Order'd to-morrow to return to death.
But O! beyond description, happiest he
Who ne'er must roll on life's tumultuous sea;
Who with bless'd freedom, from the general doom
Exempt, must never face the teeming womb,
Nor see the sun, nor sink into the tomb!
Who breathes must suffer; and who thinks must mourn;
And he alone is blessed who ne'er was born."—Prior's Solomon, b. iii.
The proverbs, "God takes those soonest whom He loveth best," and, "Whom the gods love die young," have been already illustrated in "N. & Q." (Vol. iii., pp. 302. 377.). "I have learned from religion, that an early death has often been the reward of piety," said the Emperor Julian on his death-bed. (See Gibbon, ch. xxiv.)
2. "Judge none blessed before his death."[[1]]