Whilst we look on
these, we admire not observations of coals found fresh
after four hundred years. In a long-deserted habitation
even egg-shells have been found fresh, not tending to
corruption.
In the monument of King Childerick the iron relicks
were found all rusty and crumbling into pieces; but
our little iron pins, which fastened the ivory works,
held well together, and lost not their magnetical quality,
though wanting a tenacious moisture for the firmer
union of parts; although it be hardly drawn into fusion,
yet that metal soon submitteth unto rust and dissolu-
tion. In the brazen pieces we admired not the duration,
but the freedom from rust, and ill savour, upon the
hardest attrition; but now exposed unto the piercing
atoms of air, in the space of a few months, they begin
to spot and betray their green entrails. We conceive
not these urns to have descended thus naked as they
appear, or to have entered their graves without the old
habit of flowers. The urn of Philopoemen was so laden
with flowers and ribbons, that it afforded no sight of
itself.
Pages:
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229