The works of Mr. Thomas Brown, serious and comical : in prose and verse, with his remains in four volumes compleat; vol. IIBrown, Thomas
General
The works of Mr. Thomas Brown, serious and comical : in prose and verse, with his remains in four volumes compleat; vol. II
Brown, Thomas
English wit and humor -- Early works to 1800; Erotic literature -- Early works to 1800; Latin literature -- Translations into English
You are sensible I was a great lover of musick before I departed my
temporal life, but now I am so surfeited with incessant sound, that I
would rather chuse to be as deaf as an adder, than be plagu’d with the
best _ayre_ that ever _Corelli_ made, or the finest _sola_ or _sonata_
that ever was compos’d in _Italy_: for you must know the laws of this
country are such, that every man, for sins in the other world, shall
here be punish’d with excess of that which he there esteem’d most
pleasant and delightful. Lovers, that in your region would hang, or
drown, or run thro’ fire like a couple of salamanders for one another’s
company, are here coupled together like the twins _Castor_ and _Pollux_,
pursuant to their own wishes upon earth, and have all the liberty they
can desire with one another, but must never be separated whilst eternity
endures. This sort of confinement, tho’ ’tis what they once coveted,
makes them so sick of one another in a little time, that they cry out, O
damnable slavery! O diabolical matrimony! and are always drawing two
several ways with all imaginable hatred, endeavouring, to break their
fetters, and pursue variety; thus every one is wedded to what they like
best, and yet every person’s desires teminate in their own misery, which
sufficiently shews there is no other justice to punish us for our
follies, than the objects of our own loose appetites and inclinations;
for that which we are apt to covet most when we are in the upper world,
generally, if obtain’d, proves our greatest unhappiness; therefore,
since experience would not teach us to bridle our inclinations on the
other side the grave, the pleasures we pursued when we were living, are,
after death, appointed to be our punishments.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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