Time which antiquates Antiquities, and hath an art to make dust of all things, hath yet spared these _minor_ Monuments. In vain we hope to be known by open and visible conservatories, when to be unknown was the means of their continuation and obscurity their protection: If they dyed by violent hands, and were thrust into their Urnes, these bones become considerable, and some old Philosophers would honour them,[91] whose soules they conceived most pure, which were thus snatched from their bodies; and to retain a stronger propension unto them: whereas they weariedly left a languishing corps, and with faint desires of reunion. If they fell by long and aged decay, yet wrapt up in the bundle of time, they fall into indistinction, and make but one blot with Infants. If we begin to die when we live, and long life be but a prolongation of death; our life is a sad composition; we live with death, and die not in a moment. How many pulses made up the life of _Methuselah_, were work for _Archimedes_: Common Counters sum up the life of _Moses_ his man.[92] Our dayes become considerable like petty sums by minute accumulations; where numerous fractions make up but small round numbers; and our dayes of a span long make not one little finger.[93] [91] Oracula Chaldaica cum scholiis Pselli et Phethonis. Βίη λιπóντων σῶμα ψυχαὶ καθαρώταται. Vi corpus relinquentium animæ purissimæ. [92] _In the Psalme of_ Moses. [93] _According to the ancient Arithmetick of the hand wherein the little finger of the right hand contracted, signified an hundred._ Pierius in Hieroglyph. If the nearnesse of our last necessity, brought a nearer conformity unto it, there were a happinesse in hoary hairs, and no calamity in half senses. But the long habit of living indisposeth us for dying; When Avarice makes us the sport of death; When even _David_ grew politickly cruel; and _Solomon_ could hardly be said to be the wisest of men. But many are to early old, and before the date of age. Adversity stretcheth our dayes, misery makes _Alcmenas_ nights,[94] and time hath no wings unto it. But the most tedious being is that which can unwish it self, content to be nothing, or never to have been, which was beyond the _male_-content of _Job_, who cursed not the day of his life, but his Nativity; Content to have so far been, as to have a title to future being; Although he had lived here but in an hidden state of life, and as it were an abortion. [94] _One night as long as three._ [Sidenote: _The puzling questions of_ Tiberius _unto Grammarians. Marcel. Donatus in Suet._ Κλυτὰ ἔθνεα νεκρῶν. Hom. Job.]