"Great travail is created for every man, and a heavy yoke upon the sons of Adam, from the day that they go out of their _mother's womb_, till the day that they return to the _mother of all things_."--_Ecclus._ xl. 1.: cf. 2 _Esdr._ vii. 12, 13. "Never to have been born, the wise man first Would wish; and, next, as soon as born to die."--_Anth. Graec._(Posidippus). In the affecting story of Cleobis and Biton, as related by Herodotus, we read,-- "The _best end of life_ happened to them, and the Deity showed in their case that _it is better for a man to die than to live_." [Greek: Diedexe te en toutoisi ho Theos hos ameinon eie anthropoi tethanai mallon e zoein.]--Herod., [Greek: KLEIO]. i. 32. "As for all other living creatures, there is not one but, by a secret instinct of nature, knoweth his owne good and whereto he is made able.... Man onely knoweth nothing unlesse hee be taught. He can neither speake nor goe, nor eat, otherwise than he is trained to it: and, to be short, apt and good at nothing he is naturally, but to pule and crie. And hereupon it is that some have been of this opinion, _that better it had been, and simply best, for a man never to have been born, or else speedily to die_."--Pliny's _Nat. Hist._ by Holland, Intr. to b. vii. "_Happy the mortal man_, who now at last Has through this doleful vale of misery passed; Who to his destined stage has carry'd on The tedious load, and laid his burden down; Whom the cut brass or wounded marble shows Victor o'er Life, and all her train of woes. _He_, _happier yet_, who, privileged by Fate To shorter labour and a lighter weight, Received but yesterday the gift of breath, Order'd to-morrow to return to death. But O! beyond description, _happiest he_ Who ne'er must roll on life's tumultuous sea; Who with bless'd freedom, from the general doom Exempt, must never face the teeming womb, Nor see the sun, nor sink into the tomb! Who breathes must suffer; and who thinks must mourn; _And he alone is blessed who ne'er was born_."--Prior's _Solomon_, b. iii. The proverbs, "God takes those soonest whom He loveth best," and, "Whom the gods love die young," have been already illustrated in "N. & Q." (Vol. iii., pp. 302. 377.). "I have learned from religion, that an early death has often been the reward of piety," said the Emperor Julian on his death-bed. (See Gibbon, ch. xxiv.) 2. "_Judge none blessed before his death_."[1] "Ante mortem ne laudes hominem," saith the son of Sirach, xi. 28. Of this sentiment St. Chrysostom expresses his admiration, Hom. li. in. S. Eustath.; and heathen writers afford very close parallels: [Greek: Prin d' an teleutese epischeein mede kaleein ko olbion all' eutuchea,] says Solon to Croesus (Herod., [Greek: KLEIO.] i. 32.): cf. Aristot., _Eth. Nic._ ch. x., for a comment on this passage.