Vita Mortalium brevis.

Life is short, and the duration of it also is uncertain, and not, therefore, at any period of it, to be wasted in indolence, or in the indulgence of our sensual appetites, but to be employed in improving our faculties, and in, performing the duties of our station; in short, we should take care to pass the portion allotted to us in such a manner, that at the end of it, we may have as little as possible to reproach ourselves with.

«To die is the first contract that was made
'Twixt mankind and the world, it is a debt
For which we were created, and indeed,
To die is man's nature, not his punishment».

Another poet says,

«This life's at longest but one day;
He who in youth posts hence away,
Leaves us i' the morn. He who has run
His race till manhood, parts at noon;
And who, at seventy odd, forsakes this light,
He may be said, to take his leave at night».

Spenser addresses the following apostrophe to us.

«O why do wretched men so much desire,
To draw their days unto the utmost date,
And do not rather wish them soon expire,
Knowing the misery of their estate,
And thousand perils which them still await,
Tossing them like a boat amid the main,
That every hour they knock at deathes gate?
And he that happy seems, and least in pain,
Yet is as nigh his end, as he that most doth plain».

Hippocrates, who was perhaps the author of this apothegm, extends it further, «Vita brevis», he says, «et ars longa», intimating that the longest life is only sufficient to enable us to acquire a moderate portion of knowledge in any art or science; and experience shews the justice of his position, for even assisted with the discoveries of our predecessors, neither medicine, to which he alludes, nor any other art has arrived at perfection.