To be ignorant of evils to come, as well as forgetful of past, Sir Thomas Browne hails as a merciful provision of nature, “whereby we digest the mixture of our few and evil days.” In another of his works the fine old physician would have us, in the heyday of prosperity, “think of sullen vicissitudes,” but beat not our brains to foreknow them. “Be armed against such obscurities, rather by submission than fore-knowledge. The knowledge of future evils modifies present felicities, and there is more content in the uncertainty or ignorance of them. This favour our Saviour vouchsafed unto Peter, when he foretold not his death in plain terms, and so by an ambiguous and cloudy delivery damped not the spirit of His disciples. But in the assured fore-knowledge of the deluge, Noah lived many years under the affliction of a flood, and Jerusalem was taken unto Jeremy before it was besieged.” Holy George Herbert is scarcely more quaint in verse than Sir Thomas Browne in prose: “Only the present is thy part and fee. And happy thou, If, though thou didst not beat thy future brow, Thou couldst well see What present things required of thee. They ask enough; why shouldst thou further go? Raise not the mud Of future depths, but drink the clear and good. Dig not for woe In times to come; for it will grow. Man and the present fit; if he _provide_ He breaks the square. This hour is mine: if for the next I care, I grow too wide, And do crusade upon death’s side: For death each hour environs and surrounds. He that would know And care for future chances, cannot go Unto those grounds, But thro’ a churchyard which them bounds.”