Religio Medici [48]
Sect. 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 the ideas of Plato, falls upon one himself: for his summum bonum is a chimaera; and there is no such thing as his felicity. That wherein God 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.
But who knows the fate of his bones, or how often he is to be buried? Who hath the oracle of his ashes, or whither they are to be scattered? The relicks of many lie like the ruins of Pompey's,* in all parts of the earth; and when they arrive at your hands these may seem to have wandered far, who, in a direct and meridian travel,+
* "Pompeios juvenes Asia atque Europa, sed ipsum terra tegit Libyos." + Little directly but sea, between your house and Green- land.
have but few miles of known earth between yourself and the pole.
That the bones of Theseus should be seen again in Athens* was not beyond conjecture and hopeful expecta- tion: but that these should arise so opportunely to serve yourself was an hit of fate, and honour beyond prediction.
We cannot but wish these urns might have the effect of theatrical vessels and great Hippodrome urns+ in Rome, to resound the acclamations and honour due unto you. But these are sad and sepulchral pitchers, which have no joyful voices; silently expressing old mortality, the ruins of forgotten times, and can only speak with life, how long in this corruptible frame some parts may be uncorrupted; yet able to outlast bones long unborn, and noblest pile among us.
We present not these as any strange sight or spectacle unknown to your eyes, who have beheld the best of urns and noblest variety of ashes; who are yourself no slender master of antiquities, and can daily command the view of so many imperial faces; which raiseth your thoughts unto old things and consideration of times before you, when even living men were antiquities; when the living might exceed the dead, and to depart this world could not be properly said to go unto the greater number.# And so run up your thoughts upon the ancient of days, the antiquary's truest object, unto whom the eldest parcels are young, and earth itself an infant, and without Egyptian$ account makes but small noise in thousands.
* Brought back by Cimon Plutarch. + The great urns at the Hippodrome at Rome, conceived to resound the voices of people at their shows.