those pleasant deceits May we not say that Ambition doth the same for when we cast our hooks into this vast Ocean of the vanities of the world we fish but Dead things without soul whose acquirement countervailes not a moment of the Time which we employ to attain it Had I all the goodliest fardles of the world laded on my back I mean had I acquir'd all the honours wherewith fortune can tickle an ambitious soul should I thence become greater of body my growing time is past 'T is to no purpose to be passiorate for such goods as a man may loose and the world can give no better would my Spirit thence become more excellent these objects are too weak to ennoble her Powers Should I thence become more vertuous Vertue looks for no saâ—isfaction out of it self Should I thence be more esteemed of the world This is but the glorie of a wind which doth but passe away What happinesse what contentment or what utilitie would remain me then that I might be at rest A Man must not suffer himself thus to be fool'd All honours can be but a burden to an innocent soul for so much as they are continuall objects oâ— vanitie which stir up the passion and onely serve but for nourishment to them in their violences to hurrie them into all sorts oâ— extremities And after all the necessitie of dying which makes an inseparable accident in our condition gloomes the glittering of all this vain glorie which environs us In the anguishes oâ— Death a man dreams not of the grandeurs of his life 'T is an irkssome remembrance of past happinesse being eveâ— and anon upon point to depart finds himself often afflicted mâ— with those good things which 〈◊〉 possesseth measuring alreadie the depth of the fall by the height 〈◊〉 the place whither he is exalted * Galba He which found Fortune at 〈◊〉 gate found no naile to stay he wheele But if Shee on the one 〈◊〉 takes a pleasure to ruine Empire to destroy realmes and to precipitate her favourites Death on 〈◊〉 other side pardons no body alters the temperament of all sorts of humours perverts the order of every kind of habitude and not content yet to beat down all these great Colosses of Vanity which would be taken for the worlds wonders calls to the sharing of their ruine the elements thus to bury their materials in their first abysses where she hath designed the place of their entombment What can a Mau then find constant in the world Al things passe away and by their way tell us that we must do so too where constancy doth no where reside Time Fortune Death our passions and a thousand other stumbling blocks shall never speak oher language to us but of our miseries and yet we will suffer our selves like ALEXANDER to be voyc'd â—mmortall Our prosperities our grandeurs our very delights themselves shall tell us as they passe a word in our ear that we ought not to trust them and yet for all this we will never sigh but after them Be it then at last for very regreet to have vented to the wind so many vain sighs for Chimeras of sweets whereof the remembrance cannot be but full of bitternesse Vain honours of the world No security of pleasure to enjoy such things as may every moment be lost tempt me no more your allurements are powerfull but too weak to vanquish me I deride your wreaths of Laurell there growes more on'â— in my garden then you can give me If you offer me esteem and reputation among men what should I doe with your presents Time devoures every day the like of them and yet more precious I undervalue all such Good-things as it can take away again from me Deceit full greatnesses of the Earth cease to pursue me you shall never catch me your charms have given some hits to my heart Worldly Greatnesses are but like Maskingâ— cloathes which serve him and the other but for that time but not to my soule your sweets have touch my senses but not my spirit what have you to offer me which can satisfie me Time and Fortune lend you all the Scepters and Crownes which you borrow and as you are not the owners they take them away again when they will and not when it pleaseth you So then I will have no Scepters for an hour 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 mire 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 fair leave have you to draw the Stell of your designes upon this ready prim'd cloth Some few yeares wipe out all Some ages carry away all and the remembrance of your follies is onely immortall in your soules by the eternall regreet which remaines you of them SCIPIO made design to conquer Carthage and after he had cast the project thereof upon mould he afterwards took the body of this shadow and
saw the effect of his desires But may not one say that the Trophies of his valour have been cast in rubbidg within that masse of dirt whereof the world is composed since all the marks thereof are effaced Carthage it felfe though it never had life could not avoid its death Time hath buried it so deep under its own ruines that we seek in vain the place of its Tomb. I leave you to ruminate if its subduer were himself able to resist the assaults of this Tyrannie If ALEXANDER had sent his thoughts into heaven there to seek 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 himself to engrave the history of his ambition and triumphs upon the same masse of clay There is more glory to despise the world than to conquer it for after its conquest a man knower not what to doe with it which he had conquered he writ upon water and all the characters on 't are defaced The Realms which he subdued have lost some of them their names of this Triumpher there remaines us but the Idea as of a dream since men are ready to require Security even of his Memory for the wonders which it preacheth to us of him May we not then again justly avow that of all the conditions to which a man may be advanced without the aid of vertue either by Nature or Fortune there is none more infortunate then to be to these a favorite norany more miserable than to a Great-one All those who engage themselvs to the service of fortune are ill paid and of this every day gives us experience This inconstant goddess hath a thousand favours to lend but to give none but haltars poysons pomards and precipices 'T is a fine thing to see Hannibal begging his bread even in view of Scipio after he had called in 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 own 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 resentments of pity reading the history of Crassus then when by excesse of disaster he surviv'd both his glory and reputation 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 wel knowne and undergoe the hard conditions of his enemies attending death to free him from servitude Will you have no regreet to see enslaved under the tyranny 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 die in captivitie You see at what price Men have bought the favours of this Goddesse when manie times the severity of a happy life produceth the storm 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 finds themselves at the end of the Day the most miserable And suppose Fortune meddle not with them to what extremity of misery think you is a man reduc't at the hour of his departure All his Grandeurs though yet present are but as past felicities he enjoys no more the goods which he possesses greess onely appertain to him in proper and of what magnificence so'ere he is environed I wonder not if rich men be afraid of death since to them it is more dreadfull then to any this object shows him but the image of a funerall pomp his bed already Emblemes the Sepulcher the Sheets his winding linnen wherein he must be inveloped So that if he yet conceit himself Great 't is onely in misery Since all that he seeâ— heares touches smells and tasts sensibly perswades him nothing else Give Resurrection in your thoughts to great Alexander and then again conceive him at last gaspe and now consider in this deplorable estate Fortune sells every day the gtory of the world to any that will but none but fools are her chapmen wherein he finds himself 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 yet you see how the little load of that of his body weighs so heavy on his soul that it is upon point to fall groveling under the burden I grant that all the glorie of the world belongs to him in proper he enjoys nothing but his miseries I yeeld moreover that all Mankinde may be his subjects yet this absolute soveraignty is not exempt from the servitude of pain Be it that with the onely thunder of his voice he makes the Earth to tremble yet he himself cannot hold from shaking at the noise of his own sighs I grant in fine that all the Kings of the world render him homage yet he is still the tributary of Death O grandeurs since you flie away without cease what are you but a little wind and should I be an Idolater of a little tossed Ayre Omnis motus tendit ad quietem and which onely moves but to vanish to its repose O greatnesse since you do but passe away what name should I give you but that of a dream 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 run after that which flies I can have no love for things which passe away worldly Greatnesses are but childrens trifles every wise man despises them and fince 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 self yet too rich by reason of its hardnesse But I return to the point Men of the World would perswade us that it is impossible to find any quiet in it to say The onely means to be content is to settle the conscience in peace a firm setling of Spirit 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 we leave to reason its absolute power What impossibility can there be to regulate a mans will to Gods 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 undergo the Decrees of his Fate without murmuring and
them were hereditary Ambition never elevates but to give a greater fall CAESAR had seen the death of Pompey and with him all the glory of his renown and Pompey had seen buried in the tomb of Time and Oblivion the renown of that great Scipio whose valour more redoubted then the thunder had made the Eearth tremble so oft Scipio in his turn might have read the Epitaph which despair 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 misfortunes and miseries which are inseparable to our condition And yet notwithstanding all of them stumbled one after other upon one and the same Stumbling-stone I am not come into Persia The richest of the world at last is found as poor as the poorest companion for the conquest of treasures said Alexander to Parmenio take thou all the riches and leave me 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 vain-glory saw its lover die without it self being seen Insomuch that after so great conquests the worms have conquered this great Monarch and as the dunghill of his ashes ha's no sort of correspondence with this so samous name of Alexander which otherwhile he bore t is not to be said what he hath been seeing what he is now I mean his present wretchednesses efface every day the memory of his past greatnesses Ambitious spirits though you should conquer a thousand worlds as he 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 tear of repentance all its glory is not to be prized with one sigh of contrition I grant that the noise of your renown may resound through the four 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 finds he himself so poor for all that hardly can he take along with him so much as a Shirt Embalm then the Air which you breath with a thousand Odours be Served in Plate of Gold Lie in Ivory Swim in Honours and lastly let all your actions glitter with magnificence 'T is the greatest horror of death to render account of all the moments of life the last moment of your life shall be judge of all those which have preceded it then shall you be able at your Death to tell me the worth of this vain glory whereof you have been Idolaters and after your Death you shall resent the pains of an eternall regreet having now no more opportunity to repent you to any effect Believe me all is but Vanity Honours Glory Riches Praise Esteem Reputation All this is but smoak 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 speak 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 Seek your glory in God and your Honour in the contempt of this earthy Honour if you will enternize your renown in the perpesuity of Ages I have no more to say to you after these truths A PROLUSIVEVpon the EMBLEM of the third Chapter A Funerall Herse with wreaths of Cypres crested A Skeleton with Robes imperiall vested Dead march sad looks no glorious circumstance Of high Achievements and victorious Chance Are these fit Trophy's for a Conquerous These are the Triumphs of the Emperour ADRIAN who chose this Sable Heraldry Before the popular guilded Pegeantry ' Stead of Triumphall Atches he doth rear The Marble Columns of his Sepulcher * Moles Adriani nune Castrum S. Angeli No publick honours wave his strict intent To shrine his Triumph in his Morument The Conscript Fathers and Quirites all Intend his welcome to the Capitoll The vast expence one day's work would have cost He wiser far since t'ther had been lost To build a Mausolaeum doth bestow Which now at Rome is call'd Saint * Pont Aeliu Angelo ADRIAN Emperour of Rome Celebrates himselfe his Funeralls and causes his Coffin to be carried in Triumph before him Where to this Day from Aelius Adrian's Name The Aelian Bridge doth still revive his fame Now was the peoples expectation high For wonted pompe and glitt'ring Chevalry But lo their Emp'rour doth invite 'em all Not to a Shew but to his Funerall They look for Gew-Gaw-fancies his wise scorn Contemns those Vanities leaves their hope forlorn For since all 's smother'd in the Funerall Pile He will not dally with 'em for a while This was self-Victory and deserveth more Then all the Conquests he had won before What can Death do 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 THE MIRROUR WHICH FLATTERS NOT. CHAP. III. O How glorious is the Triumph over Death O how brave is the Vistory over a Mans life You see how this great * Adrian Monarch triumphs to day over that proud Triumpher Death after the happy vanquishment of his passions He enters into his Empire by the Port of his Tomb thus to raign during his life like a man that dies every moment he celebrates himself his own Funerals and is led in Triumph to his Sepulcher to learn to die generously What a glory 's this to over-awe That which commands the whole world what Courage is this to assail and combate That which none could ever yet resist and what a power is it to tame That which never yet yielded Echo her self hath not rebounds enow to resound aloud the wonders of this Victory This is not the Triumph of Alexander when he made his entry into Babylon mounted upon a Chariot as rich as the Indies and more glistering then the Sun In this we see no other riches but the rich contempt which ought to be made of them no other lustre but of Vertue This is not the Triumph of Caesar then when be was drawn unto the Capitoll by forty Elephants after he had won twenty four battels In this we see nought else but a funerall pomp but yet so glorious that Death her self serves for a Trophy to it This is not the Triumph of Epaminondas where the glorious lustre of the magnificence sham'd the splendour of the day which yet lent its light to it The marvels which appear'd in this here seem'd as celebrating in
of the world 'T is the Epitaph on their tomb Read it I grant more-over Death may be contemned but not avoided you may be the greatest Princes of the earth An infinite number of your companions are buried under these corrupted ruins Suppose in fine that your Soveraignty did extend it self over all the Empire of the world A thousand and a thousand too of your semblables have now nothing more their own then that corruption which devours even to the very bones Ambitious Heart see here a Mirrour which flatters not since it represents to the life the realty of thy miseries Well maist thou perhaps pretend the conquest of the Universe even those who have born away that universall Crown are now crowned but with dust and ashes Covetous wretch behold the book of thy accounts 'T is no wonder the Miser ne're thinks of Death his thoughts are onely taken up for this Life calculate all that is due to thee after payment of thy debts learn yet after all this that thy soul is already morgaged to devils thy body to worms and thus notwithstanding all thy treasures there will not abide with thee one hair 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 Proud arrogant man measure with thy bristled brows Pride is but like the nooneflourish of a flows or which at Sunset perisheth the dilatation of the earth Brave with thy menacing regards the heavens and the stars These mole-hills of rottennesse whereof thy carkasse is shap't prepare toward the tomb of thy vanity Seneca Epist Quotidie morimur quotidie enim demitur aliqua par vitae These are the shades of Death inseparable from thy body since it dies every hour If thou elevate thy self 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 dreadfunesse of that Metamorphosis when thy flesh shall be turned to filth and even that to worms and those still to fresh ones which shall devour even thy coffin and so efface the very last marks of thy Sepulture How remarkable is the answer 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 self here answers he in search of thy father Philips bones among this great number which thou see'st but my labour is in vain 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 walk in triumph to the Tomb followed with all the train of your ordinary magnificences but by being arrived at this Port blown thither with the continuall gale of your sighs your pomp vanisheth away your Royall Majesty abandons you your greatnesse gives you the last Adieu and this your mortall fall equalls you now to all that were below you The dunghill of your body hath no preeminence above others unlesse it be in a worse degree of rottennesse of being of a matter more disposed to corruption But if you doubt of this truth Corruprio optimi pessima behold and contemplate the deplorable estate to which are reduced your semblables Their bald scalps have now no other Crown then the circle of horrour which environs 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 glories of their Court The seriout meditation of his miserable condition 't is capable to make any man wise These palpable and sensible objects are witnesses not to be excepted against Let then your souls submit to the experiment of your senses But what a Prodigy of wonders here do I not see the great Army of Xerxes reduced and metamorphosed into a hand full of dust All that world of men in those days 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 Seneca in the Tragedy of Hercules brings in Alcmena In Hercule Oetaeo Ecce vix totam Hercules Complevit urnam quam leve est pondus mihi Câ—totus aether pondus incubuit leve with grievous lamentation bearing in an urn the ashes of that great Monster-Tamer And to this esfect makes her speak Behold how easily I carry him in my hand who bore the Heavens upon his shoulders The sense of these words ought to engage our spirits to a deep meditation upon the vanity of things which seem to us most durable All those great Monarchs who sought an immortality in their victories and triumphs have mist that and found Death at last the enjoyment of their Crownes and splendours being buried in the same Tomb with their bodies See here then a new subject of astonishment The Mathematicians give this Axiome The warld is a Game at Chesse where every of the Set haâ—s his particular Name and Place designed but the Game done all the pieces are pellmellâ—d into the Bagg and even so are all mortals into the grave All lines drawn from the Center to the Circumference are equall Kings and Princes abate your haughtinesse 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 hillock 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 buried their Kings in a kind of Lestall and I conceive thereof no other reason then according to the nature of the subject they joyned by this actiotion the shadow and the substance the effect with the cause the stream with its source for what other thing are we then a masse of mire dried and bak'd by the fire of life but scattered again and dissolv'd by the Winter of Death and in that last putrefaction to which Death reduceth us the filth of our bodies falls to the dirt of the earth as to its center for so being conceived incorruption let us not think strange to be buried in rottennesse Earth dust and ashes 'T is well men hide themselves after death in the Earth or the enclosure of Tombs their sulth and noysomnesse would else be too discovert remain still the same be it in a vessell of gold or in a coffin of wood
you are You are dying every moment and every thing falls away without cease When I represent to minde your heads diadem'd with a rich Crown I conceive it a little point infirm'd and closed in a circumference whose lines abut at the center of corruption lines of magnificence The head that wears the crown wears away with it which terminate at the point of wretchednesse If I consider you with Scepter in hand methinks 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 shews me a Iupiter in picture holding the thunder in his hand for you are so weak for all your absolute power that if you presum hardily to raise your head but to look upon the Sun your eies 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 miserie Soveraign 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 I salute you to day by this name All the at ributes of worldly glory accompany us but to the grave but to morrow I will change termes and call you Skeletons and carkasses to the end that in speaking this cruth 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 design to have her picture drawn and upon the resuse that Painters made of it she addrest her selfe to Time Man serves for a sheuttlecocke to all things sime all things concur 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 cloath wherein having represented her to the life all the world took her for Man himself since in effect 't is but one and the same thing O fair truth discovered by a fable Man is Inconstancy it self rather than its pourtraict He then that now would see the Image of Inconstancy let him consider the Life-touches and lineaments of it upon his own visage Our fore-head which wrinkles every moment is it not the very same as hers Our eies which by continuall use every hour do already require spectacles are they not as hers Our cheeks which now chap-fall are in nothing different from hers In fine our visages are the only MIRROURS WHICH FLATTER NOT. But what shall we answer notwithstanding to the objection of this truth that Though a Man hides himself under the vayle of hypocrisie his defects alwaies breake through that which we see of MAN is not the MAN If his visage like a false Horologe index false this our pourtraict of Inconstancy is meerly imaginary But is there any thing more inconstant than the spirit of man 't is a weather-cock for all winds behold again the first draughts of the visage of Inconstancy must we not of necessity compare his changing humour to hers The spirit of Mun is much more changing than his body for this changes onely in growing old but that growes old 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 Vertue onely can render us invulnerable A vertuous Man feares nothing to serve us often for sufficient entertain of the time 'T is they which tell us of one Achilles immortall in all the parts of his body save only his heel Great Kings I will if you please take you for Achilles's and will give out you are like him invulnerable but only in the heel Every Man would be immortal but none takes pain to acquire immortality But of what temper soever your Armes be to what purpose serve they you with this defect This onely blot duskes the lustre of your glory Nature has done surely well 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 poiles all each particular is a heel by which Death may surprize you Shall I say then that you are Achilles's who will believe me since your heads serve but as Buts to the hafes of Fortune It is onely the conscience of a just Man is of proofe against the stroak of Time and Fortune To preach you invulnerable a small scratch may thereon give me the lye Truth more powerfull than flattery constraines me to call you by your name for in remembrancing you that you are â—ut men I fuggest you to the life all the disasters which accompany your life Thou hast much to doe Man is so poor a thing that one cannot give him a name but it advantagious to kim to make Panegyricks in praise of man O Mercury Trymegistus and to maintain 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 mortal God if thou hadst made Anatomie of his carkasse the stench of his silth had soon made thee change this langnage Plato thou reason'st well upon this subject yet without sound consideration then when with an enforcement oâ— spirit and eloquence thou wouldst oblige us to believe There is no tongue in Nature which can furnish us with termes strong enough to expresse the miseries of Man that man is oâ—â— the race of the Gods yes surely since thy Gods are Gods of earth the cause is matcht to the effect for man is of the same matter Plotinus thou also didst not misse it when in favour of man thou said'st he was an abridgment of the wonders of the world for since all its wonders heretofore so famous are no more but dust and ashes man may hereof be the example with good reason O how much more expert is David in the knowledge of our condition when he compares man not onely to the dust but to the dust which flies away to show us that that little which he is still flies away till it be nothing in the end But how glad am IO Lord Memento homo quod nihil es in nihilù reverteris that I am but dust to the end that I may fly towards heaven for the earth I undervalue How I am satisfied that 〈◊〉 am but Ashes that I may but be