296 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 231. 



Abbey, who had lands for that purpose." (Lysons* 

 Environs, edit. 4to., 1792, vol. i. p. 327.) 



It is due to your readers to state, that the 

 authorities for the statements made in the former 

 part of this paper are these : Lysons' Environs, ut 

 supra, vol. i. pp. 325. 327. ; Manning and Bray's 

 Surrey, Lond., 1809, fol„ vol. iii. pp. 484—488.; 

 Stow, Annales, edit. 4to., 1601, pp. 432, 433. ; and 

 Bill. Top. Brit, 4to., 1790, vol. ii. "History and 

 Antiq. of Lambeth," p. 89. 



W. Sparrow SrarsoN. 



Kennington. 



LIFE AND DEATH. 



I have thrown together a few paralled passages 

 for your pages, which may prove acceptable. 

 I. "To die is hetter than to live." 



" I praised the dead which are already dead more 

 than the living which are yet alive. Yea, better is he 

 than both they, which hath not yet been, who hath not 

 seen the evil work that is done under the sun." — 

 Eccles. iv. 2, 3. 



" Great travail is created for every man, and a 

 heavy yoke upon the sons of Adam, from the day that 

 they go out. of their mother's womb, till the day that 

 tbey return to the mother of all things." — Ecclus. xl. 1.: 

 cf. 2 Esdr. vii. 12, 13. 



" Never to have been born, the wise man first 

 Would wish ; and, next, as soon as born to die." 

 Anth. Grmc. ( Posidippus). 



In the affecting story of Cleobis and Biton, as 

 related by Herodotus, we read, — 



" The best end of life happened to them, and the 

 Deity showed in their case that it is better for a man to 

 die than to live." 



" Aie'Se^e re iv Tovroiai <) ®eos a>J S.v.eivov {"■/] avQpuircp 

 reddvai /jluWov v) faeiv." — Herod., KAEIfl. i. 32. 



" As for all other living creatures, there is not one 

 but, by a secret instinct of nature, knoweth his owne 



good and whereto he is made able Man onely 



inoweth 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 

 horn, 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. 



i 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 ou his 

 death-bed. (See Gibbon, ch. xxiv.) 



2. " Judge none blessed before his death."* 



" Ante mortem nelaudes hominem," saith the son of 

 Sirach, xi. 28. 



Of this sentiment St. Chrysostom expresses his ad- 

 miration, Horn. Ii. in. S. Eustath. ; and heathen 

 writers afford very close parallels : 



" Uplp 8* av Te\et>T7j<x>? eTUTXtew M^e KaXeeiv Km oK- 

 giov &AA' eyTux«' a >" sa J' s Solon to Croesus (Herod., 

 KAEin. i. 32.) : cf. Aristot., Eth. Nic. ch. x., for a com- 

 ment on this passage. 



Sophocles, in the last few lines of the (Edipus 

 Tyrannus, thus draws the moral of his fearful 

 tragedy : 



""Clare &vr\Thv out', iKslvi)V t?jc TeXeur aiav tSeTv 

 'Hp.e'pav eTTiffKOTTovvTa, ,it7j8eV o\€i£eiv, irplv SP 

 Tip p. a rod /3iou -rrepderr;, /xTjSej/ a.Ayeivbi' -naOdv." 



Elmsley, on this passage, gives the following re- 

 ferences : Track I. Soph. Tereo, fr. 10. ; ibid. 

 Tyndar. fr. 1. ; Agam., 937.; Androm., 100.; 

 Troad., 509. ; Heracl., 865. ; Dionys. ap. Stob., 

 ciii. p. 560. ; Gesn., cv. p. 431. ; Grot. To which 

 I may add the oft-quoted lines, — 



" Ultima semper 

 Expectanda dies, homini dicique beatus 

 Ante obitum nemo supremaque funera debet." 



In farther illustration of this passage from Ec- 

 clus., let us consider the Death of the Righteous. 



" Let me die the death of the righteous, and let 

 my last end be like his," exclaims the truth-com- 

 pelled and reluctant prophet, Numb, xxiii. 10. 



The royal Psalmist, after reflecting on the pros- 

 perity of the wicked in this world, adds : 

 " Then thought I to understand this, 

 But it was too hard for me, 

 Until I went into the sanctuary of God I 

 Then understood I the end of these men." 



Ps. lxxiii. 

 And again : 



" I have seen the wicked in great power, 

 And spreading himself like a green bay-tree; 



* Cf. Sir Thos. Browne's Christian Morals, sect. ix. 



