(Vol. iii., p. 188.)
I have not been able to trace this sentence to its source, but it would
most probably be found in that admirable book, _Monosinii Floris Italicae
Linguae_, 4to, Venet., 1604; or in Torriano's _Dictionary of Italian
Proverbs and Phrases_, folio, Lond., 1666, a book of which Duplessis doubts
the existence! Most of Jeremy Taylor's citations from the Italian are
proverbial phrases. Your correspondent has probably copied the phrase as it
stands in Bohn's edition of the _Holy Living and Dying_, but there is a
trifling variation as it stands in the first edition of _Holy Living_,
1650:--
"Lavora come se tu _havesti_ a campar ogni hora:
Adora come se tu _havesti_ a morir _alhora_."
The universality of this maxim, in ages and countries remote from each
other, is remarkable. Thus we find it in the HITOPADESA:
"A wise man should think upon knowledge and wealth as if he were
undecaying and immortal. He should practise duty as if he were seized
by the hair of his head by Death."--Johnson's _Translation_, Intr. S.
So Democratis of Abdera, more sententiously:
"[Greek: Houtos peiro zen, hos kai oligon kai polun chronon
biosomenos]."
Then descending to the fifteenth century, we {227} have it thus in the racy
old Saxon _Laine Doctrinal_:
"Men schal leven, unde darumme sorgen,
Alse men Staerven sholde morgen,
Unde leren ernst liken,
Alse men leven sholde ewigliken."
Where the author of the _Voyage autour de ma Chambre_, Jean Xavier Maitre,
stumbled upon it, or whether it was a spontaneous thought, does not appear;
but in his pleasing little book, _Lettres sur la Vieillesse_, we have it
thus verbatim:
"Il faut vivre comme si l'on avoit a mourir demain, mais s'arranger en
meme temps sa vie, autant que cet arrangement peut dependre de notre
prevoyance, comme si l'on avoit devant soi quelques siecles, et meme
une eternite d'existence."
Some of your correspondents may possibly be able to indicate other
repetitions of this truly "golden sentence," which cannot be too often
repeated, for we all know that
"A verse may reach him who a sermon flies."