they shall one day see those men that are now insolent by reason of
their wealth and power, and that foolishly flout at their betters,
undergo just punishment. In the next place, none of the lovers of
truth and the contemplation of being have here their fill of them;
they having but a watery and puddled reason to speculate with, as
it were, through the fog and mist of the body; and yet they still
look upwards like birds, as ready to take their flight to the
spacious and bright region, and endeavor to make their souls
expedite and light from things mortal, using philosophy as a study
for death. Thus I account death a truly great and accomplished
good thing; the soul being to live there a real life, which here
lives not a waking life, but suffers things most resembling dreams.
If then (as Epicurus saith) the remembrance of a dead friend be a
thing every way complacent; we may easily from thence imagine how
great a joy they deprive themselves of who think they do but
embrace and pursue the phantoms and shades of their deceased
familiars, that have in them neither knowledge nor sense, but who
never expect to be with them again, or to see their dear father and
dear mother and sweet wife, nor have any hopes of that familiarity
and dear converse they have that think of the soul with Pythagoras,
Plato, and Homer. Now what their sort of passion is like to was
hinted at by Homer, when he threw into the midst of the soldiers,
as they were engaged, the shade of Aeneas, as if he had been dead,
and afterwards again presented his friends with him himself,

Coming alive and well, as brisk as ever;

at which, he saith,

They all were overjoyed.