neth as well above ground as below. There is an abstruse astrologer that saith, if it were not for two things that are constant, (the one is, that the fixed stars ever stand at like distance one from another, and never come nearer together, nor go further asunder; the other, that the diurnal motion perpetually keepeth time,) no individual would last one moment. Certain it is, that the matter is in a perpetual flux,[1] and never at a stay. The great winding-sheets, that bury all things in oblivion, are two; deluges and earthquakes. As for conflagrations and great droughts, they do not merely dispeople and destroy. Phaëton's[2] car went but a day. And the three years' drought in the time of Elias[3] was but particular,[4] and left people alive. As for the great burning by lightnings, which are often in the West Indies, they are but narrow. But in the other two destructions, by deluge and earthquake, it is further to be noted, that the remnant of people which hap[5] to be re-
- ↑ Flux. A continuous succession of changes of condition, composition, or substance; fluctuation. "The language of this country being always upon the flux, the struldbrugs of one age do not understand those of another." Swift. Travels into several Remote Nations of the World. By Lemuel Gulliver. A Voyage to Laputa, etc. Part III. Chapter 10.
- ↑ Phaëton, or Phaëthon, in Greek mythology, was the son of Helios and Clymene. He obtained permission from Helios to drive the chariot of the sun across the heavens for one day, but unable to check his horses he was overthrown and nearly set the world on fire. To punish his presumption Zeus struck him with a thunderbolt and cast him into the river Po.
- ↑ I. Kings xvii. 1. and xviii. 1.
- ↑ Particular. Partial, not universal. "'T is ridiculous to put off, or drown, the general flood of Noah in that particular inundation of Deucalion." Sir Thomas Browne. Religio Medici. Part I. Section 22.
- ↑ Hap. To have the 'hap,' fortune, or luck ('to do' something, or with clause); happen.
"Hap what hap may, I 'll roundly go about her."
Shakspere. The Taming of the Shrew. iv. 5.
