holds it.

So as, whosoever he be to whom fortune hath been a servant, and the
time a friend, let him but take the account of his memory (for we have
no other keeper of our pleasures past), and truly examine what it hath
reserved, either of beauty and youth, or foregone delights; what it
hath saved, that it might last, of his dearest affections, or of
whatever else the amorous springtime gave his thoughts of contentment,
then invaluable, and he shall find that all the art which his elder
years have can draw no other vapor out of these dissolutions than
heavy, secret, and sad sighs. He shall find nothing remaining but
those sorrows which grow up after our fast-springing youth, overtake
it when it is at a stand, and overtop it utterly when it begins to
wither; insomuch as, looking back from the very instant time, and from
our now being, the poor, diseased, and captive creature hath as little
sense of all his former miseries and pains as he that is most blest,
in common opinion, hath of his forepast pleasures and delights. For
whatsoever is cast behind us is just nothing; and what is to come,
deceitful hope hath it. _Omniae quae eventura sunt in incerto jacent._
Only those few black swans I must except who, having had the grace to
value worldly vanities at no more than their own price, do, by
retaining the comfortable memory of a well-acted life, behold death
without dread, and the grave without fear, and embrace both as
necessary guides to endless glory....

If we seek a reason of the succession and continuance of boundless
ambition in mortal men, we may add, that the kings and princes of the
world have always laid before them the actions, but not the ends of
those great ones which preceded them. They are always transported with
the glory of the one, but they never mind the misery of the other,
till they find the experience in themselves. They neglect the advice
of God while they enjoy life, or hope it, but they follow the counsel
of death upon his first approach. It is he that puts into man all the
wisdom of the world without speaking a word, which God, with all the
words of His law, promises, or threats, doth not infuse. Death, which
hateth and destroyeth man, is believed; God, which hath made him and
loves him, is always deferred. "I have considered," saith Solomon,
"all the works that are under the sun, and, behold, all is vanity and
vexation of spirit"; but who believes it, till death tells it us? It
was death, wh