, there is not one but, by a secret
instinct of nature, knoweth his owne good and whereto he is made
able.... Man onely knoweth nothing unlesse hee be taught. He can
neither speake nor goe, nor eat, otherwise than he is trained to it:
and, to be short, apt and good at nothing he is naturally, but to pule
and crie. And hereupon it is that some have been of this opinion, _that
better it had been, and simply best, for a man never to have been born,
or else speedily to die_."--Pliny's _Nat. Hist._ by Holland, Intr. to
b. vii.

"_Happy the mortal man_, who now at last
Has through this doleful vale of misery passed;
Who to his destined stage has carry'd on
The tedious load, and laid his burden down;
Whom the cut brass or wounded marble shows
Victor o'er Life, and all her train of woes.
_He_, _happier yet_, who, privileged by Fate
To shorter labour and a lighter weight,
Received but yesterday the gift of breath,
Order'd to-morrow to return to death.
But O! beyond description, _happiest he_
Who ne'er must roll on life's tumultuous sea;
Who with bless'd freedom, from the general doom
Exempt, must never face the teeming womb,
Nor see the sun, nor sink into the tomb!
Who breathes must suffer; and who thinks must mourn;
_And he alone is blessed who ne'er was born_."--Prior's _Solomon_, b.
iii.

The proverbs, "God takes those soonest whom He loveth best," and, "Whom the
gods love die young," have been already illustrated in "N. & Q." (Vol.
iii., pp. 302. 377.). "I have learned from religion, that an early death
has often been the reward of piety," said the Emperor Julian on his
death-bed. (See Gibbon, ch. xxiv.)

2. "_Judge none blessed before his death_."[1]

"Ante mortem ne laudes hominem," saith the son of Sirach, xi. 28.

Of this sentiment St. Chrysostom expresses his admiration, Hom. li. in. S.
Eustath.; and heathen writers afford very close parallels:

[Greek: Prin d' an teleutese epischeein mede kaleein ko olbion all'
eutuchea,] says Solon to Croesus (Herod., [Greek: KLEIO.] i. 32.): cf.
Aristot., _Eth. Nic._ ch. x., for a comment on this passage.

Sophocles, in the last few lines of the _Oedipus Tyrannus_, thus draws the
moral of his fearful tragedy:

"[Greek: Hoste thneton ont', ekeinen TEN TELEUTAIAN idein]
[Greek: HEMERAN episkopounta, meden' olbizein, PRIN AN]
[Greek: TERMA TOU BIOU perasei, meden algeinon pathon.]