But in this latter scene
of time, we cannot expect such mummies unto our
memories, when ambition may fear the prophecy of
Elias,* and Charles the Fifth can never hope to live
within two Methuselahs of Hector.+
And therefore, restless inquietude for the diuturnity
of our memories unto the present considerations seems
a vanity almost out of date, and superannuated piece of
folly. We cannot hope to live so long in our names,
as some have done in their persons. One face of Janus
holds no proportion unto the other. 'Tis too late to be
ambitious. The great mutations of the world are acted,
or time may be too short for our designs. To extend
our memories by monuments, whose death we daily
pray for, and whose duration we cannot hope, without
injury to our expectations in the advent of the last day,
were a contradiction to our beliefs. We whose genera-
tions are ordained in this setting part of time, are pro-
videntially taken off from such imaginations; and,
being necessitated to eye the remaining particle of
* That the world may last but six thousand years.
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