100 History of Nature. [BooK 11. 



(Mother) of God, even so is she of Men. She it is that 

 taketh us when we are coming into the World, nourisheth us 

 when we are new born : and once being come abroad, ever 

 sustaiueth us: and at the last, when we are rejected of all 

 the World besides, she embraceth us : then most of all, like 

 a kind Mother, she covereth us all over in her Bosom : by 

 no Merit more sacred than by it, wherewith she maketh us 

 sacred ! ; even bearing our Tombs and Titles, continuing our 

 Name, and extending our Memory against the Shortness of 

 our Age: whose last Power we, in our Anger, wish to be 

 heavy unto our Enemy 2 , and yet she is heavy to none; as if 

 we were ignorant that she alone is never angry with any 

 Man. Waters ascend into Clouds; they harden into Hail, 

 swell into Waves, and hasten headlong into Torrents. The 

 Air is thickened into Clouds, and rageth with Storms. But 

 She is bountiful, mild, and indulgent ; ready at all Times to 

 attend, as a Handmaid, upon the Good of Mortals. See 

 what she breeds being forced ! nay, what she yieldeth of her 

 own accord ! what odoriferous Smells, and pleasant Tastes ! 

 what Juices, what soft Things, what Colours ! how faithfully 

 doth she repay, with Usury, that which was credited out unto 

 her ! Finally, what Things doth she nourish for our sake ! 

 for hurtful Creatures, when the vital Breath was to blame in 

 giving them Life, she could not refuse to receive, after they 



being; and as such, feeling and producing, by a kind of intelligence, 

 all the effects of pleasure or pain that can be ascribed to a sensitive being. 

 Wern. Club. 



1 To few things were the ancients more sensitive than to the honour 

 or unhappiness of interment after death. In various parts of the sacred 

 Scriptures the exposure of the inanimate body is threatened as a dreadful 

 calamity ; as in the instance of Goliath to David (1 Sam. xvii. 44) ; and 

 its infliction was felt to be a reproach, by both Israelites and Philistines, 

 in the case of Saul (1 Sam. xxxi. 12, 13). The instance of Elpenor, in the 

 eleventh book of the " Odyssey," and of Antigone, in the celebrated 

 Greek play of " Sophocles," are proofs how strongly the same feeling 

 existed in Greece. An ancient law of the Romans said : " Where the 

 body is interred, let the spot be sacred." Wern. Club. 



a " Sit tibi terra levis" was the earnestly expressed wish of the Romans 

 over the ashes of their friends ; and that it might lie heavy on their foes, 

 was an equally grave denunciation. Wern. Club. 



