hextraterrestrial | Of the Great Thaw (Reply)

Now since these dead bones have already out-lasted the living ones of Methuselah, and in yard under ground, and thin walls of clay, out-worn all the strong and speacious buildings above it.; and quietly rested under the drums and tramplings of three conquests: what prince can promise such diutrurnity unto his relics, or might not gladly say,

“Sic ego componi versus in ossa velim”

Time which antiquates antiquities, and hath an art to make dust of all things, hath yet spared these minor monuments.

In vain we hope to be known by open and visible conservatories, when to be unknown was the means of their continuation, and obscurity their protection. If they died by violent hands, and were thrust into their urns, these bones become considerable , and some old philosophers would honor them, who souls they conceived most pure, which were thus snatched out their bodies, and to retain a stranger propension unto them; whereas they weariedly left a languishing corpse, and with faint desires of reunion. If they fell by long and aged decay, yet wrapt up in the bundle of time, they fall into indistinction, and make but one blot with infants.

- a snippet from HYDRIOTAPHIA: URN BURIAL by Sir Thomas Brown.