GIVE me leave to wonder that news of this nature
should have such heavy wings that you should
hear so little concerning your dearest friend,
and that I must make that unwilling repetition to tell
you
"ad portam rigidos calces extendit," that he is dead
and buried, and by this time no puny among the mighty
nations of the dead; for though he left this world not
very many days past, yet every hour you know largely
addeth unto that dark society; and considering the
incessant mortality of mankind, you cannot conceive
there dieth in the whole earth so few as a thousand an
hour.
Although at this distance you had no early account
or particular of his death, yet your affection may cease
to wonder that you had not some secret sense or intima-
tion thereof by dreams, thoughtful whisperings, mer-
curisms, airy nuncios or sympathetical insinuations,
which many seem to have had at the death of their
dearest friends: for since we find in that famous story,
that spirits themselves were fain to tell their fellows
at a distance that the great Antonio was dead, we have
a sufficient excuse for our ignorance in such particulars,
and must rest content with the common road, and Ap-
pian way of knowledge by information.
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