o terrible in itself as the concomitants of it, a loathsome disease, pain,
horror, &c. and many times the manner of it, to be hanged, to be broken on
the wheel, to be burned alive. [3882]Servetus the heretic, that suffered in
Geneva, when he was brought to the stake, and saw the executioner come with
fire in his hand, _homo viso igne tam horrendum exclamavit, ut universum
populum perterrefecerit_, roared so loud, that he terrified the people. An
old stoic would have scorned this. It troubles some to be unburied, or so:

------"non te optima mater
Condet humi, patriove onerabit membra sepulchro;
Alitibus linguere feris, et gurgite mersum
Unda feret, piscesque impasti vulnera lambent."

"Thy gentle parents shall not bury thee,
Amongst thine ancestors entomb'd to be,
But feral fowl thy carcass shall devour,
Or drowned corps hungry fish maws shall scour."

As Socrates told Crito, it concerns me not what is done with me when I am
dead; _Facilis jactura sepulchri_: I care not so long as I feel it not; let
them set mine head on the pike of Tenerife, and my quarters in the four
parts of the world,--_pascam licet in cruce corvos_, let wolves or bears
devour me;--[3883]_Caelo tegitur qui non habet urnam_, the canopy of heaven
covers him that hath no tomb. So likewise for our friends, why should their
departure so much trouble us? They are better as we hope, and for what then
dost thou lament, as those do whom Paul taxed in his time, 1 Thes. iv. 13.
"that have no hope"? 'Tis fit there should be some solemnity.

[3884] "Sed sepelire decet defunctum, pectore forti,
Constantes, unumque diem fletui indulgentes."

Job's friends said not a word to him the first seven days, but let sorrow
and discontent take their course, themselves sitting sad and silent by him.
When Jupiter himself wept for Sarpedon, what else did the poet insinuate,
but that some sorrow is good

[3885] "Quis matrem nisi mentis inops in funere nati
Flere vetat?"------

who can blame a tender mother if she weep for her children? Beside, as
[3886]Plutarch holds, 'tis not in our power not to lament, _Indolentia non
cuivis contingit_, it takes away mercy and pity, not to be sad; 'tis a
natural passion to weep for our friends, an irresistible passion to lament
and grieve. "I know not how" (saith Seneca) "but sometimes 'tis good to be
miserable in misery: and for the most part all grief eva