THE CHIEFTAINS FIGHT ONLY FOR THEIR PLACE | commit cruel acts, will always have cause to fear.

OF BURIAL.

The chieftains contend only for their place of burial.

So Gray in "Elegy ":-

"The paths of glory lead but to the grave."

THE BRAVE MAN.

THE UNFORTUNATE.

It is not becoming to turn from friends in adversity, but then it is for those who have basked in the sunshine of their prosperity to adhere to them. No one was ever so foolish as to select the unfortunate for their friends.

The very fear of an impending misfortune has driven many a coward to dare the utmost danger. That man is truly brave who, prepared to meet THE SOUL OF THE GOOD LEAPS UP TO HEAVEN every extremity, if it is close at hand, is also able to wait coolly for its approach.

WAR.

Neither side is guiltless, if its adversary is appointed judge.

THE PROSPEROUS.

AT DEATH.

But his soul was not laid in ashes at Pharos, nor could a little heap of dust contain so great a shade; it leapt from the pyre, and leaving the mass of half-burnt bone, sprung towards the vaulted throne of the Thunderer. Where the murky air meets the starry circles, midway between our earth and the orbit of the moon, there dwell the sainted Manes, whom, innocent in life,

While a man enjoys prosperity, he knows not fiery virtue directed to the lower abode of God,

whether he is beloved

THE WORLD'S CONFLAGRATION. These nations, Cæsar, if the fire does not devour them, with the earth it will consume, with the waters of the deep it will consume. One common pile remains for the world, destined to mingle the stars with its bones. Whithersoever Fortune shall summon thee, thither these souls also are wending. Thou shalt not rise higher into the air than these, nor in a more favored spot shalt thou lie beneath the Stygian night. Death is secure from Fortune. The earth receives everything which she has produced! he who has no urn is covered by the heavens.

TIME.

Thus does a life too lengthened bring sorrow to mighty souls when loss of empire comes with length of days. Unless our own end and that of our blessings be at the same moment, and our sorrows be anticipated by speedy death, our former happiness adds strength to our grief. Does any one dare to trust himself to prosperity, if he possess not a heart prepared for death?

NORTHERN NATIONS.

and gathered in eternal mansions. Those laid in gold and perfumes do not come hither. After he had feasted himself on the pure light, and admired the wandering planets and pole-fixed stars, he beheld the mist of darkness that enfolds our brightest days, and mocked the farce called death, in which his own maimed body lay.

AN ILLUSTRIOUS NAME.

A name illustrious and revered by nations.

DEATH.

Free death is man's first bliss, the next is to be slain.

GOD.

We are all dependent on God, and even when His temples sound not His praise, we are able to do nothing without His will: neither does the divinity require words to express His commands; the Almighty has told us once for all at our birth whatever is allowed us to know; nor has He confined His knowledge to the barren Libyan sands to teach the sparse inhabitants around, nor has He drowned His truths amidst desert wilds. Does God choose for His abode any spot except this earth, sea, air, and heaven, and, above all, virtuous minds? Why seek for God elsewhere? God is in everything thou seest, and wherever thou movest. Let doubting mortals consult juggling priests, and those who ever live in fear and anxiety. It is not oracles, but the certainty of death that gives firmness to my mind. The coward and the brave are doomed to fall; it is As far as the stars are from the earth, and as different as fire is from water, so much do self-in-enough that God has told us this undoubted terest and integrity differ.

522

LUCRETIUS.

BORN B.C. 95-DIED B.C. 52.

NO ANNIHILATION.

Besides nature resolves everything into its component elements, but annihilates nothing; for if the substances of bodies could die, they would suddenly vanish from our sight.

DEATH EASILY CAUSED.

For certainly one single touch would be the stroke of fate.

STORM OF WIND.

T. LUCRETIUS CARUS, a celebrated Roman poet, respecting whose personal history very scanty materials have come down to us. The Eusebian chronicle fixes his birth B.C. 95, and adds that he was driven mad by a love potion, composing during his lucid intervals works which were revised by Cicero. It is supposed that his poem De Rerum Naturâ, was given to the world B.C. 57, when the machinations of Clodius were disturb- In the first place, the fierce fury of the wind ing the Roman state. It is a philosophical didac-ploughing up the sea, tears to pieces the stoutest tic poem, composed in heroic hexameters, divided ships, and drives the clouds before it; sometimes into six books, containing upwards of 7400 lines, rushing on with rapid course, it strews the plains and is addressed to C. Memmius Gemellus, who with lofty trees, beats the highest mountains with was prætor B.C. 58. It gives a complete exposi-wood-destroying blasts; with such thundering tion of the religious, moral, and physical doctrines noise and wild roaring does the sea rage. of Epicurus.

VENUS.

EFFECTS OF TIME.

Nay more, in the revolution of many years, the All-bounteous Venus, parent of Rome, joy of ring on the finger grows less and less by constant men and gods, who under the starry girdle of the use: the drop hollows the stone; the crooked iron heaven makest the ship-bearing sea and fruitful | ploughshare wears away unnoticed in the fields: earth to teem with living creatures, to thee all owe their birth, and springing forth enjoy the enlivening light of day; the winds are hushed and the clouds of heaven disperse at thy approach; the earth with various art puts forth her scented flowers to welcome thee; the waters of the ocean laugh, and the serene sky assumes its brightest hue, as the rays of light are diffused around.

Spenser ("Faerie Queen," iv. c. x. 44) seems thus to translate this passage:

"Great Venus! queene of Beautie and of Grace,
The ioy of gods and men, that under skie,
Doest fayrest shine, and most adorn thy place;
That with thy smiling look doest pacifie

The raging seas, and mak'st the stormes to flie,
Thee, goddesse, thee the winds, the clouds do feare;
And when thou spred'st thy mantle forth on hie,
The waters play and pleasant lands appeare,
And heavens laugh, and all the world shews ioyous cheare."

SUPERSTITION.

we see the paved streets scooped out by treading: the brazen figures that adorn our doors show their hands diminished by the touch of those that visit or pass by.

Crates (Fr. Com. Gr. i. p. 85, M.) says:

"For time has bent me downwards, a cunning craftsman no doubt, but making all things weaker."

THE SENSES.

What can give us more sure knowledge than our senses? With what else can we more surely distinguish the true and false ?

FANCY.

Touching everything lightly with the charm of poetry.

PHYSICIANS.

But as physicians, in giving children bitter draughts, to make them take it, tinge the edges of the cup with the sweet flavor of yellow honey, that the thoughtless child may be cheated by the lip, and then be led on to drink off the nauseous mixture, and being thus harmlessly deceived, may

While men lay with slavish fear prostrate on earth, weighed down by abject superstition, which took its rise from heavenly contemplations, threatening mortals with horrid mien, then at length a Greek (Epicurus) first dared to lift the veil from not be caught for ill, but rather, refreshed by this the eyes of man and assert his natural liberty.

RELIGIOUS BIGOTRY THE CAUSE OF MANY EVILS.

So much mischief was superstitious bigotry able to accomplish.

NATURE OF THE SOUL.

For it is unknown what is the real nature of the soul, whether it be born with the bodily frame or be infused at the moment of birth, whether it perishes along with us, when death separates the soul and body, or whether it visits the shades of Pluto and bottomless pits, or enters by divine appointment into other animals.

proceeding, become convalescent.

PHILOSOPHY.

'Tis sweet, when the seas are roughened by violent winds, to view on land the toils of others, not that there is pleasure in seeing others in distress, but because man is glad to know himself secure. 'Tis pleasant, too, to look, with no share of peril, on the mighty contests of war; but nothing is sweeter than to reach those calm, unruffled temples, raised by the wisdom of philosophers, whence thou mayest look down on poor mistaken mortals, wandering up and down in life's devious ways, some resting their fame on genius, or priding

themselves on birth, day and night toiling anx-| earth, nor are they put to flight by the glistening of iously to rise to high fortune and sovereign power. gold nor the gay sparklings of the purple dye.

The heat of a fever is not more easily got rid of, if thou art tossing on the red purple of embroidered coverings, than if thou wert reclining on the| coarse cloth of the poor. Wherefore, since neither

treasures, nor high rank, nor sovereign power avail true, embrace it; if false, gird up the loins of thy our diseased body, it is certain that they will do mind to withstand it. no good to our mind.

For, O holy and pure gods, dwelling in undisIn reality the alarms and cares that nestle in the turbed and everlasting ease, who is there that is breast of man are not dispersed by the noise and able to rule this vast all, and to hold in his hands fierce contest of war; they boldly take up their the reins of the immensity of space? Who is able abode in the breast of kings and the powerful of the to guide the motions of the heavenly bodies, and

VARIETIES IN MANKIND.

to furnish the fruit-bearing earth with ethereal | no more to be feared than what children fear and heat, or to be every moment in every place, to imagine are going to happen. cause darkness with the clouds and shake the serene heaven with thunders, darting lightning and beating down their own temples: or else in vast deserts brandishing his bolts, which often pass over the guilty and strike the just and good.

HEAVEN.

The gods and their tranquil abodes appear, which no winds disturb nor clouds bedew with showers, nor does the white snow, hardened by frost, annoy them; the heaven, always pure, is without clouds, and smiles with pleasant light diffused.

So Homer (Odyss. vi. 41) says:

"Olympus, where, they say, is ever the tranquil abode of the gods, never shaken by winds, nor wet by showers, nor covered by snow, but the sky is ever cloudless, and a bright glory overspreads it."

Tennyson ("Morte d' Arthur ") says:-

"Where falls not hail or rain or any snow,

Nor ever wind blows loudly."

THE DREAD OF WHAT COMES AFter death.

So men's minds differ too; though a liberal education may reform and polish, yet it still leaves some traces of the primitive seeds implanted by nature; nor must we expect all man's evil passions can be eradicated, but each will show his original bent, some being prone to rage, others to despondency, and a third will be more submissive to wrong than is right; in a thousand other ways the characters and dispositions of men differ, whose secret causes I am unable to explain, nor yet find out the names of those original principles whence all this variety takes its rise.

DECAY OF THE MIND.

With the body we plainly perceive that the mind strengthens and decays.

DEATH OF A FATHER.

For now no longer will thy joyful home receive thee, nor will thy chaste wife and prattling chilThat dreadful fear of hell is to be driven out, dren strive with eager haste which shall have the which disturbs the life of man and renders it mis- first kiss, and hang with secret joy round thy neck. erable, overcasting all things with the blackness Thou shalt be no longer able to protect thy propof darkness, and leaving no pure, unalloyed pleas-erty and friends. One fatal day has snatched the

ure.

THE MASK TORN OFF, THE TRUTH REMAINS.

The mask is torn off, and then the reality is seen.

RESULTS OF AMBITION.

In short, avarice and blind ambition, which force wretched men to overleap the line of justice, and sometimes, as the associates and servants of the wicked, to climb night and day with unwearied steps towards wealth and power; these great blots of our life are chiefly caused by the fear of death. For the proud man's contumely, "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," seem as far as possible removed from the pleasures and delights of life-nay, to be at the very gates of death. From which, while men, stirred by senseless fears, strive to fly and get to the greatest distance, they employ their time in amassing wealth by civil commotions and greedily double their vast store, heaping death on death, with cruel joy laughing over their brother's grave; hating and dreading their nearest

vast delights away.

So Gray ("Elegy ") says:

No children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share."

GRIEF.

It is true thou sleepest in death, and there thou shalt lie to all eternity, free from all cares; but we shall mourn thee turned into ashes on the funeral pile, and no length of time shall ever take sorrow from our breast.

SHORTNESS OF THE PLEASURES OF LIFE.

When men recline at table, drink, and crown themselves with garlands, it is as much as to say: "What a short life is this; it has gone, nor must we expect it to return!"

MAN.

Why is it, O man, that thou indulgest in excessive grief? Why shed tears that thou must die? For if thy past life has been one of enjoyment, and if all thy pleasures have not passed Faerie Queen” (v. 12, 1) thus expresses him- through thy mind, as through a sieve, and van

kinsman's feasts.

Spenser in his self:

"Oh sacred hunger of ambitious minds,
And impotent desire of men to reign!
Whom neither dread of God, that devils binds,
Nor laws of men, that commonweals contain,
Nor bands of nature, that wild beasts restrain,
Can keep from outrage and from doing wrong,
Where they may hope a kingdom to obtain:
No faith so firm, no trust can be so strong,
No love so lasting then, that may endure long."

MEN TIMID AS CHILDREN IN THE DARK.

For as children tremble and dread everything in the darkness of night, so we sometimes are frightened in broad daylight by things which are

ished, leaving not a rack behind, why then dost thou not, like a thankful guest, rise cheerfully from life's feast, and with a quiet mind go take thy rest.

LIFE IS GIVEN FOR USE, NOT POSSESSION. Life is not given for a lasting possession, but merely for use.

So 1 Corinthians vi. 20:

"Ye are not your own: ye are bought with a price."

TIME PAST, AND AFTER DEATH NOTHING TO US.
Consider, too, how little it matters to us, those

ages that have run in eternal procession before we were born. Nature places this before us as a mir

Boast not thyself of to-morrow: for thou knowest not

And James iv. 14:

"Ye know not what shall be on the morrow."

ror to warn us how we should regard that time what a day may bring forth."
which will pass after our death. Is there anything
terrible in this, anything sad? Is it not a state
more soft than sleep?

VAIN LABORS.

A Sisyphus is seen by us every day; he it is who strives with mighty pains to get some high office, and always returns sad and disappointed. For to aim at high power, which is never reached, and to endure endless labor, what is this but to roll a vast stone up a hill, which straightway tumbles down again and swiftly reaches the level plain?

GUILTY CONSCIENCE.

Cerberus, the Furies even, black hell, belching forth horrible flames from its jaws,-these are mere fancies, mere empty names; but in this life the fear of pains for wicked deeds is felt acutely, the prison, the fearful fall from the rock, scourges, the executioners, the pitch, the wheel, the torch, these affright the mind. Yet though these be not present, the guilty mind, anticipating evil, scourges and stings itself, nor does it meanwhile see what can be the termination of its misfortunes or the end of its punishments, fearing lest they should be fiercer after death: hence the life of such fools is as wretched as it would be in hell.

LIFE IN DEATH.

THE STATE OF DEATH ETERNAL.

Nor do we take anything at all from the eternity of death by prolonging our life, nor can we manage that we should not be carried off by death though it be long of coming. Wherefore, however long may be those years we spend in life, yet that eternal state of death will still remain, and will not be less long to him who has ended his life to-day than to him who perished months and years before.

ECHO.

When thou seest this, my good friend, thou mayest explain to thyself and others, how in solitary places rocks bring back the image of the search of our friends on the dark mountains and words in proper order, while we are wandering in calling on our lost companions with loud voice. I

have seen rocks return six or seven words for one;

then from hill to hill the dancing words resound. The neighbors imagine and maintain that the goat-footed Satyrs, Nymphs, and Fauns dwell there, and by their wanton sport and wild delights they think that the deep silence of the night is broken, and hence are heard the sound of the lyre and music's softest airs, given back by the fingers

Whose life is dead, even while he is alive and of those musicians: the listening swains hear from

sees.

"In the midst of life we are in death."-Burial Service.

THE GREATEST MEN CEASE TO LIVE.

Nay, the greatest wits and poets, too, cease to live; Homer, their prince, sleeps now in the same forgotten sleep as do the others.

OUGHT MEN TO FEEL IT A HARDSHIP TO DIE?

far, while the goat-faced Pan, shaking the pineleaved garlands on his head, often blows his oaten pipe with his moist lips, lest the reed should cease to send forth a sylvan sound.

Milton ("Paradise Lost," i. 781) says:

"Færy elves,
Whose midnight revels, by a forest side,.
Or fountain, some belated peasant sees,
Or dreams he sees."

SHIPS TURNED ABOUT WITH A VERY SMALL HELM.

Wilt thou then repine, and think it a hardship to die? thou for whom life is well nigh dead even while thou livest and enjoyest the light of day, For a slight breeze with its thin body moving, who wearest away the greater part of thy time in turns the mighty ship with its mighty carcass; sleep, and snorest waking, and ceasest not to see and one hand guides it, as it goes by the merest visions, and bearest about with thee a mind trou-touch, and twists the helm any way it pleases. bled with groundless terrors, and canst not discover the cause of thy never-ending troubles, when staggering thou art oppressed on all sides with a multitude of cares, and reelest rudderless in unsettled thoughts.

STRENUOUS ILLENESS OF THE RICH.

He goes often out of his splendid palace, tired of being in the house, and quickly returns, for he feels that he is no happier abroad. He hurries on, driving his steeds furiously to his countryhouse, as if he were hastening to his house on fire; when he has reached the threshold, he yawns and drops asleep, wooing forgetfulness, and then he hurries back to town in anxiety to revisit it.

BOAST NOT THYSELF OF TO-MORROW. It is doubtful what shall be on the morrow.

So James iii. 4:

"Behold also the ships, which, though they be so great. and are driven of fierce winds, yet are they turned about with a very small helm, whithersoever the governor listeth."

DREAMS.

Whatever studies each takes most delight, or in which we are most engaged during the day, in sleep we dream: the lawyer pleads, makes laws; the soldier fights his battles o'er again; we, too, are busily engaged on what occupies our waking thoughts, tracing nature's laws, and explaining in our native language.

DISSIPATION.

Besides they waste their strength in love's maddening strife, and spend their life under another's will; meanwhile their property is wasted and