Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,
And almost thence my nature is subdued
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand :
Pity me then and wish I were renew'd;
Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink
Potions of eisel 'gainst my strong infection;
No bitterness that I will bitter think,
Nor double penance, to correct correction.

Sonnet, cx.

Humility and Contrition in Wiew

of Death.

Since repentance is a duty of so great and giant-like bulk, let no man crowd it up into so narrow room as that it is strangled in its birth for want of time, and air to breathe in.

longer mourn for me when I

JEREMY TAYLOR.

am dead
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell

Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell :
Nay, if you read this line, remember not

The hand that writ it; for I love you so

That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
say, you look upon this verse

O, if,
I
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,
But let your love even with my life decay,

Lest the wise world should look into your moan
And mock you with me after I am gone.

O, lest the world should task you to recite
What merit lived in me, that you should love
After my death, dear love, forget me quite,

For you in me can nothing worthy prove;
Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,
To do more for me than mine own desert,
And hang more praise upon deceased I
Than niggard truth would willingly impart :
O, lest your true love may seem false in this,
That you for love speak well of me untrue,
My name be buried where my body is,
And live no more to shame nor me nor you.

For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,
And so should you to love things nothing worth.
That time of year thou mayest in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day

As after sunset fadeth in the west,

Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou seest the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire

Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.

This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

Sonnets, lxxi., lxxii., lxxiii.

Last Words.

There is nothing in history which is so improving to the reader as those accounts which we must write of the deaths of eminent persons, and of their behaviour in that dreadful season.

JOSEPH ADDISON, Spectator, No. 289.

O, BUT they say the tongues of dying men

Enforce attention like deep harmony:

Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain,
For they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain.
He that no more must say is listen'd more

Than they whom youth and ease have taught to glose;
More are men's ends mark'd than their lives before :
The setting sun, and music at the close,

As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last,

Writ in remembrance more than things long past:
Though Richard my

life's counsel would not hear,

King Richard II., Act ii. Sc. 1, l. 5.

My death's sad tale may yet undeaf his ear.

FROM

Shakespeare's Will.

First, I commend my soule into the handes of God my Creator,

Hoping and assuredlie beleeving,

Through thonelie merites of Jesus Christe my Saviour,

To be made partaker of lyfe everlastinge,

And my bodye to the earth

Whereof yt ys made.