atures; and being
framed below the circumference of these hopes, or cognition of better
being, the wisdom of God hath necessitated their contentment. But the
superior ingredient and obscured part of ourselves, whereto all present
felicities afford no resting contentment, will be able at last to tell
us we are more than our present selves, and evacuate such hopes in the
fruition of their own accomplishments....

But the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals
with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity. Who
can but pity the founder of the pyramids? Erostratus lives that burnt
the Temple of Diana; he is almost lost that built it. Time hath spared
the epitaph of Adrian's horse, confounded that of himself. In vain we
compute our felicities by the advantage of our good names, since bad
have equal durations; and Thersites is like to live as long as
Agamemnon. Who knows whether the best of men be known, or whether there
be not more remarkable persons forgot than any that stand remembered in
the known account of time? Without the favor of the everlasting
register, the first man had been as unknown as the last, and
Methuselah's long life had been his only chronicle.

Oblivion is not to be hired. 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
recorded 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 of life, and even pagans could doubt whether
thus to live were to die; since our longest sun sets at right
declensions, and makes but winter arches, and therefore it cannot be
long before we lie down in darkness, and have our light in ashes[4];
since the brother of death daily haunts us with dying mementos, and
time, that grows old itself, bids us hope no long duration, diuturnity
is a dream and folly of expectation.

[Footnote 4: According to the custom of the Jews, who placed a lighted
wax candle in a pot of ashes by the corpse.]

Darkness and light divide the course of time, and oblivion shares with
memory a great part even of our living beings. We slightly remember our
felicities, and the smartest strokes o