REALMS OF GOLD.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 21, 19 October 1907, Page 10

REALMS OF GOLD.

t . —* —— ■ r '■ ■ FROM "URN BURIAL." i f Now since these dead bones have alreai " out-lasted the living ones of Methuselah, ai 1 in a yard undor ground, and thin walls clay, outworn all the strong and spacio j buildings above it, and quietly rested und r the drums and ■ tramplings of three conquest 1 what princo can promise such diuturnity uri > his reliC3, or might not gladly say, "Sic ei 3 componi versus in ossa velim?" Time whii ■ anttquates antiquities, and hath an' art t make dust'of; all things, hath yet spared the ' minor monuments. .' [ In vain we hope to be known by. open ar ■ visible' conservatories when to be unknot . was to be the means of their continuatio: ; and obscurity their protection. If they di< : by violent bauds, and were thrust into the . urns, these' bones became considerable, av some old* "philosophers would honour' ther whose souls they conceived most pure, whit • were thus snatched from their bodies, and : , retain.- a stronger propension unto then ■ whereas they weariedly left a languishir corpse, and with faint desires of re-union. \ they fell by long and aged decay, yet wrappc up in the bundle of time, they fell into indi tinetion, and' make but one blot with infant If we begin to die when .we'*live, and lor life be but a prolongation of death, our li] is a'sad composition; we live with death an die not in a moment. How many pulses mac up the" life' of Methuselah wore work fc Archimedes; common countors sum up the lil of Moses his man. . ;Our days, become coi siderable, like petty sums, by minute a< cumulations, where numerous fractions mail up but small round numbers, and our daj of a span long make not.ono little finger. . What, song the Syrens sang; or what nam Achilles assumed when he hid himself amon women, though puzzling questions, are not b< yond all conjecture. What time the person of these ossuaries.entered the famous nation of the dead, and slept with princes and conn sellors,--might- admit- a' wide solution. Bu who were the, proprietaries of these bones, o whatbodies these made up, were a que? tibn; above antiquarism; not to be solved b, man, nor easily perhaps by spirits, excep we consult the provincial guardians or tli tutelary observators. Had they made as gooi provision, for their names as they had- don for their relics they had not so grossly errei in the art of perpetuation. But to subsist,ii bones, and be .but pyramidally extant, is a fal lacy in duration. ,Vain ashes which,' in th oblivion of names, persons, times, and scxce have found unto themselves a fruitless con finuation, and only arises unto a lato pos ferity, as emblems of mortal' vanities, anti dotes against pride, vain-glory, madding vices Pagan vain-glories which thought the worl< might last for ever, had encuoragement fo ambition, and, finding no atropos unto the im mortality of thoir names, were never damp with the necessity of oblivion. Even old am bitions had the advantage of ours, in the at tempts of their vain glories, who, acting earl; and before the probable meridian of time have by this time found great accomplishmen of thoir designs, whorcby the ancient heroe; have already out-lasted thoir monuments am mechanical preservations. But •in this latto: scene of time we cannot expect such mummiei unto our memories, when ambition may. fea: the prophecy of Elias, and Charles tho Fiftl can nqver.hope to live within two Methuselahi of Hectori .... "-. But the iniquity of oblivion blindly scat tcr'ethher poppy, and deals with the memory of men without distinction of merit to per petuity; ".'Who can but pity the founder of thi Pyramids? Herostratus lives that burnt tin temple of Diana; he is almost lost that built it: Time hath '.spared -the. epitaph 'ot Adrian's horse, confounded'that of himself In; vain we-compute our felicities by the'advantage of our good names, since bas hav( equal durations, and Thersites is like to live as' long as Agamemnon. Who knows whethei the JV best "'of'men be known, or whether there be not more remarkable persons forgot than any that stand remembered in tho ; known account of timo? Without the favour of the everlasting register, tho first man had been as unknown as the last, and Methuselah's long life had been his only chronicle. .Oblivion is. not to be hired. The greater part must be contcot to bo as though they had not been; to be found in the register oi ,God, not in the record of man. Twenty-seven names mako up the first story beforo the flood, and tho recorded names evor-since contain not one living century. Tho. number of the dead long' exceedeth all that live. The night of time far surpasseth the day, and who knows 'when was the equinox?,"'.Every hour adds"*unto that current arithmetic which scarce stands one moment. And since death must be the Lucina of life, since our longest sun sets at right descensus, and makes but winter arches, and therefore it cannot be long before we lie down in darkness, and have our light ashes; since tho brother of death daily haunts us with dying mementoes, and time that grows old in itself bids us hope on long duration,— diuturnity is a dream and folly of expectation., "Darkness and light divide the courso of time, and oblivion shares'with memory a great part ' even of our. living beings; we slightly remember our felicities, and tho smartest strokes of affliction leave but short smart upon' us. Sense endureth no extremities, and sorrows destroy us or themselves. ~To - • into • stones are but fables. Affliotions induce callosities, miseries are slippery, or fall like snow upon us, which notwithstanding is no unhappy stupidity. To be ignorant, of evils to como, and forgetful of evils past," is a merciful provision in Nature whereby we digest the mixture of our few and evil days, and, our delivered senses not relapsing into cutting remembrances, our sorrows are not kept raw by the edgo of repetitions. A great part. of antiquity contented their hopes of subsistjoncy with a transmigration of >■ their souls—a good way to continue their memories, while having the advantage of plural successions, they could not but act something remarkable in such variety of beings, arid .'.enjoying the fame of their past selves,-make accumulation of glory unto their last durations. Others, rather than bo lost in the uncomfortably night of nothing, wero content' to recede into the common being, and make ono particle of the public soul of all things which was no more than to return into their unknown and divine. original again. Egyptian ingenuity was more unsatisfied, contriving their bodies into sweet consistencies again, to,.attend the return of their souls. But all was vanity, feeding the wind, and folly. The Egyptian mummies, which time or Cambyses hath spared, avarice now consumeth. Mummy is become merchandise, Mizniim cures wounds,,and Pharaohis sold for balsams. . . There is nothing strictly, immortal but immortality. ..Whatever hath'no beginning may be confident of no end —which is tho peculiar of. that necessary essence that cannot destroy itself,—And, the highest strain of omnipotency to be so powerfully constituted as not to suffer even from the power of itself; nil others have a dependent being and within the reach of destruction. But the sufficiency of Christian immortality frustrates all earthly glory, and the quality of cither strain after death makes a folly of posthumous memory. God who can only destroy our souls, and hath assured our resurrection,' either of our bodies or names hath directly promised no duration. Wherein there is so much of chance, that the boldest expectants have found unhappy frustration, and'to hold long subsistence seems but a scape in oblivion. But man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave, solemnising nativities and deaths with equal- lustre, nor omitting ceremonies of bravery in tho infamy of his nature. SJK THOMAS BROWNE.