hen, looking upon the
carcass, he knew it, and found it to be the master of the ship, who,
the day before, cast up the accounts of his patrimony and his trade,
and named the day when he thought to be at home. See how the man
swims, who was so angry two days since! His passions are becalmed with
the storm, his accounts cast up, his cares at an end, his voyage done,
and his gains are the strange events of death, which, whether they be
good or evil, the men that are alive seldom trouble themselves
concerning the interest of the dead.

It is a mighty change that is made by the death of every person, and
it is visible to us who are alive. Reckon but from the sprightfulness
of youth, and the fair cheeks and full eyes of childhood; from the
vigorousness and strong flexure of the joints of five-and-twenty, to
the hollowness and deadly paleness, to the loathsomeness and horror of
a three days' burial, and we shall perceive the distance to be very
great and very strange. But so have I seen a rose newly springing from
the clefts of its hood, and, at first, it was fair as the morning, and
full with the dew of heaven, as a lamb's fleece; but when a ruder
breath hath forced open its virgin modesty, and dismantled its too
youthful and unripe retirements, it began to put on darkness, and to
decline to softness and the symptoms of a sickly age; it bowed the
head, and broke its stalk; and at night, having lost some of its
leaves, and all its beauty, it fell into the portion of weeds and
out-worn faces. The same is the portion of every man and every woman;
the heritage of worms and serpents, rottenness and cold dishonour, and
our beauty so changed, that our acquaintance quickly knew us not; and
that change mingled with so much horror, or else meets so with our
fears and weak discoursings, that they who, six hours ago, tended upon
us either with charitable or ambitious services, cannot, without some
regret, stay in the room alone, where the body lies stripped of its
life and honour. I have read of a fair young German gentleman, who,
living, often refused to be pictured, but put off the importunity of
his friends' desire by giving way, that after a few days' burial, they
might send a painter to his vault, and, if they saw cause for it, draw
the image of his death unto the life. They did so, and found his face
half eaten, and his midriff and backbone full of serpents; and so he
stands pictured among his armed ancestors. So does the fairest b