even thou thyself through perverseness and want of good instruction.
And by reason of this false and deceiving opinion they accuse any kind
of death; for if one die upon his travel, they exclaim after this
manner:—
The wretch, his father being absent, dies;
Nor did his aged mother close his eyes.[168]
If he die in his own country, with his parents about him, they lament
that he is ravished out of their hands, and hath left them nothing but
regret for his loss. If he die silent, giving them no instructions at
parting, they complain thus:—
His tender dying words I did not hear,
Which I in my remembrance still should bear.[169]
If he spoke any thing before he breathed out his soul, they keep those
last accents as fuel to maintain their sorrow still kindled. If he die
a sudden death, they cry out that he is snatched away; if chronical
pains waste him, they will tell you that the slow distemper hath
emaciated him to death. Thus every appearance, take it which way you
will, is sufficient to stir up your complaints. These things the poets
have introduced, and the chiefest among them, Homer, who sung after
this manner:—
As a poor father, helpless and undone,
Mourns o’er the ashes of an only son,
Takes a sad pleasure the last bones to burn,
And pours in tears ere yet they close the urn.[170]
And whether these things are justly lamented doth not yet appear. But
see what he elsewhere sings:—
Born in his elder years, his only boy,
Who was designed his riches to enjoy.[171]
31. Who knows but that the Deity, with a fatherly providence and out of
tenderness to mankind, foreseeing what would happen, hath taken some
purposely out of this life by an untimely death? So we should think
that nothing has befallen them which they should have sought to shun,—