"Quin etiam exhilarare viris convivia caede
Mos olim, et miscere epulis spectacula dira
Certantum ferro, saepe et super ipsa cadentum
Pocula, respersis non parco sanguine mensis."

["It was formerly the custom to enliven banquets with slaughter, and
to combine with the repast the dire spectacle of men contending with
the sword, the dying in many cases falling upon the cups, and
covering the tables with blood."--Silius Italicus, xi. 51.]

And as the Egyptians after their feasts were wont to present the company
with a great image of death, by one that cried out to them, "Drink and be
merry, for such shalt thou be when thou art dead"; so it is my custom to
have death not only in my imagination, but continually in my mouth.
Neither is there anything of which I am so inquisitive, and delight to
inform myself, as the manner of men's deaths, their words, looks, and
bearing; nor any places in history I am so intent upon; and it is
manifest enough, by my crowding in examples of this kind, that I have a
particular fancy for that subject. If I were a writer of books, I would
compile a register, with a comment, of the various deaths of men: he who
should teach men to die would at the same time teach them to live.
Dicarchus made one, to which he gave that title; but it was designed for
another and less profitable end.

Peradventure, some one may object, that the pain and terror of dying so
infinitely exceed all manner of imagination, that the best fencer will be
quite out of his play when it comes to the push. Let them say what they
will: to premeditate is doubtless a very great advantage; and besides, is
it nothing to go so far, at least, without disturbance or alteration?
Moreover, Nature herself assists and encourages us: if the death be
sudden and violent, we have not leisure to fear; if otherwise, I perceive
that as I engage further in my disease, I naturally enter into a certain
loathing and disdain of life. I find I have much more ado to digest this
resolution of dying, when I am well in health, than when languishing of a
fever; and by how much I have less to do with the commodities of life,
by reason that I begin to lose the use and pleasure of them, by so much I
look upon death with less terror. Which makes me hope, that the further
I remove from the first, and the nearer I approach to the latter, I shall
the more easily exchange the one fo