had been his only chronicle.

Oblivion is not to be hired.[132] The greater part must be content to be
as though they had not been, to be found in the register of God, not in
the record of man. Twenty-seven names make up the first story, and the
reported names ever since contain not one living century. The number of
the dead long exceedeth all that shall live. The night of time far
surpasseth the day, and who knows when was the equinox? Every hour adds
unto that current arithmetic which scarce stands one moment. And since
death must be the Lucina[133] of life, and even pagans could doubt
whether thus to live were to die; since our longest sun sets at right
descensions and makes but winter arches, and, therefore, it cannot be
long before we lie down in darkness and have our light in ashes. Since
the brother[134] of death daily haunts us with dying mementoes, and time
that grows old in itself bids us hope no long duration; diuturnity is a
dream and folly of expectation....

There is nothing strictly immortal but immortality. Whatever hath no
beginning may be confident of no end. All others have a dependent being
and within the reach of destruction, which is the peculiar of that
necessary essence that cannot destroy itself, and the highest strain of
omnipotency, to be so powerfully constituted as not to suffer even from
the power of itself. But the sufficiency of Christian immortality
frustrates all earthly glory, and the quality of either state after
death makes a folly of posthumous memory. God, who can only[135] destroy
our souls, and hath assured our resurrection, either of our bodies or
names hath directly promised no duration. Wherein there is so much of
chance that the boldest expectants have found unhappy frustrations, and
to hold long subsistence seems but a scape[136] in oblivion. But man is
a noble animal, splendid in ashes and pompous in the grave, solemnizing
nativities and deaths with equal lustre, nor omitting ceremonies of
bravery[137] in the infamy of his nature.

[Footnote 130: Injustice.]
[Footnote 131: See Shakspere's _Troilus and Cressida_.]
[Footnote 132: That is, bribed, bought off.]
[Footnote 133: The goddess of childbirth. We must die to be born again.]
[Footnote 134: Sleep.]
[Footnote 135: That is, the only one who can.]
[Footnote 136: Freak.]
[Footnote 137: Ostentation.]

* * * * *

JOHN DRYDEN.

THE CHARACTER OF ZIMRI.[138]

[From _Absalom and Achitop