Page:Reflections among the monuments.pdf/24

 I thank you, ye relics of founding titles, and magnificent names: ye have taught me more of the littleneſs of the world, than all the volumes of my library. Your nobility, arrayed in a winding ſheet; your grandeur, mouldering in an urn: are the moſt indiſputable proofs of the nothingneſs of created things. Never, ſurely, did Providence write this important point, in ſuch legible characters, as in the aſhes of My Lord, or on the corpſe of His Grace.—Let others, if they pleaſe, pay their obfequious court to your wealthy ſons; and ignobly fawn, or anxiouſly ſue for preferments; my thoughts ſhall often reſort, in penſive contemplation, to the sepulchre of their fires; and learn, from their ſleeping duſt—to moderate my expectations from mortals;—to ſtand disengaged from every undue attachment to the little intereſts of time;—to get above the deluſive amusements of honour, the gaudy tinsels of wealth, and all the empty ſhadows of a periſhing world.