W HEN the general pyre was out, and the last valediction over, men took a lasting adieu of their interred friends, little expecting the curiosity of future ages should comment upon their ashes; and, having no old experience of the duration of their relicks, held no opinion of such after-considera tions. But who knows the fate of his bones, or how often he is to be buried? Who hath the oracle of his ashes, or whither they are to be scattered? The relicks of many lie like the ruins of Pompey's,* in all parts of the earth; and when they arrive at your hands these may seem to have wandered far, who, in a direct and meridian travel,+ "Pompeios juvenes Asia atque Europa, sed ipsum terrâ tegit Libyos." Little directly but sea, between your house and Greenland. have but few miles of known earth between yourself and the pole. That the bones of Theseus should be seen again in Athens* was not beyond conjecture and hopeful expectation: but that these should arise so opportunely to serve yourself was an hit of fate, and honour beyond prediction. We cannot but wish these urns might have the effect of theatrical vessels and great Hippodrome urns+ in Rome, to resound the acclamations and honour due unto you. But these are sad and sepulchral pitchers, which have no joyful voices; silently expressing old mortality, the ruins of forgotten times, and can only speak with life, how long in this corruptible frame some parts may be uncorrupted; yet able to outlast bones long unborn, and noblest pile among us. We present not these as any strange sight or spectacle unknown to your eyes, who have beheld the best of urns and noblest variety of ashes; who are yourself no slender master of antiquities, and can daily command the view of so many imperial faces; which raiseth your thoughts unto old things and consideration of times before you, when even living men were antiquities; when the living might exceed the dead, and to depart this world could not be properly said to go unto the greater number. And so run up your thoughts upon the ancient of days, the antiquary's truest object, unto whom the eldest parcels are young, and earth itself an infant, and without Egyptian§ account makes but small noise in thousands. * Brought back by Cimon Plutarch. + The great urns at the Hippodrome at Rome, conceived to resound the voices of people at their shows. "Abiit ad plures." § Which makes the world so many years old. |