------“non te optima mater
Condet humi, patriove onerabit membra sepulchro;
Alitibus linguere feris, et gurgite mersum
Unda feret, piscesque impasti vulnera lambent.”

       “Thy gentle parents shall not bury thee,
        Amongst thine ancestors entomb’d to be,
        But feral fowl thy carcass shall devour,
        Or drowned corps hungry fish maws shall scour.”

As Socrates told Crito, it concerns me not what is done with me when I am dead; Facilis jactura sepulchri:  I care not so long as I feel it not; let them set mine head on the pike of Tenerife, and my quarters in the four parts of the world,—­pascam licet in cruce corvos, let wolves or bears devour me;—­[3883]_Caelo tegitur qui non habet urnam_, the canopy of heaven covers him that hath no tomb.  So likewise for our friends, why should their departure so much trouble us?  They are better as we hope, and for what then dost thou lament, as those do whom Paul taxed in his time, 1 Thes. iv. 13. “that have no hope”?  ’Tis fit there should be some solemnity.

[3884] “Sed sepelire decet defunctum, pectore forti,
        Constantes, unumque diem fletui indulgentes.”

Job’s friends said not a word to him the first seven days, but let sorrow and discontent take their course, themselves sitting sad and silent by him.  When Jupiter himself wept for Sarpedon, what else did the poet insinuate, but that some sorrow is good

[3885] “Quis matrem nisi mentis inops in funere nati
Flere vetat?”------

who can blame a tender mother if she weep for her children?  Beside, as [3886]Plutarch holds, ’tis not in our power not to lament, Indolentia non cuivis contingit, it takes away mercy and pity, not to be sad; ’tis a natural passion to weep for our friends, an irresistible passion to lament and grieve.  “I know not how” (saith Seneca) “but sometimes ’tis good to be miserable in misery:  and for the most part all grief evacuates itself by tears,”

[3887]  ------“est quaedam flere voluptas,
Expletur lachrymis egeriturque dolor:” 

“yet after a day’s mourning or two, comfort thyself for thy heaviness,” Eccles. xxxviii. 17. [3888]_Non decet defunctum ignavo quaestu prosequi_; ‘twas Germanicus’ advice of old, that we should not dwell too long upon our passions, to be desperately sad, immoderate grievers, to let them tyrannise, there’s indolentiae, ars, a medium to be kept:  we do not (saith [3889]Austin) forbid men to grieve, but to grieve overmuch.  “I forbid not a man to be angry, but I ask for what cause he is so?  Not to be sad, but why is he sad?  Not to fear, but wherefore is he afraid?” I require a moderation as well as a just reason. [3890]The Romans and most civil commonwealths have set a time to such solemnities, they must not mourn after a set day, “or if in a family a child be born, a daughter or son married, some state or honour be conferred, a brother be redeemed from his bands, a friend from