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Book II. hard Work: Others deprived themselves of the most precious Parts of their Bodies, as their Eyes and privy Members, for Fear left their too delightful and too effeminate Service fhould relax and unhinge the Stability and Vigour of their Minds.

But, in Dying, which is the greatest Work we have to Such Exercife do, Practice can be of no Service to us. A cannot affiftus Man may, by Cuftom and Experience, forin Dying. tify himself against Pain, Shame, Poverty, and the like Accidents; but, as to Death, we can make Trial of it but once, and are all to learn what it is, when it comes.

A memorable Inftance of a Roman, who, when dying, obferved the Effect of Death.

There were Men, in ancient Days, fuch excellent Hufbands of their Time, that they tried, in Death itfelf, to tafte and relifh it; and bent their Minds to the utmoft Stretch, to discern what Sort of a Paffage it is; but they have not yet returned to let us know it. Nulla retro via, i. e. There is no Way back again : --Nemo expergitus extat,

Frigida quem femel eft vitai paufa fequuta".

i. e.

No one did ever more awake to Breath,
After once clasp'd in the cold Arms of Death.

Canius Julius, a noble Roman, of fingular Virtue and Conftancy, having been condemned to die by that wicked Monster, Caligula, befides many other wonderful Proofs which he gave of his Refolution, as he was just going to be dispatched by the Executioner, a Philofopher, who was his Friend, asked him : • Well, Canius, what are • your Thoughts now? Or how is your Mind employed? I was propofing, faid he, to obferve, in the fwift Moment of Death, whether I could perceive the Departure of the Soul.' And he promifed that, if he made any Difcovery, he would go the Rounds amongst his Friends, and fhew them what was the State of the Souls'.

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a Lucret. lib. iii. ver. 942, &c. CAD. 14.

This
Man

Seneca de Tranquillitate Animi,

Man philofophized not only unto Death, but in Death itself. What Affurance was it, and what a bold Spirit, to defire that Death fhould be a Leffon to him, and to be at Leifure to think of any Thing elfe in fo great an Affair!

Jus boc animi morientis habebat.

i. e.

of making

How a Man

may, in fome Meafure, make Death familiar

to him.

This Maft'ry of his Mind he, dying, had. And yet, I fancy, there is a certain Way Death familiar to us, and of trying, in fome Measure, what it is. We may have fome Experience of it, if not fuch as is intire and perfect, yet, at least, such as will not be quite ufelefs to us, but may render us more firm and fearlefs. If we cannot come clofe to it, we may approach it, and reconnoitre it; and, if we cannot advance fo far as to its Castle, we may at least discover it, and be thoroughly acquainted with its Avenues. It is not without Reason that we are taught to confider our very Sleep as the Image of Death. Howea- Sleep the Image of Death. fily do we pafs from Waking to Sleeping? With how little Concern do we part with the Knowledge of Light, and of ourfelves? Peradventure, the Faculty of Sleeping would feem useless and contrary to Nature, as it deprives us of all Action and Senfe, were it not that Nature inftructs us by it, that fhe has made us equally both for Life and Death; and, from Life, prefents to us that everlasting State which she has referved for us after this, to accuftom us to it, and to remove our Fear of it, But fuch as, by fome violent Accident, have fallen into a Swoon, and therein loft all Sense, they, in my Opinion, have been very near feeing the true and natural Face of Death, For, as to the Moment of the Paffage, it is not to be feared that it brings with it any Labour or Displeasure, forafmuch as we can have no Feeling without Leisure. Our Sufferings require Time, which is fo fhort and fo precipitated in Death, that it muft neceffarily be infenfible. Tis the Approaches to it that we are to fear, and those E 3

Lucan. lib. viii. ver. 636.

may

Book In may poffibly fall within the Limits of Experience: Many Things fee greater to us in Imagination, than they are in Reality. I have spent a great Part of my Life in full and perfect Health, fuch Health too as was attended with a sprightly Temper and a warm Conftitution. A State of fuch Vigour and Jollity gave me fuch a horrible Idea of Maladies, that, when I came to experience them, I found their Attacks, faint and eafy, in Comparison, of what I had apprehended; and of this I have Experience every Day. If I am fheltered from the Weather in a dry warm Room in a ftormy and tempeftuous Night, I wonder, and am afflicted to think, how they that are then in the Field can bear it; and, if I am there myself, I do not wish to be any where elfe. This Thing alone of being always fhut up in a Room I thought was infupportable, but I was prefently inured to it by being confined to it a Week, nay, a Month together, in a very melancholy, disordered, and weak Condition: And I have found, that, in the Time of my Health, I lamented the Cafe of the Sick much more than I think I need to be lamented when I am so myself; and that, by the Strength of my Appre henfion, the Thing was magnified near one half more than it was in Reality and Truth. I hope the Cafe will be the fame with me at my Death, and that I fhall find the making fuch Preparation, and calling in fo much Affiftance for enabling me to undergo the Stroke of it, were a needlefs Trouble. But we cannot give ourselves too much Advantage, at all Adventures.

which caft him into a long Swoon.

In the Time of our third or fecond Commotions (I don't The Story of well remember which) going one Day abroad, an Accident about a League from my Houfe, which is that happened fituate in the Center of all the Disturbance to Montaigne, by the civil Wars of France, thinking myfelf perfectly fafe, and fo near to the Place of my Retreat, that I had no Occafion for any bet ter Equipage, I took a Pad that was a very eafy Pacer, but not a ftrong one. On my Return home, a fudden Occafion fell out for my making Ufe of this Horse in a Service which he was not much ufed to; for one of my Men, a tall lufty Fellow, mounted upon a strong War

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horfe

horse that was refty, and withal vigorous and found, hav ing a mind to act the Bravo, and to out-ride his Companion, came full Speed into the very Track where I was, and fell, like a Coloffus, upon the little Man and his little Horse, rushing, like Thunder, with fuch a Career of Strength and Weight, that he turned us both over and over, fo that there lay the Horfe overthrown and stunned with the Fall, and I ten or twelve Yards beyond him, ftretched out at my Length on my Back, with my Face all battered and bruifed, my Sword, which I had in my Hand, above ten Yards before me, my Belt broke to Pieces, and myself with no more Motion nor Sense in me than a Log. This was the only Swoon I ever was in to this very Hour. They who were about me, after having tried all the Means they could make Ufe of to bring me to myself, concluding me dead, took me up in their Arms, and had much ado to carry me to my House, which was at the Distance of about half a French League. But, before I got Home, and after having been given over for a dead Man, above two full Hours, I began to move, and to fetch my Breath; for fuch a Quantity of Blood had overcharged my Stomach, that Nature was under a Neceffity of rousing her utmost Strength to throw it off. They then raifed me upon my Feet, when I voided a Bafon full of Clots of pure Blood, as I did feveral times upon the Road; by fo doing I began to recover a little Life, but it was very leifurely, and by fuch fmall Degrees, that my firft Sentiments approached much nearer to Death than Life.

Perche dubbiofa anchor del fuo ritorno,

Non s'affecura attonita la mente.

i. e.

Because the Soul her Mansion half had quit,
And was not fure she should return to it.

The Remembrance of this Accident, which is deeply imprinted in my Soul, reprefenting to me, in fo great a Degree of Perfection, the Image and Idea of Death, re

E 4

Taffe's Jerufalem liberata, Cant. xii. Stanza 74.

conciles

C

Book II conciles me, in fome Sort, to it. When I first began to open my Eyes after my Trance, my Sight was fo disturbed, fo weak and glimmering, that I could then but just difcern there was Light.

come quel ch'or apre, or chiude,

Gli occhi mezzo fra'l fonno e l'effer defto". i. e.

So People in the Morning, e're they rife,

'Twixt Sleep and Wake, open and shut their Eyes.

As to the Functions of the Soul, they advanced in the fame Pace as thofe of the Body. I faw myfelf all bloody, my Doublet being spotted all over with the Blood which I had voided. The firft Thought which occurred to me was, that I had fome Shot in my Hand; and true it is, that, at the fame Time, feveral Pieces were discharged round about us. Death feemed to me to be hovering on my Lips. I fhut my Eyes, to help, as I thought, to push it off, and took a Pleasure in languifhing, and letting myfelf go. This was an Imagination that only floated, as it were, on the Surface of my Mind, which was as tender and as weak as all the reft, tho' indeed not only exempt from Uneafinefs, but partaking of that Pleasure, which thofe feel who sweetly drop into a Slumber. 'Tis my Opinion, this is the very State which those People are in, whom we fee fainting away in the Agonies of Death; and that we lament them without a Caufe, imagining that they are afflicted with grievous Pains, or that their Minds are oppreffed with painful Thoughts. It was always my Notion, contrary to the Opinion of many, and even of Stephen de la Boetius, that those whom we fee confounded and ftupified at the Approaches of their latter End, or quite depreffed with the Length of their Difeafe, or by a Fit of an Apoplexy, or the Fallingfickness,

Whether Swoonings in the Agonies of Death are very painful.

vi morbi fæpe coaltus

Ante oculos aliquis noftros, ut fulminis itu,

Concidit, et fpumas agit, ingemit, et fremit artus;

Taffo, Canto viii. Stanz. 26,

Decipit

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