I am naturally bashful, nor hath conversation, age, or travel, been able
to effront or enharden me; yet I have one part of modesty which I have
seldom discovered in another, that is, (to speak truly), I am not so much
afraid of death, as ashamed thereof. It is the very disgrace and
ignominy of our natures, that in a moment can so disfigure us, that our
nearest friends, wife and children stand afraid and start at us. The
birds and beasts of the field, that before in a natural fear obeyed us,
forgetting all allegiance, begin to prey upon us. This very conceit hath
in a tempest disposed and left me willing to be swallowed up in the abyss
of waters; wherein I had perished unseen, unpitied, without wondering
eyes, tears of pity, lectures of mortality, and none had said, _Quantum
mutatus ab illo_! Not that I am ashamed of the anatomy of my parts, or
can accuse nature for playing the bungler in any part of me, or my own
vicious life for contracting any shameful disease upon me, whereby I
might not call myself as wholesome a morsel for the worms as any.
ON HEAVEN
Now, the necessary mansions of our restored selves are those two contrary
and incompatible places we call heaven and hell; to define them, or
strictly to determine what and where these are, surpasseth my divinity.
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