I do not envy the temper<55> of crows and daws, nor the
numerous and weary days of our fathers before the
flood. If there be any truth in astrology, I may outlive
* Who willed his friend not to bury him, but to hang him
up with a staff in his hand, to fright away the crows.
+ "Pharsalia," vii. 819.
a jubilee;<56> as yet I have not seen one revolution of
Saturn,<57> nor hath my pulse beat thirty years, and yet,
excepting one,<58> have seen the ashes of, and left under
ground, all the kings of Europe; have been contem-
porary to three emperors, four grand signiors, and as
many popes: methinks I have outlived myself, and
begin to be weary of the sun; I have shaken hands with
delight in my warm blood and canicular days; I
perceive I do anticipate the vices of age; the world to
me is but a dream or mock-show, and we all therein but
pantaloons and anticks, to my severer contemplations.
Sect. 42.--It is not, I confess, an unlawful prayer to
desire to surpass the days of our Saviour, or wish to
outlive that age wherein he thought fittest to die; yet, if
(as divinity affirms) there shall be no grey hairs in heaven,
but all shall rise in the perfect state of men, we do
but outlive those perfections in this world, to be recalled
unto them by a greater miracle in the next, and run on
here but to be retrograde hereafter.
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