was ignorant whether the same destiny did not await me. Yet did not this thought add one wrinkle to my brow. It is impossible, indeed, but at first we must feel a pang from such ideas; but, by often revolving them in the mind, they at last become so familiar as to give no pain; otherwise I should be in a perpetual frenzy and affright. No man is so distrustful of life, or so indifferent as to its duration. It constantly. occurs to my mind, that I escape every minute, and a voice whispers me, do not protract till another day, what can be completed to day. Certainly evil chances have very little effect in hastening death, if we consider how many. threatening dangers hang over our heads besides those which we have escaped. We shall find the healthful, and the sick; those tossed about on the sea, and those that sit quietly at home, are equally near to death: as Seneca says, "The one is not more safe than the other; no one is sure of to-morrow." Had I ever so much leisure, and only the business of an hour to complete the necessary preparation for my death, I should not defer executing it. A friend

E 6

A friend of mine the other day found a memorandum in my pocket-book, concerning some directions to be observed after my death: when I informed him, that being merry, in health, and only a league distant from home, I noted the circumstance down as it occurred to my mind, because I could not be certain I should live to go home.

Since we are menaced with so many sorts of death, why should we fear them all, when we can only sustain one? The very foundation of our religion is the contempt of life; and if we can once conquer the apprehension of death, then we may be said indeed to enjoy free and genuine liberty, as this is the only step that can liberate us from trouble and misery.

When Socrates was informed that the thirty tyrants had sentenced him to death, he exclaimed," and nature them." We should be always ready booted and spurred to pursue our journey, and, above all, be upon our guard not to have business to settle with any other than ourselves. One man complains that death will prevent his gaining a glorious victory; another regrets his departure before he has married his daugh

ter,

ter, or provided for his sons; the one laments the separation from his wife, the other from his family, as his principal distress: but I thank my God, no one is more ready to obey his will, and bid adieu to the world, and all its enjoyments, than I am at this hour. Under these circumstances the most sudden deaths are the happiest.

Bounded as we are to a short life, wherefore do we form such vast projects, or at least be so anxious for their completion? for we have sufficient employment without superfluous additions. Miserable and unhappy that I am, they exclaim, one single and unfortunate day has deprived me of all the riches and the charms of life; behold the battlements and buildings that I leave unfinished. Yet man never was designed to be inactive; and I trust I may be permitted to prolong the reasonable offices of life, and then let death find me planting my cabbages, but indifferent as to its approach, and still more so whether my garden is finished or unfinished.

Were I a writer of books, I would form a register or commentary on different deaths, as

by

by teaching men how to die, it would also teach them how to live. Some persons may objects that the pains and terror of dying so much exceed our imagination, that the best fencer may be foiled when he is attacked by death. Be it so, but to premeditate is doubtless a great advantage. If a short and violent death overtakes us, we have no leisure for fear; if otherwise, the further we advance in the road of sickness and disease, the more contempt we shall naturally feel for life, and the more willingly we shall enter into composition for the exchange. An old worn-out soldier of Cæsar's guards requested his permission to kill himself. Cæsar, observing his withered body, and decrepid motion, pleasantly answered, "Thou fanciest then that thou art still alive?"

Should a man suddenly sink into the impo tences ofage, from a sprightly and vigorous youth, humanity could scarcely support the change. But nature leads us by the hand down a gentle declivity, step by step, and conducts and sustains us lo that miserable state, when we feel youth die within us without any violent shock: this alteration, however, is really more severe than

the

the final dissolution of a languishing body, which is only the death of old age.

To lament that we shall not be alive a hundred years hence, is the same folly as to be sorry we did not live a hundred years ago. Nothing can be very grievous that happens but once; and is it reasonable to sear for so long time a thing that will be so soon passed over? A short life or a long one is rendered equal by death; for nothing is long or short that is no more; Aristotle says, there are certain animals on the banks of the river Hyspanis, that live only a single day. They that die at five in the morning, die in their youth; and those that. die at five in the evening, in extreme age. Which of us would not smile to think that such a moment of existence should be deemed either happiness or misery? and yet the longest or shortest of our lives, when compared with eternity, or even with the duration of mountains, rivers, trees, or stars, is no less ridiculous.

But Nature thus exhorts us: "Depart (she says) from this world as thou enteredst into it. As thou madest the passage from death to life without