Qass 
 Book 
 
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 THE 
 
 SEVEN AGES 
 
 HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 OLD AGE. 
 
 (NOT PUBLISHED.) 
 
 CALCUTTA: 
 
 PRINTED AT THE BAPTIST MISSION PRESS, CIRCULAR ROAD. 
 1842. 
 
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 205449 
 
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INTRODUCTION, 
 
 In the following pages it is proposed to em- 
 brace the sixth and seventh ages of Man, the 
 autumn and winter of Human Life. The first 
 chapter, on the Durability of Human Life, is 
 divided into two sections ; one relating to the 
 number of years, and the other to the duration 
 of beauty. The second chapter comprises the 
 dotages, infirmities and excentricities of decre- 
 pitude. The third chapter includes the solaces, 
 useful occupations, and honors of old men ; 
 being a sort of L'allegro to the II Penseroso 
 of the preceding chapter. 
 
 If any reader should find fault with some of 
 the writers we introduce, who may cast ridi- 
 cule upon the second childhood of Great Men, 
 I can only offer for them the excuse of Rousseau 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 in the following epigram, which is another ver- 
 sion of " All the World's a Stage." 
 
 Ce monde-ci n'est qu'un oeuvre comique, 
 
 Ou chacun fait des roles differens, 
 
 La, sur la scene, en habit dramatique, 
 
 Brillent prelats, ministres, conquerans. 
 
 Pour nous vil peuple assis aux derniers rangs. 
 
 Troupe futile, et des grands rebutee. 
 
 Par nous d'en bas la piece est ecoutee ; 
 
 Mais nous payons utiles spectateurs, 
 
 Et si la piece est mal representee. 
 
 Pour notre argent nous sifflons les acteurs. 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ON THE DURABILITY OP HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 The number of years. 
 Whilst the funeral of Prince Henry, son of James I., was 
 passing along Cheapside, Lord Leicester, who had been 
 lounging at a bookseller's stall till it arrived, observed to 
 some persons around him that ** such a mourning had never 
 been seen in England." Upon which an old beggar-woman, 
 who was standing by, said, ** No, never since the death of 
 Prince Arthur." Upon being asked what she meant } she said, 
 she recollected the funeral of Prince Arthur (elder brother of 
 Henry VHL) very well. Lord Leicester, after further inquiry 
 concerning the old woman, gave her a weekly allowance 
 at this house, which she received for between two and three 
 years, when she ceased to call for it, and was heard of no 
 more. Prince Arthur died in 1501, and Prince Henry in 
 1612. The public funerals of those times would scarcely be 
 forgotten even by very young children who might witness 
 them. At Prince Henry's funeral there were 2000 mourners 
 in the procession ; a hearse with the coffin exposed was 
 B 2 
 
4 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 drawn by eight black horses ; on the coffin was a full length 
 effigy of the Prince wearing his coronet, the garter and robes ; 
 this was bound to the coffin, and supported by two cushions. 
 
 Sir William Temple, who states that the incident just 
 mentioned was related to him by Lord Leicester, also speaks 
 of a set of Morrice dancers in the reign of James I. composed 
 of ten men, a Maid Marian, and a player on the tabor and 
 pipe, the ages of the twelve, one with another, amounting 
 to twelve hundred years. 
 
 Several remarkable instances of longevity are related by 
 Humboldt among the Indians of South America. And though 
 few Europeans exceed 84, yet the excess of 100 years in 
 various instances is proved by our Parish Registers, and is 
 recorded with probable correctness in the contemporary obi- 
 tuaries of our magazines. A Mr. Easton published a list of 
 1712 persons, who, in various parts of the world, had lived 
 beyond 100, during a period of 1733 years, from A. D. 66 to 
 A. D. 1799. The instance of greatest longevity in modern 
 times of which the authenticity is generally allowed, is that of 
 Jenkins, an Englishman, who lived to 169. The most re- 
 markable man for his old age, is, perhaps, Parr, who lived 
 to be 152 years and nine months, when his life is sup- 
 posed to have been curtailed, in consequence of his being 
 brought to London, by the Earl of Arundel, in order to be 
 shewn to the King. His body was examined by the celebra- 
 ted Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood. 
 Harvey has left a particular account of the result ; there was 
 no decay of any organ, his heart was " great, thick, fibrous, 
 and fat ;" his death was occasioned by plethora, which was 
 very likely to have arisen from change of diet and habits 
 of hfe. Parr married at 80, and had two children by his 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 5 
 
 wife. At 105 he did penance for his unlawful offspring at 
 that age by one Catherine Milton. Taylor, the Water -poet, 
 a contemporary, commemorates Parr's white sheet — 
 
 Which aged he one hundred and five year 
 In Aldersbury Bury's church did wear. 
 
 We have an ancient poetical record, in Boughton church, 
 of an Englishman whose life exceeded 100 years, and who 
 appears to have been a giant, though he has not told us his 
 height. 
 
 I now that lye within this marble stone, 
 Was called Thomas Hawkins by my name, 
 My time of Hfe an hundred years and one, 
 King Henry the eight I served, which won me fame. 
 Who was to me a gracious Prince alwaies. 
 And made me well to spend my aged dayes. 
 M^ stature high, my body huge and strong, 
 Excelling all that lived in my age. 
 But, Nature spent, death would not tarry long. 
 To fetch the pledge which life had laid to guage. 
 My fatal day, if thou desirest to know. 
 Behold the figures written here below. 
 15th March, 1587. 
 
 There was a Frenchman who lived to 115, that was very 
 much noticed at the Courts of Louis XIV. and Louis XV., Philip 
 D'Herhelot. He was nine years old at the death of Henry IV. 
 He knelt before Louis XIV. After which the king raised him 
 with his own hand ; this was an incident that served a long 
 time for the gossip of a frivolous and obsequious Court. The 
 Rev. Peter Alley, Rector of Donamow, in Ireland, who died 
 in 1763 aged 111, did his parish duty till within a few 
 days of his death, and had thirty-three children. Not long 
 ago, a poor man in London was allowed by the Mendicity 
 Society to wear a badge denoting that he had exceeded 100 
 
6 THE AGES OP HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 years. Cowper wrote an elegy upon a lady who died on her 
 birth- day, at the age of 100. 
 
 These aged persons become particularly interesting in their 
 latter years, when, in early life, they have taken a part in re- 
 markable transactions which have become matters of history. 
 Thus Richard Cromwell lived to the age of 86. He returned 
 to England in 1 680, where he resided till his death in 1 7 1 2. He 
 had occasion to appear in a Court of Justice in 1705, when he 
 was treated with much respect, for which the Judge was com- 
 mended by Queen Anne. One Richard Shoreditche, the last 
 survivor of the jury who acquitted the seven Bishops, lived 
 till 1735, after attaining the age of 90. Dr. Johnson was 
 probably the last survivor of persons who had received the 
 Royal touch. 
 
 With regard to the ages of Antediluvians — they are stated to 
 have been as follows : — Adam 930, Seth 912, Enos 905, Cainan 
 910, Mahalaleel 895, Jared 962, Enoch 365, (supposed by 
 some to be still living,) Methusaleh 969, Lamech 777, Noah 
 950, Sem 600. After the Flood, the oldest person, Arphaxad, 
 was 438. Two other persons exceeded 400 ; the next age is 
 239. Then we have Abraham 175, Isaac 188, (he was 137 
 when his failure of sight was attended with such important 
 consequences,) Jacob 147, Moses 120. We are told that, at 
 this age, " his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated,'* 
 Joshua 110. It would appear that Adam did not know infan- 
 cy, childhood, or boyhood, and as the antediluvian patriarchs do 
 not appear to have had children till they were 60, if we add, 
 this, or say 40 years, to Adam's life, he would have had an 
 older body than Methusaleh. 
 
 It is remarkable that the XCth Psalm is entitled " A prayer 
 of Moses, the man of God." The part of it relating to age 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. f 
 
 seems less appropriate to the time when Moses lived than to 
 that of David who died at the age of 70, or, indeed, the pre- 
 sent day. " The days of our years are threescore years and 
 ten ; and if, by reason of strength they be fourscore years, 
 yet is their strength labor and sorrow ; for it is soon cut off, 
 and we fly away." In the first book of Herodotus, the historian 
 relates a curious dialogue between Solon and King Croesus, 
 which assumes for the life of man the identical period of the 
 psalmist. Solon says, ** I will suppose the term of human life 
 to extend to seventy years*' After counting the number of days 
 in that period, and observing that each day will be productive 
 of some new incident, Solon declined to answer the question 
 proposed to him, whether Croesus was not entitled to be called 
 the happiest person that had ever lived ? until he had witnessed 
 all the scenes of his life to the end of the last act. 
 
 According to Dr. South, the celebrated Court Preacher in 
 the reign of Charles II., it is much to be regretted that we 
 have none of Adam's literary remains. In the early ages of 
 the Church, the world was supposed to be possessed of such a 
 valuable curiosity. Several of the first Fathers speak fami- 
 liarly of a publication by Enoch, from which, indeed, an actual 
 quotation is given in the epistle of St. Jude. ** Adam" (South 
 assures us), •' came into the world a philosopher ; he could see 
 consequents yet dormant in their principles, and effects yet un- 
 born and in the womb of their causes. By rating positives, 
 by their privatives, and other arts of reason by which discourse 
 suppHes the want of the reports of sense, we may collect the 
 excellency of the understanding then by the glorious remain- 
 ders of it now ; and guess at the stateHness of the building by 
 the magnificence of its ruins. And certainly that must have 
 been very glorious, the decays of which are so admirable. He 
 
8 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 that is comely when old and decrepid, surely was very beauti- 
 ful when he was young. An Aristotle was but the rubbish of 
 an Adam, and Athens but the rudiments of Paradise !" 
 
 It has been observed that the Painters do not give Adam a 
 beard. This is the more remarkable, as the Mosaic law is so 
 very particular on the subject of hair- cutting. " Thou shalt not 
 mar the corners of thy beard ;" Lev. ch. xix. is a positive com- 
 mandment on the subject. Probably it was conceived, that a 
 beard would give Adam the appearance of being old. Milton, 
 who allows him abundance of hair (a point of great delicacy in 
 Milton's day) omits the beard. 
 
 Two of far nobler shape, erect and tall, 
 Godlike erect ! with native honour clad 
 In naked majesty, seem'd Lords of all : 
 And worthy seem'd ; for in their looks divine 
 The image of their glorious Maker shone, 
 Truth, wisdom, sanctitude, severe and pure ; 
 Severe, but in true filial freedom plac'd, 
 Whence true authority in men : though both 
 Not equal, as their sex not equal seem'd : 
 For contemplation he, and valour form'd : 
 For softness she, and sweet attractive grace ; 
 He for God only ; she for God in him. 
 His fair large front, and eye sublime, declar'd 
 Absolute rule ; and hyacinthine lochs, 
 Round from his parted forelock manly hung 
 ClustWing, but not beneath his shoulders broad : 
 She as a veil, down to the slender waist 
 Her unadorned golden tresses wore, 
 Dishevel'd, but in wanton ringlets waved. 
 As the vine curls her tendrils. 
 
 Brown treats it as a vulgar error of his day, that Methu- 
 selah was the longest liver of the posterity of Adam ; where- 
 as he was only the longest liver of the patriarchs whose age 
 is expressed. He notices that the Scriptures only detail the 
 
THE AGES OP HUMAN LtPE. i) 
 
 particulars of the line of Seth, and that the ages of the wives 
 of patriarchs before Noah are not given. He considers the 
 question what was Abel's age when murdered by Cain ? 
 Our pictures generally represent Abel as a youth. But it 
 would seem from a comparison of dates in Genesis, tliat he 
 was 129. We have not the particulars of the ages of the 
 Sons of God, or of the Giants mentioned in the sixth chapter 
 of Genesis. Bat it is remarkable that in this chapter God 
 is related to have said, '* My spirit shall not always strive 
 wiih man, for that he also is flesh ; yet his days shall be one 
 hundred and twenty years." This passage has been discus- 
 sed by most of the Fathers of the Church. Augustin, Chry- 
 sostom and Jerome, adverting to the directions concerning the 
 Ark in the same chapter, infer that Noah was given 120 
 years to build the ark, and to make the proper selection of 
 animals according to sexes, and their purity or impurity. 
 Other Fathers think that Noah took less time ; seeing that 
 he entered the Ark in his 600th year, as we are told in the 
 seventh chapter, and that he was 500 years old when he 
 begot his three sons, as»appears from the fifth chapter, and 
 that the order to build the Ark mentions his sons and their 
 wives. 
 
 Addison, in two numbers of the Spectator, has detailed 
 an antediluvian courtship ; he has given a love-letter written 
 in the 788th year of the creation, with the answer sent " in less 
 than a twelvemonth." The lover was promised a more posi- 
 tive answer " in less than fifty '^years." Hilpa, the lady, was 
 at this time 170 ; she had 50 children, having been married 
 before at the age of 100, after a short courtship of 30 years, 
 which commenced when she was " but a girl of threescore 
 and ten." Addison exhibits some liveliness of imagination 
 c 
 
10 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 in these papers, but the peculiarities of antediluvian court- 
 ship would probably have been more naturally depictured by 
 Swift or Defoe. 
 
 Two old persons whose years are nowhere set down may 
 here be mentioned. First, the Old man of the Mountain. He 
 held possession of Mount Lebanon during the Crusades, and 
 his subjects, the Assassins, committed many enormities both 
 upon Christians and Saracens. Hence the name of Assassin, 
 in the sense in which it is used in English, occurs in several 
 European tongues. The old man is supposed to be merely 
 an English corruption of Imaum, or oriental Prince ; though 
 he is called by old French writers Le viel de la montagne, 
 and he is the subject of a German tale under that name. The 
 other " old gentleman" is Old Nick. Nick is taken from 
 Nicken, a malignant aquatic Demon in Scandinavian mytho- 
 logy. Butler was probably wilfully ignorant, when he wrote, 
 what Warburton wishes to alter to " Though he gave aim to 
 our old Nick — " 
 
 Nick Machiavel had ne'er a trick, 
 'J'hough he gave name to our old Nick, 
 But was below the least of these 
 That pass i' th' world for holiness. 
 
 The ancient philosophers have written a great deal of ela- 
 borate nonsense on the mystical virtues of numbers separate- 
 ly or in combination. Hence the fancies concerning the grand 
 climacteric, which is 63, or the combination of all the secret 
 influences of the number 7 with those of 9. It has so hap- 
 pened that many eminent persons have died at this age, as 
 Aristotle, Erasmus, Luther, Melancthon. The idea of a 
 grand climacteric is of ancient date. Augustus, in a letter 
 to his nephew Caius, called upon him to celebrate his nativity, 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 11 
 
 for that he had now escaped the critical year of 63. The 
 notion can scarcely be considered obsolete. In a translation 
 of Cicero de Senectute (the first ancient classic ever translated 
 in America) the translator (the celebrated Franklin) says, 
 that it was undertaken for the gratification of a gentleman 
 who was in his grand climacteric. The original was written in 
 Cicero's climacterical year. In the Rambler will be found 
 a paper on the climacterics of the mind. 
 
 There occurs, indeed, often an indisposition between the 
 ages of fifty and seventy- five, which is attended with an ex-^ 
 traordinary alteration in the expression of countenance that 
 remains fixed and indelible after recovery. This has been 
 called the climacteric disease ; it is the subject of an Essay, by 
 Sir H. Halford, to be found in the Medical Transactions of 
 the College of Physicians ; and it is noticed, by Dr. Roget, 
 in an Essay upon the Effects of Age. The climacteric disease 
 is better characterised in men than in women. 
 
 It is curious to follow so great a man as Lord Bacon in 
 some of his minute inquiries concerning medical receipts for 
 prolonging life. With spme mixture of weakness and credu- 
 lity, which was almost universal in his day, his medical remains 
 indicate his insatiable appetite for knowledge of every kind. 
 One of his receipts is entitled " Methusalem water. Against 
 all asperity and torrefaction of inward parts, and all adustion 
 of the blood, and generally against the dryness of age." The 
 ingredients are powder of crab shells, pearl powder, 
 ginger, white poppy seed, nitre, ambergris, the inner pith 
 of cucumbers, milk, rosemary, and claret wine in which melt- 
 ing gold has been quenched. He gives also another receipt, 
 which he calls " Grains of Youth. Nitre four grains, amber- 
 gris three grains, orris-powder two grains, white-poppy 
 c 2 
 
12 THE AGES OF HUMA]^ LIFE. 
 
 seed ^ grain, saiFron ^ grain, orang-e-flower water and a little 
 tragacanth. Make them into small grains four in number. 
 To betaken at 4 o'clock, or going to bed." Another receipt is 
 for 'd preserving Ointment. " Take of deer's suet one ounce, of 
 myrrh six grains, of saffron five grains, of Canary wine of two 
 years old a spoonful and a half, spread it on the ifiside of your 
 shirt, and let it dry and then put it on." 
 
 Lord Bacon wrote a treatise on the means of preserving 
 health and retarding old age. Roger Bacon also wrote one 
 upon the " care of old age, and the preservation of youth." It 
 contains a great deal about the effect of different oils upon 
 old men. Coraaro's treatise has long been popular. It first 
 directed attention to diet as a means of prolonging life and 
 contains some interesting descriptions of the Author's coun- 
 try enjoyments in old age. 
 
 The human structure itself observes a regular and systema- 
 tic course from the dawn of life to its meridian, and thence 
 to its closing day, if no violent causes occur to accelerate, 
 or cut short its career. Dr. Sims, after examining 237 
 brains of persons from one year old to above seventy, found 
 that the average weight increases gradually from one to 20 
 after which the increase is less considerable ; the maximum 
 weight is generally found between 40 and 50. Napoleon's 
 hatter stated that the Emperor's head increased in size to the 
 age of 35. After 50 the weight decreases as it formerly 
 increased. A considerable portion of the physical peculiari- 
 ties that characterize the period of old age may be traced to 
 the long continued operation of the diminution of the fluid 
 portion in each organ of the body. The Death of Nature has 
 been well described by one of our poets, Armstrong, who was 
 also a Physician. 
 
THE AGES OF HITMAN LIFE. 13 
 
 But the full ocean ebbs, there is a point 
 
 By nature fixed, where life must downward tend, 
 
 For still the beating tide consolidates 
 
 The stubborn vessels, more reluctant still 
 
 To the weak throbs of th' ill-supported heart. 
 
 This languishing, these strengthening, by degrees, 
 
 To hard unyielding unelastic bone, 
 
 Thro' tedious channels the congealing blood 
 
 Crawls lazily, and hardly wanders on. 
 
 It loiters still, and now it stirs no more. 
 
 This is the period few attain ; the Death 
 
 Of Niiture ; thus (so Heaven ordained it) life 
 
 Destroys itself, and, could these laws have changed, 
 
 Nestor might now the fates of Troy relate. 
 
 And Homer live immortal as his song. 
 
 With regard to the comparative longevity of persons of 
 different nations, or in different situations of life. Sir W. Temple 
 made some observations on the longevity of French and Eng- 
 lish Kings, in an Essay which he composed on the subjects of 
 Health and Life. He remarks that " Philip de Comines 
 states that no King of France had lived to threescore, from 
 Charlemaine's time to that of Louis XL ; whereas, in Eng- 
 land, from the Conquest to the end of Queen Elisabeth's 
 reign (a much shorter period), there reigned five Kings and 
 one Queen, whereof two lived sixty-five years, two sixty- 
 eight, and two reached their seventieth year." Sir William 
 Temple relates a conversation with Monsieur Pompone, the 
 French Ambassador at the Hague, upon the subject, who told 
 him that he had never heard of a person in France who had 
 arrived at the age of 100 years. From all which circum- 
 stances he concludes somewhat rashly that the climate of 
 France made its inhabitants so lively as to " spend their 
 lives too fast. Like blowing a fire too often makes it burn 
 hetter, but last the less." 
 
14 
 
 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 It will be found that the English Poets of eminence have 
 not, in general, been long lived. Of those who died between 
 70 and 80 we find Chaucer (of whose age there is some doubt), 
 Dryden, Dr. Johnson, and Armstrong. Of those who died 
 between 60 and 70, Milton, Ben Jonson, Butler and 
 Cowper. Of those who died between 50 and 60, Pope, 
 Prior, Addison, Gray, Fletcher and Massinger. But Spen- 
 ser, Shakspeare, Akenside, Thomson, Gay, Parnell, Otway 
 and Cowley did not attain 50 though they exceeded 40. 
 Burns died at 38. Young, who attained the age of 81, is the 
 Methusalem in our ordinaiy list of poets. Some who have 
 written a good play or two may have been older. For 
 example, Southern, who wrote Isabella, lived to 82. Pope has 
 commemorated the Table-cloth (with its Irish Harp) and 
 bill of fare of the dinner given to Southern on his 81st birth- 
 day. 
 
 Ireland, mother of sweet shigers, 
 Presents her harp still to his fingers. 
 The feast his towering genius marks. 
 In yonder wild goose and the larks ! 
 The mushrooms shew his wit was sudden. 
 And for his judgment, lo a pudden ! 
 Roast beef, tho' old, proclaims him stout ; 
 And grace, altho' a bard, devout. 
 This day Tom's fair account has run, 
 (Without a blot) to eighty-one. 
 
 The older English Physicians seem to have generally at- 
 tained a mellow age, though none of them have approached 
 the years of Hippocrates and Galen, who lived to 104. 
 Einacre in the reign of Henry VIII., who founded the col- 
 lege of Physicians, lived to 64. Dr. Caius, in the time of 
 Elisabeth, who founded Caius college, and whose epitaph. 
 
THE AGES OP HUMAN LIFE. 15 
 
 Fiii Caius, is in the college chapel, attained 63. Harvey, the 
 discoverer of the circulation of the blood, 79. Browne, the 
 author of the Religio Medici, 77. Sydenham 65. Radcliffe, 
 the founder of the Radcliffe Library, 65 . Cheselden, 64 ; his 
 death being occasioned by drinking ale after eating hot buns. 
 Mead, 8 1 ; he was at the head of his profession for nearly 
 half a century. The dates of birth of Garth and Arbutlmot 
 are not known; Garth died in 1718. Fourteen years before 
 this, when Pope's Pastorals were written, he had attained 
 high eminence both as a Piiysician and a Poet. 
 
 Accept, O Garth ! the Muse's early lays, 
 That adds this leaf of ivy to th?/ buys^ 
 Hear, what from love unpractised hearts endure, 
 From love, the sole disease thou canst not cure. 
 
 Arbuthnot died in 1734. He was known as an author in 
 1697 : he lived to read many of Pope's exquisite composi- 
 tions which that Poet declares he had never composed, but 
 for Arbuthnot's medical skill. 
 
 Friend to my life ! (which did not you prolong, 
 The world had wanted many an idle song.) 
 
 And again. 
 
 The Muse but served to ease some friend, not wife, 
 And help me through this long disease, my life. 
 To second, Arbuthnot ! thy art and care. 
 And teach the being you preserved to bear. 
 
 The most distinguished English Laiuyers have been long 
 lived. Sir E. Coke attained the age of 84. Sir M. Hale 
 67. Lord Thurlow, 70. Lord Mansfield, 89. Lord Somers, QQ. 
 Selden, 70. Ben Jonson commences very classically a birth- 
 day ode on the occasion of Lord Bacon entering his sixtieth 
 year, he had then been chancellor two years ; he lived to be 
 
16 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 66. The ode is addressed to the Lar or household god of 
 his Lordship's mansion, whom the Poet finds busy in prepar- 
 ing for the celebration of some religious rite. 
 
 Hail, happy Genius of this ancient pile ! 
 How comes it all things so about thee smile ? 
 The fire, the wine, the men ! and, in the midst, 
 Thou stand' St as if some mystery thou didst. 
 Pardon, I read it in thy face, the day 
 For whose returns, and many, all these pray ; 
 And so do I. This is the sixtieth year. 
 Since Bacon, and thy Lord, was born, and here. 
 Son to the grave wise keeper of the seal, 
 Fame and foundation of the English weal. 
 England's High Chancellor; the destin'd heir 
 In his soft cradle to his father's chair. 
 Whose even thread the fates spin round and full. 
 Out of their choicest, and their whitest wool. 
 'Tis a brave cause of joy ; let it be known ; 
 For't were a narrow gladness kept thy own. 
 Give me a deep crown'd bowl, that I may sing 
 In raising him the wisdom of my king. 
 
 The Ladies of the Court of Charles II. did not lead lives 
 calculated to favor longevity. But, in answer, it may be 
 thought, that these Ladies, judging from Lely's pictures of 
 them, were by no means frail, except in reputation. The 
 Duchess of Portsmouth, from whom the Dukes of Richmond 
 derive their honors, lived to 70. The Duchess of Cleveland, 
 from whom the Dukes of Grafton have the like honorable 
 descent, lived to 6S. Miss Jennings, mother of the Duke 
 of Fitzjames, lived to §2. Nell Gwynn, the foundress of the 
 dukedom of St. Albans, died in 1691, the date of her birth is not 
 known, but her name appears in several of the play-bills for 1663. 
 The sons of George III. did not abstain from applying in 
 their youth, " hot and rebellious liquors to their blood." But 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 17 
 
 the nation well knows that they have been a long lived fami- 
 ly. The more eminent composers of music, and natural 
 philosophers shew Hsts of long livers. Sir J. Reynolds died 
 at 71. Philidor, the chess-player, at 60. Broughton, the boxer, 
 at 85. Wilkes, who said that he "always lived two days 
 in one," and who must have spent a very restless life, 
 reached 71. 
 
 It may be thought that a literary Angler had, ceteris pari- 
 bus, a good chance of surviving the less patient part of the 
 community. Whether Wooton, Paley, Sir H . Davey, or Wool- 
 aston prolonged their days by fly-fishing can only be conjec- 
 tured. Isaac Walton, who devoted a larger portion of his life to 
 this amusement than, perhaps, any person of equal intellectual 
 capacity, wrote his lives of Donne, Saunderson, and Hooker, 
 at the age of 83. His will commences " I, I. W., being this 
 present day in the ninetieth year of my age, and in perfect 
 memory." Yhis was in 1783. He edited in the same year 
 Chalkill's poems, but died in the winter in consequence of the 
 severity of what was long called, " The great frost." His 
 poem called the Angler's Wish concludes thus ; the Wish is 
 very compatible with longevity, and appears to have been 
 fulfilled. 
 
 There sit by him (his dog) and eat my meat, 
 There see the sun both rise and set. 
 There bid good-morrow to next day, 
 There meditate my time away. 
 And angle o?i, and beg to have 
 A quiet passage to the grave. 
 
 On the subject of longevity as affected by various occupa- 
 tions of life, great caution is requisite in forming conclusions. 
 In the case of very noxious trades, indeed, satisfactory re- 
 sults may be easily arrived at — so, with regard to national 
 
 D 
 
i8 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 and local longevity, if our data are known to be correct, if 
 disturbing circumstances are allowed for, and if our inductions 
 are sufficiently large, (all which are in the power of ordinary 
 industry) we may form conclusions, of some accuracy and 
 value. It is also easy to point out, in the habits incidental 
 to every occupation, various circumstances which are calcula- 
 ted to impair or conduce to longevity. But to infer the 
 duration of the natural lives of Kings in England and France 
 from the longevity of particular reigning families, or the 
 general duration of life in particular professions, from an 
 induction, though it may be large, of those who have risen 
 to the highest eminence in those professions, might lead to 
 the deceptive conclusions. Erskine stated, in the House of 
 Lords, that during the twenty- seven years he practised at the 
 Bar, he was on no occasion prevented from attending to his 
 business in Court by indisposition. He lived to seventy-three, 
 but probably would have made an older physician, and a 
 much older parson. In various occupations in which pre- 
 eminent success may appear to depend chiefly on superior 
 intellect, it will be found that physical strength of constitu- 
 tion, such as would promise a long hfe under most circum- 
 stances, is an almost indispensable companion. Where this 
 is wanting, many fall a sacrifice to their own genius. The 
 effects of extraordinary mental activity in wasting a body 
 which has not sufficient stamina for accomplishing ambitious 
 projects, are noticed in several descriptions of the first Lord 
 Shaftsbury. Thus, it is said of him in the Essay on Satire 
 written by Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, but for which 
 Dry den, as the supposed author, was violently assaulted. 
 
 As by our little Machiavel we find, 
 That nimblest creature of the busy kind. 
 
THE AGES OP HUMAN LIFE. 19 
 
 His limbs are crippled, and his body shakes, 
 Yet his hard mind which all this bustle makes, 
 No pity of its poor companion takes. 
 
 And in the Absalom and Architophel the following lines on 
 Shaftsbury display Dry den's vigorous powers of composition ; 
 they are the commencement of Architophel's character, and 
 were published shortly before Shaftsbury was to be arraigned 
 on a charge for high treason. 
 
 Of these the false Architophel was first ; 
 
 A name to all succeeding ages curst. 
 
 For close designs, and crooked counsels fit ; 
 
 Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit. 
 
 Restless, unfixed in principles and place. 
 
 In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace. 
 
 A fiery soul, which, working out its way. 
 
 Fretted the pigmy body to decay. 
 
 And o'er informed the tenement of clay. 
 
 A daring pilot in extremity, 
 
 Pleased with the danger, when the waves went high. 
 
 He sought the storms ; but for a calm unfit. 
 
 Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit. 
 
 Great wits are sure to madness near allied, 
 
 And thin partitions, do their bounds divide. 
 
 Else why should he, with wealth and honor blest, 
 
 Refuse his age the needful hours of rest ? 
 
 Punish a body which he could not please. 
 
 Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease f 
 
 Brown represents as one of the vulgar errors of his time, 
 the story of the Wandering Jew. His book on Vulgar errors 
 does not relate to the errors of illiterate people, which could 
 scarcely be contained in an Alexandrian library, but those 
 of persons having some pretensions to intelligence and educa- 
 tion ; errors of this kind, even in the present day, would fill 
 a large folio. He notices that there is a long account of this 
 supposed undying Jew in Mathew Paris's history, taken from 
 D 2 
 
20 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 the relation given by an Armenian Bishop, who came to Eng- 
 land in the reign of Henry III. and who said that he had often 
 entertained the Jew at table ; that his name was Castaphilus, 
 and he was keeper of the judgment-hall in the time of Pilate, 
 and that upon hurrying Jesus Christ out of the hall, he was 
 told that he should wait upon earth till Christ came back 
 again. Calmet, in his Dictionary of the Bible, mentions a 
 person at Hamburgh, and another in England, who pretended 
 to be the Wandering Jew. The story seems to have been 
 founded on John ch. xxi. v. 21, 22, 23, " Peter seeing 
 him (John) saith to Jesus, Lord, what shall this man do .-' 
 Jesus saith unto him if I will that he tarry till I come, what is 
 that to thee ? Then went this saying abroad among the bre- 
 thren, that that disciple should not die ; yet Jesus said not 
 unto him he shall not die ; but, if I will that he tarry till I 
 come, what is that to thee ?" The notion of the Evangehst 
 John being alive was very prevalent in the early centuries of 
 the church. Hippolitus, a martyr, about 300 years ofter the 
 death of Christ, asserts, that he had himself met and conversed 
 with John. 
 
 The story of St. Leon by Godwin is taken from that of the 
 Wandering Jew, or rather from an intermediate fiction to be 
 found in an ingenius book called Hermippus redivivus, which 
 ridicules the vaunted effects of the universal medicine for pro- 
 longing life. 
 
 "There happened in the year 1687, an odd accident at 
 Venice, that made a very great stir then, and which I think 
 deserves to be secured from oblivion. The great freedom 
 and ease with which all persons, who make a good appearance, 
 live in that city, is known sufficiently to all who are acquaint- 
 ed with it ; such will not therefore be surprised that a stranger 
 
THE AGES OP HUMAN LIFE. 21 
 
 who went by the name of Signor Gualdi, and who made a 
 considerable figure there, was admitted into the best com- 
 pany, though nobody knew who, or what he was. He 
 remained at Venice some months, and three things were 
 remarked in his conduct. The first was, that he had a small 
 collection of fine pictures which he readily showed to any 
 body that desired it ; the next, that he was perfectly versed 
 in all arts and sciences, and spoke on every subject with such 
 readiness and sagacity, as astonished all who heard him ; and 
 it was, in the third place, observed, that he never wrote or 
 received any letter ; never desired any credit, or made use 
 of bills of exchange, but paid for every thing in ready money, 
 and lived decently, though not in splendor. This gentleman 
 met one day at the coffee-house with a Venetian nobleman, 
 who was an extraordinary good judge of pictures : he had 
 heard of Signor Gualdi's collection, and in a very polite man- 
 ner desired to see them, to which the other very readily con- 
 sented. After the Venetian had viewed Signor Gualdi's 
 collection and expressed his satisfaction, by telling him, that 
 he had never seen a fm^, considering the number of pieces 
 of which it consisted ; he cast his eyes by chance over the 
 chamber-door, where hung a picture of this stranger. The 
 Venetian looked upon it, and then upon him. This picture 
 was drawn for you. Sir, says he, to Signor Gualdi ; to which 
 the other made no answer, but by a low bow. You look, 
 continued the Venetian, like a man of fifty, and yet I know 
 this picture to be of the hand of Titian, who has been 
 dead one hundred and thirty years, how is this possible .'' It 
 is not easy, said Signor Gualdi gravely, to know all things 
 that are possible ; but there is certainly no crime in my being 
 like a picture drawn by Titian. The Venetian easily per- 
 
22 THE AGES OP HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 ceived by this manner of speaking that he had given the 
 stranger offence, and therefore took his leave. He could not 
 forbear speaking of this in the evening to some of his friends, 
 who resolved to satisfy themselves by looking upon the picture 
 the next day. In order to have an opportunity of doing so 
 they went to the coiFee-house about the time that Signor 
 Gualdi was wont to come thither, and not meeting with him, 
 one of them, who had often conversed with him, went to his 
 lodgings to enquire after him, where he heard, that he set out 
 an hour before for Vienna. This aiFair made a great noise, 
 and found a place in all the newspapers of that time." 
 
 With these fictions of interminable old men may be read 
 the interesting story, as related by Gibbon, oi the Seven Sleepers. 
 This story has been presented to the world in various shapes, 
 as, for example in an American novel, which was dramatised 
 and acted in London under the name of the Flying Dutchman. 
 
 " Among the insipid legends of ecclesiastical history, I am 
 tempted to distinguish the memorable fable of the Seven 
 Sleepers ; whose imaginary date corresponds with the reign 
 of the younger Theodosius, and the conquest of Africa by the 
 Vandals. When the Emperor Decius persecuted the Christi- 
 ans, seven noble youths of Ephesus concealed themselves in 
 a spacious cavern in the side of an adjacent mountain ; where 
 they were doomed to perish by the tyrant, who gave orders 
 that the entrance should be firmly secured with a pile of 
 huge stones. They immediately fell into a deep slumber, 
 which was miraculously prolonged, without injuring the 
 powers of life, during a period of one hundred and eighty- 
 seven years. At the end of that time the slaves of Adolius, 
 to whom the inheritance of the mountain had descended, 
 removed the stones, to supply materials for some rustic edifice. 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 23 
 
 The light of the sun darted into the cavern, and the seven slee- 
 pers were permitted to awake. 
 
 " After a slumber, as they thought, of a few hours, they were 
 pressed by the calls of hunger ; and resolved that Jamblichus, 
 one of their number, should secretly return to the city, to 
 purchase bread for the use of his companions. The youth 
 (if we may still employ that appellation) could no longer 
 recognize the once familiar aspect of his native country ; and 
 his surprise was increased by the appearance of a large cross, 
 triumphantly erected over the principal gate of Ephesus. His 
 singular dress, and obsolete language, confounded the baker, 
 to whom he offered an ancient medal of Decius as the current 
 coin of the empire ; and Jamblichus, on the suspicion of a 
 secret treasure, was dragged before the judge. Their mutual 
 inquiries produced the amazing discovery that two centuries 
 were almost elapsed since Jamblichus and his friends had 
 escaped from the rage of a Pagan tyrant. The Bishop of 
 Ephesus, the clergy, the magistrates, the people, and, as it is 
 said, the Emperor Theodosius himself, hastened to visit the 
 cavern of the Seven Sleepers ; who bestowed their benedic- 
 tion, related their story, and at the same instant peaceably 
 expired. The origin of this marvellous fable cannot be ascrib- 
 ed to the pious fraud and credulity of the modern Greeks, 
 since the authentic tradition may be traced within half a cen- 
 tury of the supposed miracle. James of Sarug, a Syrian 
 bishop, who was born only two years after the death of the 
 younger Theodosius, has devoted one of his two hundred and 
 thirty homilies to the praise of the young men of Ephesus. 
 Their legend, before the end of the sixth century, was trans- 
 lated from the Syriac into the Latin language, by the care 
 of Gregory of Tours. The hostile communions of the East 
 
24 THE AGES OP HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 preserve their memory with equal reverence ; and their names 
 are honourably inscribed in the Roman, the Abyssinian, and 
 the Russian calendar. Nor has their reputation been confin- 
 ed to the Christian world. This popular tale, which Maho- 
 met might learn, when he drove his camels to the fairs of 
 Syria, is introduced, as a divine revelation, into the Koran. 
 
 *' The story of Seven Sleepers has been adopted, and adorned, 
 by the nations, from Bengal to Africa, who profess the Maho- 
 metan religion. And some vestiges of a similar tradition 
 have been discovered in the remote extremities of Scandi- 
 navia. This easy and universal belief, so expressive of the 
 sense of mankind, may be ascribed to the genuine merit of 
 the fable itself. We imperceptibly advance from youth to 
 age, without observing the gradual but incessant change of 
 human affairs ; and even in our larger experience of history, 
 the imagination is accustomed, by a perpetual series of causes 
 and effects, to unite the most distant revolutions. But if the 
 interval between two memorable eras could be instantly anni- 
 hilated, if it were possible, after a momentary slumber of two 
 hundred years, to display the new world to the eyes of a 
 spectator who still retained a lively and recent impression 
 of the old, his surprise and his reflections would furnish the 
 pleasing subject of a philosophical romance. The scene could 
 not be more advantageously placed, than in the two centu- 
 ries which elapsed between the reigns of Decius and of Theo- 
 dosius the younger. During this period, the seat of Govern- 
 ment had been transported from Rome to a new city on the 
 banks of the Thracian Bosphorus ; and the abuse of military 
 spirit had been suppressed by an artificial system of tame 
 and ceremonious servitude. The throne of the persecuting 
 Decius was filled by a succession of Christian and orthodox 
 
THE AGES OP HUMAN LIFE. 25 
 
 princes, who had extirpated the fabulous gods of antiquity : 
 and the pubHc devotion of the age was impatient to exalt the 
 Saints and Martyrs of the Catholic Church, on the altars of 
 Diana and Hercules. The union of the Roman empire was 
 dissolved : its genius was humbled in the dust ; and armies 
 of unknown barbarians, issuing from the frozen regions of 
 the north, had established their victorious reign over the 
 fairest provinces of Europe and Africa." 
 
 Swift's description of the Strulhrugs in the Island of Lugg- 
 nag, may be here not inappositely introduced. 
 
 " One day, in much good company, I was asked by a person 
 of quality, ' whether I had seen any of their Strulhrugs, or 
 immortals.' ' I said, I had not,' and desired he would ex- 
 plain to me what he meant by such an appellation, applied to 
 a mortal creature. He told me ' that sometimes, though 
 very rarely, a child happened to be born in a family, with a 
 red circular spot in the forehead, directly over the left eye- 
 brow, which was an infallible mark that it should never die. 
 The spot, as he described it, was about the compass of a sil- 
 ver three-pence, but in the course of time grew larger, and 
 changed its colour ; for at twelve years old it became green, 
 so continued till five and twenty, then turned to a deep 
 blue : at five and forty it grew coal black and as large as an 
 English shilling, but never admitted any further alteration.' 
 He said, * these births were so rare, that he did not beheve 
 there could be above eleven hundred Strulhrugs, of both sexes, 
 in the whole kingdom ; of which he computed about fifty in 
 the metropolis, and among the rest, a young girl born about 
 three years ago : that these productions were not peculiar to 
 any family, but a mere effect of chance ; and the children of 
 
26, THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 the Strulbrugs themselves were equally mortal with the rest 
 of the people. 
 
 *' I freely own myself to have been struck with inexpressible 
 delight, upon hearing this account : and the person who gave 
 it me happening to understand the Balnibarbian language, 
 which I spoke very well, I could not forbear breaking out, 
 into expressions perhaps a little too extravagant. I cried out, 
 as in a rapture, ' Happy nation, where every child has at least 
 a chance for being immortal. Happy people, who enjoy so 
 many living examples of ancient virtue, and have masters 
 ready to instruct them in the wisdom of all former ages ! 
 but happiest, beyond all comparison, are those excellent Strul- 
 hrugs, who being born exempt from that universal calamity 
 of human nature, have their minds free and disengaged, with- 
 out the weight and depression of spirits caused by the con- 
 tinual apprehensions of death/ I discovered my admiration, 
 that I had not observed any of these illustrious persons at 
 court ; the black spot on the forehead being so remarkable 
 a distinction, that I could not have easily overlooked it : and 
 it was impossible that his majesty, a most judicious prince, 
 should not provide himself with a good number of such wise 
 and able counsellors. Yet perhaps the virtue of those rever- 
 end sages was too strict for the corrupt and libertine manners 
 of a court : and we often find by experience that young men 
 are too opinionated and volatile, to be guided by the feober 
 dictates of their seniors. However since the king was pleas- 
 ed to allow me access to his royal person, I was resolved, 
 upon the very first occasion, to deliver my opinion to him on 
 this matter freely and at large, by the help of my interpreter ; 
 and whether he would please to take my advice or not, yet 
 in one thing I was determined,that his Majesty having frequent- 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 27 
 
 ly offered me an establishment in this country, I would, with 
 great thankfulness, accept the favour, and pass my life here 
 in the conversation of those superior beings the Strulbrugs, 
 if they would please to admit me. 
 
 " The gentleman to whom I addressed my discourse, because 
 (as I have already observed) he spoke the language of Balni- 
 barbi, said to me, with a sort of a smile which usually arises 
 from pity to the ignorant, " that he was glad of any occasion 
 to keep me among them, and desired my permission to ex- 
 plain to the company what I had spoke." He did so, and 
 they talked together for some time in their own language, 
 whereof I understood not a syllable, neither could I observe 
 by their countenances, what impression my discourse had 
 made on them. After a short silence, the same person told 
 me, ' that his friends and mine (so he thought fit to express 
 himself) were very much pleased with the judicious remarks 
 I had made on the great happiness and advantages of immor- 
 tal life, and they were desirous to know, in particular manner, 
 what scheme of living I should have formed to myself, if it 
 had fallen to my lot to hav&been born a Strulbrug. 
 
 " I answered it was easy to be eloquent on so copious and 
 delightful a subject especially to me, who had been often apt to 
 amuse myself with visions of what I should do, if I were a 
 king, a general or a great lord : and upon this very case, I 
 had frequently run over the whole system how I should em- 
 ploy myself, and pass the time, if I were sure to live for ever. 
 
 ** That if it had been my good fortune to come into the world 
 as a Strulbrug, as soon as I could discover my own happiness, 
 but understanding the difference between life and death, I 
 would first resolve, by all arts and methods whatsoever, to 
 procure myself riches : in the pursuit o which, by thrift and 
 E 2 
 
28 THE AGES OP HUMiiN LIFE. 
 
 management, I might reasonably expect, in about two hun- 
 dred years, to be the wealthiest man in the kingdom. In the 
 second place, 1 would, from my earliest youth, apply myself 
 to the study of arts and sciences, by which I should arrive 
 in time to excel all others in learning. Lastly, I would care- 
 fully record every action and event of consequence, that hap- 
 pened in the public, impartially draw the characters of the 
 several successions of princes and great ministers of state, 
 with my own observations on every point. I would exactly 
 set down the several changes in customs, language, fashions 
 of dress, diet, and diversions ; by all which acquirements, 
 I should be a living treasure of knowledge and wisdom, and 
 certainly become the oracle of the nation. 
 
 " I would never marry after threescore, but live in a hospi- 
 table manner, yet still on the saving side. I would entertain 
 myself in forming and directing the minds of hopeful young 
 men, by convincing them, from my own remembrance, expe- 
 rience, and observation, fortified by numerous examples, of 
 the usefulness of virtue in public and private life. But my 
 choice and constant companions should be a set of my own 
 immortal brotherhood ; among whom, I would elect a dozen 
 from the most ancient, down to my own contemporaries. 
 Where any of these wanted fortunes, I would provide them 
 with convenient lodges round my own estate, and have some 
 of them always at my table ; only mingling a few of the 
 most valuable among you mortals, whom length of time would 
 harden me to lose with little or no reluctance, and treat your 
 posterity after the same manner ; just as a man diverts him- 
 self with the annual succession of pinks and tulips in his gar- 
 den, without regretting the loss of those which withered the 
 preceding year. 
 
THE AGES OP HUMAN LIFE. 29 
 
 •* These Strulbrugs and I would mutually communicate our 
 observations and memorials, through the course of time ; 
 remark the several gradations by which corruption steals into 
 the world, and oppose it in every step, by giving perpetual 
 warning and instruction to mankind ; which, added to the 
 strong influence of our own example, would probably prevent 
 that continual degeneracy of human nature, so justly com- 
 plained of in all ages. 
 
 " Add to this, the pleasure of seeing the various revolutions 
 of states and empires ; the changes in the lower and upper 
 world ; ancient cities in ruins, and obscure villages become 
 the seats of kings ; famous rivers lessening into shallow brooks ; 
 the ocean leaving one coast dry, and overwhelming another ; 
 the discovery of many countries yet unknown ; barbarity over- 
 running the pohtest nations, and the most barbarous become 
 civihzed. I should then see the discovery of the longitude, 
 the perpetual motion, the universal medicine, and many other 
 great inventions, brought to the utmost perfection. 
 
 '* What wonderful discoveries should we make in astronomy, 
 by outliving and confirming our own predictions ; by observ- 
 ing the progress and returns of comets, with the changes of 
 motion in the sun, moon, and stars. 
 
 " I enlarged upon many other topics, which the natural 
 desire of endless life, and sublunary happiness could easily 
 furnish me with. When I had ended, and the sum of my 
 discourse had been interpreted, as before, to the rest of the 
 company, there was a good deal of talk among them in the 
 language of the country, not without some laughter at my 
 expense. At last the same gentleman who had been my inter- 
 preter, said, he was desired by the rest to set me right in a 
 few mistakes, which I had fallen into through the common 
 
30 THE AGES OP HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 imbecility of human nature, and upon that allowance was less 
 answerable for them. That this breed of Strulhrugs was 
 peculiar to their country, for there were no such people either 
 in Balnibarbi or Japan, where he had the honour to be am- 
 bassador from his majesty, and found the natives in both 
 these kingdoms very hard to believe that the fact was possi- 
 ble : and it appeared from my astonishment when he first 
 mentioned the matter to me, that I received it as a thing 
 wholly new, and scarcely to be credited. That in the two 
 kingdoms above-mentioned, where during his residence he 
 had conversed very much, he observed long hfe to be the uni- 
 versal desire and wish of mankind. That whoever had one 
 foot in the grave was sure to hold back the other as strongly 
 as he could. That the oldest had still hopes of living one day 
 longer, and looked on death as the greatest evil, from which 
 nature always prompted him to retreat. Only in this island of 
 Luggnag the appetite for hving was not so eager, from the 
 continual example of the Strulbrugs before the eye. 
 
 " That the system of Hving contrived by me was unreason- 
 able and unjust ; because it supposed a perpetuity of youth, 
 health, and vigour, which no man could be so foolish to hope, 
 however extravagant he may be in his wishes. That the 
 question therefore was not, whether a man would choose to 
 be always in the prime of youth, attended with prosperity and 
 health ; but how he would pass a perpetual life, under all 
 the usual disadvantages which old age brings along with it ; 
 for although few men will avow their desires of being im- 
 mortal, upon such hard conditions, yet in the two kingdoms 
 before mentioned, of Balnibarbi and Japan, he observed that 
 every man desired to put off death some time longer, let it 
 approach ever so late : and he rarely heard of any man who 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 31 
 
 died willingly, except he were incited by the extremity of 
 grief or torture. And he appealed to me, whether in those 
 countries I had travelled as well as my own I had not observed 
 the same general disposition ? 
 
 " After this preface, he gave me a particular account of the 
 Strulbrugs among them. He said, they commonly acted 
 like mortals till about thirty years old ; after which, by degrees, 
 they grew melancholy and dejected, increasing in both till they 
 came to fourscore. This he learned from their own confes- 
 sion : for otherwise, there not being above two or three of 
 that species born in an age, they were too few to form a gene- 
 ral observation by. When they came to fourscore years, which 
 is reckoned the extremity of living in this country, they had 
 not only all the follies and infirmities of other old men, but many 
 more which arose from the dreadful prospect of never dying. 
 They were not only opinionative, peevish, covetous, morose, 
 vain, talkative ; but incapable of friendship, and dead to all 
 natural affection, which never descended below their grand- 
 children. Envy, and impotent desires are their prevailing 
 passions. But those objects against which their envy seems 
 principally directed, are the vices of the younger sort, and 
 the deaths of the old. By reflecting on the former, they find 
 themselves cut ofi" from all possibility of pleasure ; and when- 
 ever they see a funeral, they lament and repine that others are 
 gone to a harbour of rest, to which they themselves can never 
 hope to arrive. They have no remembrance of any thing, 
 but what they learned and observed in their youth and middle 
 age, and even that is very imperfect ; and for the truth or 
 particulars of any fact, it is safer to depend on common tra- 
 dition, than upon their best recollections. The least miserable 
 among them appear to be those who turn to dotage, and 
 
32 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIEE. 
 
 entirely lose their memories ; these meet with more pity and 
 assistance, because they want many bad qualities which 
 abound in others. 
 
 " If a Strulhrug happen to marry one of his own kind, the 
 marriage is dissolved of course, by the courtesy of the king- 
 dom, as soon as the younger of the two comes to be fourscore, 
 for the law thinks it a reasonable indulgence, that those who 
 are condemned, without any fault of their own, to a perpetual 
 continuance in the world, should not have their misery dou- 
 bled by the load of a wife. 
 
 " As soon as they have completed the term of eighty years, 
 they are looked on as dead in law ; their heirs immediately 
 succeed to their estates ; only a small pittance is reserved for 
 their support, and the poor ones are maintained at the pub- 
 lic charge. After that period, they are held incapable of any 
 employment of trust or profit ; they cannot purchase lands, or 
 take leases, neither are they allowed to be witnesses in any 
 cause either civil or criminal, not even for the decision of 
 meers and bounds. 
 
 " At ninety they lose their teeth and hair ; they have at that 
 age no distinction of taste, but eat and drink whatever they 
 can get without rehsh or appetite. The diseases they were 
 subject to still continue, without increasing or diminishing. 
 In talking, they forget the common appellations of things, 
 and the names of persons, even of those who are their nearest 
 friends and relations. For the same reason, they never can 
 amuse themselves with reading, because their memory will not 
 serve to carry them from the beginning of a sentence to the 
 end; and by this defect, they are deprived of the only 
 entertainment whereof they might otherwise be capable. 
 
 *' The language of this country being always upon the flux. 
 
THE AGES OP HUMAN LIFE. 33 
 
 the Strulbrugs of one age do not understand those of 
 another ; neither are they able, after two hundred years, to 
 hold any conversation (farther than a few general words) with 
 their neighbours the mortals ; and thus they lie under the 
 disadvantage of living like foreigners in their own country. 
 
 " This was the account giving me of the Strulbrugs, as 
 near as I can remember. I afterwards saw five or six of 
 different ages, the youngest not above two hundred years old, 
 who were brought to me at several times by some of my 
 friends ; but although they were told, that I was a great 
 traveller, and had seen all the world, they had not the least 
 curiosity to ask me a question ; only desired I would give 
 them shunskudash, or a token of remembrance ; which is a 
 modest way of begging, to avoid the law that strictly forbids 
 it, because they are provided for by the public, although in- 
 deed with a very scanty allowance. 
 
 "They are despised and hated by all sorts of people. When 
 one of them is born, it is reckoned ominous, and their birth 
 is recorded very particularly : so that you may know their 
 age by consulting the registrer, which however, has not been 
 kept above a thousand years past, or at least has been de- 
 stroyed by time or public disturbances. But the usual way of 
 computing how old they are, is by asking them what kings 
 or great persons they can remember, and then consulting his- 
 tory ; for infallibly the last prince in their mind did not begin 
 his reign after they were fourscore years old. 
 
 " They were the most mortifying sight T ever beheld, and 
 the women more horrible than the men. Besides the usual 
 deformities in extreme old age, they acquired an additional 
 ghastliness, in proportion to their number of years, which is 
 not to be described ; and among half a dozen, I soon dislin- 
 
 F 
 
34 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 guished which was the eldest, although there was not above a 
 century or two between thera. 
 
 " The reader will easily believe that from what I had heard 
 and seen, my keen appetite to perpetuity of life was much 
 abated. I grew heartily ashamed of the pleasing visions I had 
 formed ; and thought no tyrant could invent a death, into 
 which I would not run with pleasure, from such a life. The 
 king heard of all that passed between me and my friends 
 upon this occasion, and rallied me very pleasantly ; wishing I 
 could send a couple of Strulhrugs to my own country, to arm 
 our people against the fear of death, but this, it seems, is for- 
 bidden by the fundamental laws of the kingdom, or else I 
 should have been well content with the trouble and expense 
 of transporting them. 
 
 *' I could not but agree, that the laws of this kingdom rela- 
 tive to the Strulhrugs were founded upon the strongest reasons, 
 and such as any other country would be under the necessity 
 of enacting in the like circumstances. Otherwise, as avarice is 
 the necessary consequence of old age, those immortals would 
 in time become proprietors of the whole nation, and engross 
 the civil power, which, for want of abilities to manage, must 
 end in the ruin of the pubhc." 
 
 The germ of several of Swift's most witty pieces is to be 
 found in Rabelais. — The Strulhrugs were probably suggested 
 by the Island of Macreons, which is one of the several ima- 
 ginaiy places that Pantagruel visits. There is also an old 
 romance called Perce-forest, in which there is an Isle of Life, 
 from which people must be taken before they can die. 
 
 Valerius Maxim us relates one of the most remarkable in- 
 stances in history of a person voluntarily resigning life at a very 
 advanced age, not on account of bodily infirmities or any cala- 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 33 
 
 mity, but merely to avoid the anticipated evils of protracted ex- 
 istence. He relates, that going into Asia with Sextus Pompeius, 
 and passing by the city of Julis, he was present at the death of 
 a lady, aged about ninety. She had declared to her sui)eriors 
 the reason which induced her to quit the world; after 
 this, she prepared to swallow down poison ; and imagining 
 that the presence of Pompey would do great honor to the cere- 
 mony, she most humbly besought him to come thither on 
 that occasion. He granted her request, but exhorted her very 
 eloquently, and with the utmost earnestness, to live. How- 
 ever, this was to no purpose ; she thanked him for his kind 
 wishes, and besought the gods to reward him, not so much 
 those she was going to, as those she was quitting. " I have 
 hitherto," said she, " experienced only the smiles of Fortune, 
 and that by an ill-grounded fondess for life I may not run the 
 hazard of seeing the goddess change her countenance to- 
 wards me, I voluntarily quit the light, while yet 1 take pleasure 
 in beholding it, leaving behind me two daughters, and seven 
 grandsons to respect my memory." She then turned about 
 to her family, and exhorted them to live in peace and unity, 
 and having recommended the care of her household, and the 
 worship of her domestic deities, to her elder daughter, she, 
 with a steady hand, took the glass that was filled with 
 poison. As she held it, she addressed a prayer to Mercurj'-, 
 and having besought him to facilitate her passage to the bet- 
 ter part of the receptacle of departed spirits, she with wonder- 
 ful alacrity drank off the deadly draught. When this was 
 done, with the same composure and steadiness of mind she 
 signified in what manner the poison wrouglit ; how the 
 lower parts of her body became cold and senseless by degrees. 
 As soon as the noble parts began to feel the infection, she 
 F 2 
 
36 THE A^GES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 called her daughters to do the last office, by closing her eyes. 
 '* As for us," says Valerius, " who were almost stupified at the 
 sight of so strange a spectacle, she dimissed us with weeping 
 eyes. For Romans think compassion in no way incompatible 
 with fortitude." 
 
 With this suicide may be compared one of the most remark- 
 able in antiquity, that of Cleombrotus, who destroyed himself, 
 after reading Plato, in order to enjoy immortal life as describ- 
 ed by that philosopher. Callimachus' verses on the subject are 
 thus translated by Mr. Merevale — • 
 
 " O Sun, farewell!" from the talF rampart's height 
 Cleombrotus exclaiming, plunged to night ! 
 Nor wasting care, nor fortune's adverse strife 
 Chill'd his young hopes with weariness of life ; 
 But Plato's god-like page had fixed his eye, 
 And made him long for immortality." 
 
 There is among birds something analogous to the Wander- 
 ing Jew among men. It was a tradition among the Rabbis 
 that the Phcenix was the only bird that did not follow Eve's 
 example in eating of the forbidden fruit ; and that it received 
 immortality as its reward. Much has been written in connec- 
 tion with the subject of the phoenix on Job ch. xxix. v. 8. 
 " Then I said, I shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply my 
 days as the sand." Herodotus, the writer of the Talmud, Ta- 
 citus, Pliny, several of the Fathers, and many other authors 
 make mention of the phcenix ; Jacob Bryant has some curi- 
 ous observations, which connect themselves with the story of 
 the immortal bird, in treating of the origin of the Phoenicians, 
 and on the Greek term phoenix, when used for a palm tree, 
 and on the mystical virtues ascribed in the scriptures and 
 other places to the branches of that tree, which was believed 
 to have perpetual renewal. The phoenix is found in the re- 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 37 
 
 verses of medals of Antoninus Pius, and of Constantine, it has, 
 in those medals, a circle of rays round its head, to distinguish it 
 as being the offspring of the sun. — This bird is celebrated 
 by the poets Hesiod, Claudian, Ausonius and Ovid. The 
 passage in Ovid will enable us, by means of Dry den's transla- 
 tion, to explain the bird's story more fully ; we recognise 
 in the passage ** the long resounding pace" of Dryden's 
 " ^therial Coursers," but occasionally, though not in so 
 striking a manner as in parts of his translations from Virgil, he 
 indulges in what, in the Art of SinJdng, is called the alamode 
 style. Perhaps a few defects of rythm will be detected which 
 could never be found in lines of Pope. 
 
 From himself the Phoenix only springs : 
 
 Self-born, begotten by the parent flame, 
 
 In which he burn'd, another and the same, 
 
 Who, not by corn, or herbs his life sustains, 
 
 But the sweet essence of Amomura drains : 
 
 And watches the rich gums Arabia bears. 
 
 While yet in tender dew they drop their tears. 
 
 He (his five centuries of life fulfill'd) 
 
 His nest on oaken bqughs begins to build. 
 
 Or trembling tops of palm, and first he draws 
 
 The plan with his broad bill and crooked claws, 
 
 Nature's artificers ; on this the pile 
 
 Is form'd, and rises round ; then with the spoil 
 
 Of cassia, cinnamon, and stems of nard, 
 
 (For softness strew'd beneath) his fun'ral bed is rear'd : 
 
 Funeral and bridal both ; and all around 
 
 The borders with corruptless myrrh are crown'd. 
 
 On this incumbent ; till etherial flame 
 
 First catches, then consumes the costly frame, 
 
 Consumes him too, as on the pile he hes : 
 
 He liv'd on odours, and in odours dies. 
 
 An infant Phoenix from the former springs, 
 
 H is father's heir, and from his tender wings 
 
 Shakes off his parent dust, his method he pursues. 
 
38 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 And the same lease of life on the same terms renews. 
 
 When grown to manhood he begins his reign, 
 
 And with stiff pinions can his flight sustain, 
 
 He lightens of its load the tree, that bore 
 
 His father's royal sepulchre before, 
 
 And his own cradle : this (with pious care, 
 
 Plac'd on his back) he cuts the buxom air, 
 
 Seeks the sun's city, and his sacred church. 
 
 And decently lays down his burthen in the porch. 
 
 Hesiod has some lines on the comparative duration of the 
 lives of man and of animals. Addison, who furnishes the trans- 
 lation, observes that the description runs on like a multiplica- 
 tion table, and requires a good arithmetician to understand it/ 
 
 The utmost age to man the Gods assign 
 
 Are winters three times two, and ten times nine ; 
 
 Poor man nine times the prating daws exceed. 
 
 Three times the daws the deer's more lasting breed. 
 
 The deer's full thrice the ravens' race outrun. 
 
 Nine times the raven Titan's feathered son. (Phoenix.) 
 
 Beyond this age, with youth and beauty crown'd, 
 
 The Hamydryads shine ten ages round. 
 
 Their breath the longest is the fates bestow, 
 
 And such the bounds to mortal lives below. 
 
 Archbishop Laud placed two tortoises, one in the gardens of 
 Lambeth palace, and the other in those of Fulham palace. It 
 does not appear what their ages were before they took up their 
 Arch-Episcopal residences. The Fulham tortoise we are 
 acquainted with from the year 1628, it died in 1753. The 
 Lambeth tortoise's history begins in 1633; it died in 1753, 
 in consequence of the gardener digging it out of the ground 
 during the winter for a trifling wager. The CHve, the Peter- 
 borough, and other tortoises have been noticed for their 
 longevity. 
 
 There is an account of an elephant which Alexander the 
 Great captured in India, and which he named Ajax, and dedi- 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 39 
 
 cated to the Sun ; and of a stag round whose neck he placed 
 a collar with an inscription ; these animals are said to have 
 lived more than a century. Cervina Senectas, stag-like old 
 age, is the expression which Juvenal puts into the mouths 
 of the Roman youths, among whom the poisoning of old 
 parents had become a jocular vice. It has been related 
 that a carp was caught in a fish-pond in Suabia, with a 
 copper ring in its ear having this inscription — " I am the 
 first fish that was put into this pond by the hands of Frederick 
 II., the 5th of October, 1230." The fish was alive in 1497, 
 There are several statements concerning old carps in Buff'on ; 
 a carp was kept in the basin at Emanuel College, Cambridge, 
 for 36 years; it was blind in one eye, but knew its 
 feeder. 
 
 Pompey, the hon, lived to 70. A horse has been known 
 to live to the age of 62, but averages 25 to 30 years. Camels 
 sometimes attain 100. Wolves 20. Foxes 14 to 16. The 
 Rhinoceros 20. Sheep seldom exceed 10 years. Cows live 
 about 15. Cats about 15. Squirrels, hares, rabbits average 
 7 or 8 years ; one of Cowper's hares, of which he has left us 
 interesting memorials in verse and prose, in English and 
 Latin, died of mere old age, when eleven years eleven months 
 old ; this was the tamest of the three he kept and nursed. 
 Spiders have been known to live for 13 years. The London 
 industrious fleas are worn out in 2 years. The Romans kept 
 tame lampreys, some of these are reported to have lived for 
 three- score years ; the tears which their owners are said to 
 have shed on losing them gave rise to several sallies of Roman 
 wit. The dolphin and porpoise attain thirty. Cuvier con- 
 siders it probable that whales sometimes live a thousand 
 years. Swans have been said to live 300 years. Sky- 
 
40 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 larks in a cage have been known to live 24 years. Pigeons 
 live from 20 to 22 years. Linnets and goldfinches from 
 15 to 23. There are accounts by writers of credit of geese 
 living to the age of 80 or 100. Pehcans have been known 
 to attain 40 or 50 and 80 years. Ravens frequently attain 
 100. An eagle died at Vienna at the age of 104 years. The 
 age of the eagle is adverted to by the Psalmist — " His 
 youth shall be renewed like the eagle's.'* The passage 
 has puzzled many of the ancient Fathers of the Church, who 
 judged it expedient to support the passage just quoted, by 
 some pious fictions as to the modes in which the eagle re- 
 newed itself. No less than four of the Fathers agree, that 
 when the bird begins to feel advancing age from the weight 
 of its feathers, and the dimness of its eyes, it betakes itself 
 to a fountain of water, and plunging therein has its whole 
 frame renovated. One Father adds, that the eagle before 
 immersion has the knack of placing itself in the sun's rays in 
 such a way that its old feathers are burnt. 
 
 It may be observed that much caution is necessaiy in cre- 
 diting the facts which have been stated on the subject of the 
 lives of animals. A love of the marvellous has evidently 
 obscured the investigation in some instances ; and many facts 
 may have been stated upon unsifted hearsay testimony, or 
 upon a very limited induction of particulars, and without 
 regard to accidental circumstances. It is necessary also to 
 consider that we have few means of arriving at satisfactory 
 conclusions concerning animals in their wild state. 
 
 Of the age of the dog we have poetical notices. Homer 
 informs us that Ulysses's dog, Argus, recognized him after 
 an absence of twenty years. Somerville, in his poem of the 
 Chace, says — 
 
THE AGES OP HUMAN LIFE. 41 
 
 Short is their span ; few at the date arrive 
 
 Of ancient Argus, in old Homer's song 
 
 So highly honored, kind, sagacious brute ! 
 
 Not e'en Minerva's wisdom could conceal 
 
 Thy much lov'd master from thy nicer sense. 
 
 Dying, his lord he own'd, vie\ted him all o'er 
 
 With eager eyes, then closed those eyes well pleased. 
 
 With regard to the Hamydryades, whose lives depended 
 on the lives of trees, (whereas the Dryads were immortal,) the 
 subject, thoug-h of much interest, would lead us further than 
 would be convenient in the present work. It would introduce 
 us to the history of traditionary English trees, some of which 
 are now standing, others have fallen within recent memory, 
 and some are preserved, like Drake's ship, in the form of 
 chairs, boxes and other devices. A very old oak, and the largest 
 of which mention is made in England, grew in Dorsetshire* 
 Its circumference was sixty- eight feet. It had a cavity 
 of sixteen feet long and twenty feet high, which was used, in 
 the time of the Commonwealth, for an alehouse. It was 
 shattered by a great storm, and in 1755 the last vestiges of it 
 were sold for firewood. Evelyn mentions, in his Sylva, that 
 in the New Forest, he counted, in the sections of some trees, 
 three or four hundred concentric rings or layers, each of 
 which, he considers, indicate a year's growth. And Gilpin, 
 in his Forest Scenery, speaks of living trees that " chronicle 
 upon their furrowed trunks ages before the Conquest." As an 
 inquiry into the authenticity and history of our traditional 
 trees, would detain us too long, I will merely enumerate the 
 principal. Jlfred's oak at Oxford. Riifuss oak in the New 
 Forest. Wallace's oak in Sterlingshire. Chaucer's oak. The 
 Parliament, Fairlop and Yardley oaks. The Spencer s oak and 
 famed trees at Penshurst. The Boxohell oak in which Charles II. 
 
42 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 was concealed, Kitig Stephen s Chesnut tree. Shakspeare's and 
 Milton's mulberry trees. Newton's apple tree. Pope's willow. 
 The subject may be concluded by an anecdote of Benserade, 
 a star of the literary constellations in France which illumed the 
 court of Louis XIV. La Bruyere, who describes his extraor- 
 dinary vivacity at seventy, asks what he must have been in 
 his younger days when, if he said any thing, a number of the 
 court Ladies would exclaim " cela est delicieux, , qu'-a-t-il 
 dit ?" But Benserade did not know the point in classical my- 
 thology which we have just been noticing. So, on one oc- 
 casion when Madame asked him " "What was the difference 
 between a Dryad and a H amy dry ad ?" he was at his wit's end. 
 But he was ashamed to confess ignorance on such a point, and 
 in such presence — so, observing that on either side of Madame s 
 ehair were papiUioning (to anghcise aphraseof a modern French 
 novelist) an Archbishop and a Bishop, Benserade answered — 
 " The same kind of difference that prevails between Bishopsr 
 and Archbishops." It was afterwards a standing joke at the 
 Court of Louis XIV. that this or that Bishop was seeking to 
 be made a Hamydryad. 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 43 
 
 SECTION II. 
 The Duration of Beauty. 
 
 One of the most painful incidents of humanity is the short 
 duration of female beauty. Sometimes a cloud gathers over it 
 in early life ; and even where this is not the case, it is ge- 
 nerally the first of the gifts of nature which deserts its owner, 
 — Lord Byron has sketched the two-fold fate of beauty in his 
 description of the Tomb of Cecilia Metella, at Rome. 
 
 There is a stern round tower of other days, 
 Firm as a fortress, with its fence of stone, 
 Such as an army's baffled strength delays. 
 Standing with half its battlements alone. 
 And with two thousand years of ivy grown. 
 The garland of eternity, where wave 
 The green leaves over all by time o'erthrown, 
 What was this tower of strength ? within its cave 
 What treasure lay so locked, so hid ? — A woman's grave. 
 
 Perchance she died in youth ; it may be, bow'd 
 With woes far heavier than the ponderous tomb 
 That weighed upon her gentle dust, a cloud 
 Might gather o'er her beauty, and a gloom 
 In her dark eye, prophetic of the doom 
 Heaven gives its favorites — early death; yet shed 
 A sunset charm around her, and illume 
 With hectic light, the Hesperus of the dead,* 
 Of her consuming cheek the autumnal leaf-like red. 
 
 Perchance she died in age — surviving all. 
 Charms, kindred, children— with the silver grey 
 On her long tresses, which might yet recall 
 It may be still a something of the day 
 G 2 
 
44 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 When they were braided, and her proud array 
 And lovely form were envied, praised, and eyed 
 By Rome— but whither would conjecture stray? 
 Thus much alone we know, — Metella died. 
 The wealthiest Roman's wife. Behold his love or pride ! 
 
 It is curious to see the different ways in which Poets have 
 treated the analogy between the life of the Rose and that of 
 Beauty. It requires a masterly hand to impart interest to 
 what has now become such a hackneyed comparison. The 
 following- specimens are of no ordinary merit. The first is 
 from Spenser's description of the Boioer of Bliss. 
 
 The whiles some one did chaunt this lovely lay, 
 " Ah ! see, whoso fair thing doth fain to see, 
 In springing floiue the image of thy day. 
 Ah, see the virgin rose, how sweetly shee 
 Doth first peepe forth in bashful modestee, 
 That fairer seems the less ye see her may ! 
 Lo ! see soon after, how more bold and free, 
 Her bared bosom shee doth broad display, 
 Lo ! see soon after how she fades and falls away ! 
 
 " So passeth in the passing of a day, 
 
 Of mortal life the leafe, the bud, the floure. 
 
 No more doth flourish after first decay, 
 
 That erst was sought to deck both bed and bower 
 
 Of many a lady, and many a paramoure ! 
 
 Gather, therefore, the rose whitest yet is prime, 
 
 For soon comes Age that will her pride defloure. 
 
 Gather the rose of love whiles yet is time, 
 
 Whilest loving thou mayest loved be with equal crime." 
 
 A like image is used by Jeremy Taylor — 
 
 " So have I seen a rose newly springing from the clefts of 
 its hood, and, at first, it was fair as the morning, and full with 
 the dew of heaven, as a lamb's fleece. But whea a ruder 
 breath had forced open its virgin-modesty, and dismantled 
 
THE AGES OP HUMAN LIFE. 45 
 
 its too youthful and unripe retirements, it began to put on 
 darkness ; and to decline to softness, and the symptoms of 
 sickly age ; it bowed the head, and broke its stalk, and, at 
 night, having lost some of its leaves, and all its beauty, it fell 
 into the portion of weeds." 
 
 Waller's Rose is one of the most charming amatory com- 
 positions in our Poetry. 
 
 Go, lovely Rose ! 
 Tell her that wastes her time and me, 
 
 That now she knows, 
 When 1 resemble lier to thee ; 
 How sweet, and fair she seems to be. 
 
 Tell her that's young, 
 And shuns to have her graces spy'd, 
 
 That had'st thou sprung 
 In deserts where no men abide, 
 Thou must have uncommended died, 
 
 Small is the worth 
 Of Beauty from the light retired ; 
 
 Bid her come forth, 
 
 Suffer herself to be desired, 
 
 And not blush so to be admired. 
 » 
 
 Then die ! that she 
 The common fate of all things rare 
 
 May read in thee. 
 How small a part of time they share. 
 That are so wondrous sweet and fair ! 
 
 A lady having lent Waller's poems to Kirke White, when 
 he returned them, she discovered this additional stanza writ- 
 ten at the bottom of the foregoing verses? 
 
 Yet, though thou fade, 
 From thy dead leaves let fragrance rise ; 
 
 And teach the maid 
 That goodness time's rude hand defies, 
 That virtue lives when beauty dies. 
 
46 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 Prior's " Garland" is written in the same cast of thought as 
 Waller's Rose — • 
 
 The pride of every grove I chose, 
 
 The violet sweet and lily fair, 
 The dappled pink, and blushing rose, 
 
 To deck my charming Cloe's hair. 
 
 At morn the nymph vouchsafed to place 
 
 Upon her brow the various wreath, 
 The flowers less blooming than her face. 
 
 The scent less fragrant than her breath. 
 
 The flowers she wore along the day, 
 
 And every nymph and shepherd said. 
 That in her hair they looked more gay 
 
 'I'han glowing in their native bed. 
 
 Undrest at evening, when she found, 
 
 Their odours lost, their colors past, 
 She changed her look, and on the ground 
 
 Her garland and her eye she cast. 
 
 That eye dropt sense distinct and clear, 
 
 As any Muse's tongue could speak. 
 When from its lid a pearly tear 
 
 Ran trickling down her beauteous cheek. 
 
 Dissembling what T knew too well, 
 " My love, my life," said I, " explain 
 
 " This change of humour, pry thee, tell 
 " That falling tear what does it mean ?" 
 
 She sighed, she smiled, and to the flowers 
 
 Pointing, the lovely moralist said— 
 " See, friend, in some few fleeting hours, 
 
 " See, yonder, what a change is made ! 
 
 " Ah ! me, the blooming pride of May 
 
 " And that of beauty are but one ; 
 *' At morn both flourish bright and gay ; 
 
 " Both fade at evening, pale and gone." 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 47 
 
 At dawn poor Stella danced and sung ; 
 
 The amorous youth around her bowed ; 
 At night her fatal knell was rung, 
 
 I saw, and kissed her in her shroud. 
 
 Such as she is who died to-day, 
 
 Such I, alas ! may be to-morrow; 
 Go, Damon, bid thy muse display 
 
 The justice of thy Cloe's sorrow. 
 
 Socrates called Beauty a " short-lived tyranny." On the 
 stage of the world, tyrants of this kind commonly descend 
 from their thrones in a dignified manner, and by gradual 
 steps — occasionally, however, their fall is sudden, though they 
 are only deposed, and long survive it — an example of the latter 
 description is presented in two numbers of the Rambler — I 
 have put together some of the paragraphs, though they are 
 not consecutive. 
 
 I"; " I was born a Beauty. From the dawn of reason I had my 
 regard turned wholly upon myself, nor can recollect any thing 
 earlier than praise and admiration. My mother, whose face 
 had luckily advanced hereto a condition above her birth, 
 thought no evil so great as deformity. She had not the power 
 of imagining any other defect than a cloudy complexion, or 
 disproportionate features ; and therefore contemplated me as 
 an assemblage of all that could raise envy or desire, and pre- 
 dicted with triumphant fondness the extent of my conquests, 
 and the number of my slaves. My mother, who pleased her- 
 self with the hopes of seeing my exaltation, dressed me with all 
 the exuberance of finery ; and when I represented to her that 
 a fortune might be expected proportionate to my appearance, 
 told me that she should scorn the reptile who could inquire 
 after the fortune of a girl like me. She advised me to prose- 
 
48 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 cute my victories, and time would certainly bring me a 
 captive who might deserve the honour of being enchained for 
 ever. 
 
 I had now almost completed my nineteenth year : if my 
 charms had lost any of their softness, it was more than com- 
 pensated by additional dignity ; and if the attractions of 
 innocence were impaired, their place was supplied by the arts 
 of allurement. I was therefore preparing for a new attack, 
 without any abatement of my confidence, when, in the 
 midst of my hopes and schemes, 1 was seized by that dread- 
 ful malady which has so often put a sudden end to the 
 tyranny of beauty. My mother often wandered over my face, 
 as travellers over the ruins of a celebrated city, to note every 
 place which had once been remarkable for a happy feature. 
 She condescended to visit my retirement, but always left me 
 more melancholy, for after a thousand trifling inquiries about 
 my diet, and a minute examination of my looks, she gene- 
 rally concluded with a sigh, that I should never more be fit 
 to be seen. I was not wholly without hope, that dejection 
 had misrepresented me to myself, and that the remains of my 
 former face might yet have some attraction and influence, 
 but the first circle of visits convinced me, that my reign was 
 at an end, that life and death were no longer in my hands ; 
 that I was no more to practise the glance of command, or the 
 frown of prohibition ; to receive the tribute of sighs and 
 praises, or be soothed with the gentle murmurs of amorous 
 timidity. My opinion was now unheard, and my proposals 
 were unregarded ; the narrowness of my knowledge, and the 
 meanness of my sentiments, were easily discovered, when the 
 eyes were no longer engaged against the judgment ; and it was 
 observed, by those who had formerly been charmed with my 
 
THK AGES OiU*HUMAN LIFE. 49 
 
 vivacious loquacity, my understanding was impaired as well 
 as my face, and that I was no longer qualified to fill a place 
 in any company but a party at cards. Though the negligence 
 of the men was not very pleasing when compared with vows 
 and adoration, yet it was far more supportable than the inso- 
 lence of my own sex. For the first ten months after my 
 return into the world, I never entered a single house in which 
 the memory of my downfal was not revived. At one place 
 I was congratulated on my escape vdih life ; at another I 
 heard of the benefits of early inoculation ; by some I have 
 been told in express terms, that I am not yet without my 
 charms ; others have whispered at my entrance. This is the 
 celebrated beauty. One told me of a wash that would smooth 
 the skin ; and another offered me her chair that I might not 
 front the light. Some soothed me with the observation that 
 none can tell how soon my case may be her own, and some 
 thought it proper to receive me with mournful tenderness, 
 formal condolence, and consolatory blandishments." The 
 insolence of the lady's own sex must have been particularly 
 aggravating. At the French Court, the Due de Roquelaure 
 was entreated to reconcile two of the Maids of Honor who 
 were vehemently exasperated against each other. He said. 
 Before I think of undertaking such a weighty affair, I must 
 know one particular ; — has either of the ladies called the 
 other ugly } No. Then, replied the Duke, I will engage to 
 make them as good friends as ever. Dr. Johnson's corre- 
 spondent, Victoria, at last, confesses her uneasiness to Euphe- 
 mia, '♦ the only friend who had never pained her with com- 
 fort or with pity," and who surprizes her with an entirely 
 new view of human existence, assuring her that there " are 
 
 H 
 
50 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 t 
 
 other charms than those of beauty, and other joys than the 
 praise of fools." 
 
 Besides the sudden and entire loss of beauty by such a 
 cruel disease as the small-pox, our belles are subject to par- 
 tial or temporary disfigurements from a variety of causes. 
 One of these accidents, from its having occasioned an unri- 
 valled poem in its own species, deserves our particular notice. 
 Lord Petre had cut off a favorite lock of Miss Arabella Ter- 
 mor's hair. This piece of gallantry occasioned an interrup- 
 tion of friendship between two families, whom Pope's poem 
 of \h.Q Rape of the Lock was the means of re-uniting. We 
 are told that " in all Israel there was none to be so much 
 praised as Absalom for his beauty ;" this is proved by the 
 fact that when he polled his head at every year's end, the 
 hair weighed 200 shekels. In the days of Charles I. there 
 was a particular lock of hair called a "heart-breaker;" 
 it is mentioned in Hudibras. The coins of Charles I. are 
 remarkable for the King's hair ; and Prynne, from a feel- 
 ing of the sins committed through the charms of female 
 hair, wrote his celebrated treatise on the Unloveliness of 
 Lovelocks. A few extracts from the Rape of the Loch will 
 illustrate our subject, and show the fancy, delicate satire, and 
 exquisite versification of the author. It may be observed that 
 the sylphs were not originally a part of the poem, and that 
 the idea of them is taken from a little French book called 
 Le Comte de Gabalis composed by the Abbe Villars. 
 This Nymph to the destruction of mankind 
 Nourished two locks, which graceful hung behind, 
 In equal curls, and well conspired to deck, 
 With shining ringlets the smooth iv'ry neck. 
 
 This day black omens threat the brightest fair 
 That e'er deserved a watchful spirit's care ; 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 51 
 
 Some dire disaster or by force or slight ; 
 
 But what, or where, the fates have wrapt in night. 
 
 Whether the Nymph shall break Diana's law, 
 
 Or some frail China jar receive a flaw ; 
 
 Or stain her honor, or her new brocade ; 
 
 Forget her prayers, or miss a masquerade ; 
 
 Or lose her heart, or necklace, at a ball ; 
 
 Or whether Heaven has doomed that shock must fall. 
 
 Haste then, ye spirits, to your charge repair : 
 
 The fluttering fan be Zephyretta's care. 
 
 The drops to thee, Brillante, we consign; 
 
 And, Momentilla, let the watch be thine. 
 
 Do thou, Crispissa, tend her favWite lock. 
 
 Ariel himself shall be the guard of shock. 
 
 To fifty chosen nymphs of special note 
 
 We trust th' important charge, the Petticoat. 
 
 Oft have we known that seven-fold fence to fail. 
 
 Though stiff* with hoops, and armed with ribs of whale. 
 
 Whatever spirit, careless of his charge, 
 His post neglects, or leaves the Fair at large, 
 Shall feel sharp vengeance overtake his sins, 
 Be stopped in vials, or transfixed with pins ; 
 Or plunged in lakes of bitter washes lie. 
 Or wedged whole ages in a bodkin's eye. 
 Gums and pomatums shall his flight restrain, 
 While dogged he beats his silken wings in vain. 
 Or alum styptics with contracting pow'r 
 Shrink his thin essence like a shrivell'd flower. 
 Or as Ixion fixed, the wretch shall feel 
 The giddy motion of the whirling mill; 
 In fumes of burning chocolate shall glow 
 And tremble at the sea that froths below ! 
 
 And lo! the board with cups and spoons is crowned. 
 The berries crackle, and the mill turns round : 
 On shining altars of Japan they raise 
 The silver lamp ; the fiery spirits blaze. 
 From silver spouts the grateful liquors glide, 
 While China's earth receives the smoking tide. 
 Straight hover round the fair her airy band. 
 Some, as she sipped, the fuming liquor fann'd ; 
 H 2 
 
52 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIEE. 
 
 Some o'er her lap their careful plumes display' d^ 
 
 Trembling, and conscious of the rich brocade. 
 Just then Clarissa drew, with tempting grace, 
 
 A two-edged weapon from her shining case. 
 
 So ladies in Romance assist their knight, 
 
 Present the spear, and arm him for the fight. 
 
 lie takes the gift with reverence, and extends 
 
 The little engine on his fingers' ends. 
 
 This just behind Belinda's neck he spread, 
 
 As o'er the fragrant steam she bends her head. 
 
 Swift to the Lock a thousand sprites repair, 
 
 A thousand wings by turns blow back the hair; 
 
 And thrice they twitched the diamond in her ear, 
 
 Thrice she look'd back, and thrice the foe drew near. 
 
 Just at that instant anxious Ariel sought 
 
 The close recesses of the virgin's thought. 
 
 As on the nosegay in her breast reclined, 
 
 He watch'd th'ideas rising in her mind. 
 
 Sudden he viewed, in spite of all h^r art, 
 
 An earthly lover lurking at her heart. 
 
 Amazed, confus'd, he found his power expired ; 
 
 Resigned to fate, and with a sigh retired. 
 
 'I'he peer now spreads the glittering forfex wide, 
 
 T'inclose the Loch ; now joins it to divide. 
 
 Ev'n then before the fatal engine clos'd, 
 
 A wretched sylph too fondly interposed. 
 
 Fate urged the sheers, and cut the sylph in twain. 
 
 But airy substance soon unites again. 
 
 The meeting points the sacred hair dissever 
 
 From the fair head for ever, and for ever! 
 But generally the decline of beauty is gradual ; there is even 
 a period of life to be passed over, during which beauty holds 
 a doubtful and disputed reign ; no one venturing to dethrone 
 her, yet all thinking that her crown is in danger of faUing off 
 her head. Hence the uncertainty noticed by Lord Byron of 
 what is called a certain age. 
 
 She was not old, nor young, nor at the years 
 
 Which certain people call the " certain age^'' 
 
THE AGES OP HUMAN LIFE. 53 
 
 Which yet the most uncertain age appears, 
 Because I never heard, nor could engage 
 
 A person yet by prayers, or bribes, or tears, 
 To name, define by speech, or write on page, 
 
 The period meant precisely by that word — 
 Which surely is exceedingly absurd. 
 
 Laura was blooming still, had made the best 
 Of timcj and time return'd the compliment. 
 
 And treated her genteely, so that, dress d, 
 She look'd extremely well where'er she went. 
 
 Marmontel appears to be describing the certain age, when 
 he says of a lady, " Selianne, dans sa jeunesse avoit ete jolie 
 et helle ; eUe etoit belle encore ; mais elle commencoit a n'etre 
 plus jolie." It must be expected that beauty, in its zodiacal 
 course, after transfixing mankind with the arrows of the 
 Archer, will loiter awhile through the sign of the Balance, 
 and end by imitating the retrograde crawling, and sometimes 
 other characteristics, of the C7^ah. 
 
 It may naturally be supposed that beautiful ladies must 
 contemplate the loss or imputed loss of their charms with 
 regret. There is a pretty ,Greek epigram upon this subject ; 
 it represents the celebrated Lais as dedicating her looking- 
 glass to Venus. The translation is by Prior, one of the most 
 felicitous of our poets in light compositions. 
 
 Venus ! take ray votive glass ! 
 Since I am not what I was. 
 What from this day I shall be, 
 Venus, let me never see ! 
 
 Some ladies have, perhaps, been too severely assailed by 
 
 poetical ridicule, on account of the attempts they have made 
 
 to conceal the effects of age. Thus Prior, in his airy style, 
 
 How old may Phyllis be ? you ask, 
 Whose beauty thus all hearts engages. 
 
54 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 To answer is no easy task ; 
 For she has really two ages. 
 
 StifFin brocade, and pinched in stays, 
 
 Her patches, paint, and jewels on, 
 All day let envy view her face. 
 
 And Phyllis is but twenty-one. 
 
 Paint, patches, jewels laid aside, 
 
 At night astronomers agree, 
 The evening has the day belied, 
 
 And Phyllis is some forty-three. 
 
 Pictures of old coquettes are very frequent in our poetry ; 
 the following is from Young's Satires — It is overdone, but has 
 spirit and point. Some of the ideas are borrowed from La 
 Bruyere — 
 
 Autumnal Lyce carries in her face 
 
 Memento mori to each public place, 
 
 O how your beating breast a mistress warms. 
 
 Who looks thro' spectacles to see your charms ! 
 
 While rival undertakers hover round, 
 
 And with his spade the sexton marks the ground. 
 
 Intent not on her own but other's doom, 
 
 She plans new conquests, and defrauds the tomb. 
 
 In vain the cock has summoned sprites a\^?iy, 
 
 She walks at noon, and blasts the bloom of day. 
 
 Gay rainbow silks her mellow charms enfold. 
 
 And nought of Lyce but herself is old. 
 
 Her grizzled locks assume a smirking grace, 
 
 And art has levell'd her deep-furrow'd face. 
 
 Her strange demand no mortal can approve, 
 
 We'll ask her blessing, but can't ask her love. 
 
 She grants, indeed, a lady may decline 
 
 (All ladies but herself) at ninety-nine. 
 
 Pope in his Characters of Women (a poem which seems de- 
 signed chiefly as an attack upon Atossa and Cloe), does not 
 
THE AGES OP HUMAN LIFE. 55 
 
 touch upon, or, at least, develop the foible of the sex which 
 we are now considering. But in his epistle on the Ruling 
 Passion, he appears to have hit, and that rather hard, the 
 weakness of clinging to beauty under false colors. It is in 
 his description of the dying coquette, which has been sup- 
 posed to have been intended for Mrs. Oldfield, the Actress ; 
 she was laid in state with her face exposed for two days. 
 
 Odious ! in woollen ! 't would a saint provoke, 
 (Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke.) 
 No, let a charming chintz and Brussels lace 
 Wrap my cold limbs, and shade ray lifeless face ; 
 One would not, sure, be frightful when one's dead — 
 And — Betty — give this cheek a little red. 
 
 Our early writers notice these arts to perpetuate youthful 
 charms quite as frequently as the mode modern. In Ben 
 Jonson's Silent Woman, Otter, a land and sea captain, says 
 of his wife — " Her teeth were made in the Black-friars, both 
 her eye-brows i' the Strand, and her hair in Silver- street. 
 Every part of the town holds a piece of her. She takes her- 
 self asunder, when she goes to bed, into some twenty boxes ; 
 and about next day, at noon, is put together again like a 
 German clock ; and so comes forth, and sings a tedious larUm 
 to the whole house." 
 
 Hamlet's meditation on the skull of a painted lady is well 
 known. And in Massenger's play of A Very Woman we have — 
 
 P. Morrow, Sister, 
 
 Do I not come unseasonably ? 
 
 A. Why, good Brother ? 
 
 P. Because you are not yet fully made up. 
 Nor fit for visitation. There are ladies 
 And great ones, that will hardly grant access, 
 On any terms, to their own fathers, as 
 They are themselves, nor willingly be seen 
 
56 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 Before they have ask'd counsel of their doctor, 
 How the Ceruce will appear newly laid on, 
 When they ask a blessing. 
 A. Such, indeed, there are. 
 
 That would be still young in despite of time. 
 That in the wrinkled winter of their age 
 Would force a seeming April of fresh beauty, 
 As if it were within the power of art 
 To frame a second nature. But for me, 
 And for your mistress I dare say as much. 
 The faces, and the teeth you see, we slept with. 
 
 Pope in versifying Donne's Satires has on this subject quite 
 lost the point of the original. Donne is ridiculing a charac- 
 ter who is more knowing than other people upon a variety of 
 trifling matters. The poet brings his sagacity to the follow- 
 ing climax : 
 
 Wiser than all us. 
 He knows what lady is not painted. 
 
 Pope's version has regard more to the odiousness than the 
 
 frequency of painting, and does not impose an Herculean 
 
 labor on the observer. 
 
 And last (which proves him wiser still than all) 
 What lady's face is not a whited wall. 
 
 The attempts made to prolong the reputation of waning 
 charms are too often imputed without reason. Among per- 
 sons like those who compose the following coterie, such im- 
 putations would pass very current, without much inquiry. 
 The speakers are Lady Sneerwell, Crahtree, Sir Benjamin 
 Backbite, and Mrs. Candour, 
 
 Lady S. What's the matter, Mrs. Candour ? 
 
 Mrs, C, Why, they are so censorious, they won't allow 
 our friend. Miss Vermillion, to be handsome. 
 
 Lady S. Oh, surely she's a pretty woman. 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 57 
 
 Crah. I'm glad you think so. 
 Mrs. C. She has a charming fresh colour. 
 Lady S. Yes, when it is fresh put on. 
 Mrs. C. Well, I'll swear 'tis natural, for I've seen it 
 come and go. 
 
 Lady S. Yes, it comes at night, and goes again in the 
 morning. 
 
 Sir B. True, Madam, it not only goes and comes, but, 
 what's more, her maid can fetch and carry it. 
 
 Mrs. C. Well — and what do you think of her sister } 
 Crab. What, Mrs. Evergreen — 'foregad, she's six and 
 fifty if she is a day. 
 
 Mrs. C. Nay, I'll swear two or three and sixty is the 
 outside — I don't think she looks more. 
 
 Sir B. Oh, there's no judging by her looks, unless we 
 could see her face. 
 
 Lady S. Well, if Mrs. Evergreen does take some pains to 
 repair the ravages of time, she certainly effects it with great 
 ingenuity ; and surely that's better than the careless manner 
 in which the widow Oaker chalks her wrinkles . 
 
 Sir B. Nay, now my Lady Sneerwell, you are too severe 
 upon the widow — come, it is not that she paints so ill, but, 
 when she has finished her face, she joins it so badly to her 
 neck, that she looks like a mended statue, in which the Con- 
 noisseur may see at once, that the head is modern, though 
 the trunk is antique. 
 
 Crah. What do you think of Miss Simper ? 
 Sir B. Why she has pretty teeth. 
 
 Lady S. Yes, and upon that account never shuts her 
 mouth, but keeps it always ajar, as it were, thus. 
 Omnes. Ha ! ha ! ha ! 
 
58 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE, 
 
 Lady S. And, yet I vow that's better than the pains Mrs. 
 Prim takes to conceal the loss in front. She draws her mouth 
 till it resembles the aperture of a poor box, and all her words 
 appear to sHde out edge-ways, as it were thus. *' How do 
 you do. Madam ? — Yes, Madam." 
 
 The difficulty of keeping up that uniformity which a resem- 
 blance to nature requires, when art has so large a share in 
 the appearance of different features, could not fail to draw 
 on it the remarks of the parties engaged in the foregoing 
 conversation ; of one lady they observe, " Her face resem- 
 bles a table d'hote at Spa, where no two guests are of a nation. 
 Another's face is compared to a congress at the close of a 
 general war, where every member seems to have a different 
 interest, and the nose and chin are the only parties like to 
 join issue." One of the writers in the Connoisseur relates 
 the accident of his carrying off half a lady's face by a salute, 
 for he found that his kisses had been given, like those of 
 Pyramus to Thisbe, through a wall. 
 
 It is a gratifying consolation, and one which is elevating to 
 the human species, to reflect on those attractions which 
 belong to woman in the absence of, or after the decay of 
 beauty, and which distinguish her from the members of the 
 animal and vegetable kingdoms. It is only to be regretted 
 that it too often happens that the homage paid to beauty 
 turns the head, and withdraws the mind from self-improve- 
 ment. . Accordingly when beauty goes, it amounts to what 
 underwriters of ships call a " total loss" of the human wreck ; 
 and admirers as well as the rest of the world, in the same 
 phraseology, " abandon." Dugald Stewart, in his essay 
 on the Beautiful, after noticing, that although our first notions 
 of beauty may have been derived from colors, it does not 
 
THE AGES OP HUMAN LIFE. 59 
 
 follow that, in our more complex ideas of the beautiful, color 
 should be an essential ingredient, continues thus — " It is by 
 a progress somewhat similar, that the mental attractions of a 
 beautiful woman supplant those of her person in the heart 
 of her lover ; and that, when the former have the good for- 
 tune to survive the latter, they appropriate to themselves, by 
 an imperceptible metaphor, that language, which, in its lite- 
 ral sense, has ceased to have a meaning. In this case, a very 
 pleasing arrangement of nature is exhibited ; the qualities 
 of mind, which insensibly stole, in the first instance, those 
 flattering epithets which are descriptive of a fair exterior, 
 now restoring their borrowed embellishments, and keeping 
 alive, in the eye of conjugal affection, that beauty which has 
 long perished to every other." 
 
 This subject of the durable nature of female attractions, 
 notwithstanding the loss of beauty, is thus touched by Carew — 
 
 He that loves a rosy cheek, 
 
 Or a coral lip admires, 
 Or from star-like eyes doth seek 
 
 Fuel to maintain his fires ; 
 As old time makes these decay 
 So his flames must waste away. 
 
 But a smooth and steadfast mind, 
 Gentle thoughts, and calm desires, 
 Hearts with equal love combined. 
 Kindle never-dying fires. 
 
 The same train of thought is the subject of one of Shak- 
 speare's Sonnets. Various opinions have been expressed con- 
 cerning the objects of these sonnets. They were published 
 in a mysterious manner by Thorpe, a book-seller, being dedi- 
 cated to " Mr. W. H. The only begetter of these sonnets." 
 Questions have arisen whether they were, in fact, addressed to 
 I 2 
 
60 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 a man or a woman, and whether to one or more persons. The 
 
 following has all the appearance of a bona fide love sonnet, 
 
 and may not be thought unworthy of the Swan of Avon. 
 
 Let me not to the marriage of true minds 
 
 Admit impediments. Love is not love 
 
 Which alters when it alteration finds, 
 
 Or bends with the remover to remove. 
 
 O no ! it is an ever fixed mark 
 
 That looks on tempests, and is never shaken ; 
 
 It is the star to every wandering bark. 
 
 Whose worth's unknown, altho' his height be taken. 
 
 Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks 
 
 Within his bending sickle's compass come. 
 
 Love alters not with his brief times and weeks. 
 
 But bears it out even to the edge of doom. 
 
 If this be error, and upon me proved, 
 
 1 never writ, nor no man ever lov'd. 
 
 Our subject leads us to a notice of some remarks on the 
 duration of beauty, in one of Dryden's prose dedications. 
 The language and style of these compositions have never been 
 excelled, but the compliments with which they are filled, are, 
 perhaps, more fulsome and extravagant than any which have 
 been offered, except to sovereigns and other persons not sup- 
 posed to comprehend, or at least to relish the language of truth. 
 The following extract contains a less high-flown panegyric on 
 beauty than the dedication to the Duchess of York of Dryden's 
 dramatised Paradise Lost, but it is more pertinent to our text ; 
 it is addressed to the Duchess of Monmouth. " But as needful 
 as beauty is, virtue and honor are yet more. The reign of it 
 without their support is unsafe and short, hke that of tyrants. 
 Every sun which looks on beauty wastes it ; and, when it 
 once is decaying, the repairs of art are of as short continuance, 
 as the after spring, when the sun is going further off. This, 
 madam, is its ordinary fate ; but yours, which is accompanied 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 61 
 
 by virtue, is not subject to that common destiny. Your Grace 
 has not only a long time of youth in which to flourish, but 
 you have likewise found the way, by an untainted preservation 
 of your honor, to make that perishable good more lasting. 
 And if beauty, like wines, could be preserved by being mixed 
 and embodied with others of their own natures, then your 
 Grace's would be immortal, since no part of Europe can afford 
 a parallel to your noble lord in masculine beauty, and in good- 
 ness of shape. To receive the blessings and prayers of man- 
 kind you need only to be seen together. We are ready to 
 conclude that you are a pmr of angels sent below to make 
 virtue amiable in your persons, or to sit to poets, when they 
 would pleasantly instruct the age, by drawing goodness in the 
 most perfect and alluring shape of nature." 
 
 The subject may be concluded with the following well 
 known Melody by Moore — 
 
 Believe me, if all those endearing young charms 
 
 "Which I gaze on so fondly to-day, 
 Were to change by to-morrow, and fleet in my arms, 
 
 Like fairy gifts fading away ! 
 Thou would'st still be adored, as this moment thou art, 
 
 Let thy loveliness fade as it will, 
 And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart 
 
 Would entwine itself verdantly still! 
 
 It is not while beauty and youth are thine own, 
 
 And thy cheeks unprofaned by a tear. 
 That the fervor and faith of a soul can be known, 
 
 To which time will but make thee more dear ! 
 O ! the heart that has truly loved, never forgets 
 
 But as truly loves on to the close, 
 As the sun-flower turns on her god, when he sets, 
 
 The same look which she turned when he rose. 
 
62 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ON THE DOTAGES, INFIEMITIES AND EXCENTRICITIES OF OLD AGE. 
 
 One of the most amusing of the instances of dotage, which 
 literature furnishes, is the scene between Gil Bias and the 
 Archbishop of Grenada. The Archbishop, who had been charm- 
 ed by Gil Bias' flattery on the subject of his Homilies, appointed 
 him the depository of his thoughts ; but at the same time 
 gave warning, that, if in consequence of age or infirmities, 
 his future Homilies should draw less admiration from the 
 public, and he should learn the fact first from any other 
 quarter, he would strike Gil Bias' name out of his will. The 
 Archbishop was attacked by an apoplectic stroke. His next 
 Homily was a burlesque on pulpit eloquence, the congrega- 
 tion whispered to each other — " Voila un sermon qui sent 
 I'apoplexie." Gil Bias thought the time had come for the 
 arbiter of HomiHes to interpose ; still he was at a loss how to 
 break the subject to the Archbishop. 
 
 " Heureusement, I'orateur lui-meme me tira de cet em- 
 barras en me demandant ce qu'on disoit de lui dans le monde, 
 et si Ton etoit satisfait de son dernier discours. Je repondis 
 qu'on admiroit toujours ses homelies, mais qu'il me sembloit 
 que la derniere n'avoit pas si bien que les autres affecte I'au- 
 ditoire." " Comment done ! mon ami, repliqua-t-il avec 
 etonnement, auroit-elle trouve quel que aristarque ? — Non, 
 monseigneur, lui repartis-je, non. Ce ne sont pas des ouv- 
 rages tels que les votres que Ton ose critiquer ; il n'y a personne 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 63 
 
 qui n'en soit charme. Neanmoins, puisque vous m'avez 
 recommande d'etre franc et sincere, jeprendrai la liberie de 
 vous dire que votre dernier discours ne me paroit pas tout-a- 
 fait de la force des precedents. Ne pensez-vous pas cela 
 comme moi ?" 
 
 Ces paroles firent palir mon maitre, qui me dit avec un 
 som-is force : " Monsieur Gil Bias, cette piece n'est done pas de 
 votre gout .'' — Je ne dis pas cela, monseigneur, interrompis-je 
 tout deconcerte. Je la trouve excellente, quoique un peu au- 
 dessous de vos autres ouvrages. — Je vous entends^ repliqua- 
 t-il. Je vous parois baisser, n'est-ce pas ? tranchez le mot, 
 vous croyez qu'il est temps que je songe a la retraite .'' — Je 
 n'aurois pas ete assez bardi, lui dis-je, pour vous parler si li- 
 brement, si votre grandeur ne me I'eut ordonne. Je ne fais 
 done que lui obeir, et je la supplie tres-bumblement de ne me 
 point savoir mauvais gre de ma hardiesse. — A Dieu ne plaise, 
 enterrompit-il avec precipitation, a Dieu ne plaise que je vous 
 la reprocbe ; il faudroit que je fusse bien injuste. Je ne trouve 
 point detout mauvais que vous me disiez votre sentiment, 
 c'est votre sentiment seul queje trouve mauvais. J'aiete furi- 
 eusement la dupe de votre intelligence bornee." 
 
 Quoique demonte, je voulus cbercher quelques modifica- 
 tions pour rajuster les choses ; mais le moyen d'apaiser un 
 auteur irrite, et, de plus, un auteur accoutume a s'entendre 
 louer .f* " N'en parlous plus, dit-il, mon enfant. Vous etes en- 
 core trop jeune pour demeler le vrai du faux. Apprenez que je 
 n'ai jamais compose de meilleure homelie que celle qui n'a pas 
 votre approbation. Mon esprit, grace au ciel, n'a rien encore 
 perdu de sa vigueur. Desormais je choisirai mieux mes 
 confidents ; j'en veux de plus capables que vous de decider. 
 AUez, poursuivit-il, en me poussant par les epaules hors de 
 
64 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 son cabinet, allez dire a mon tresorier qu'il vous compte cent 
 ducats, et que le ciel vous conduise avec cette somme. Adieu, 
 monsieur Gil Bias ; je vous souhaites toutes sortes de prospe- 
 rites, avec un peu plus de goilt." Swift, after contending 
 that there was no such thing as Sijine old gentleman; for that 
 a man who had a mind or body worth a farthing must have 
 worn them out before he could be called old, entreated Mrs. 
 White way to mention to him any decay she might observe 
 in his faculties :—" No, Sir," she replied; "I have read 
 Gil Bias." 
 
 Pope, after Horace, has intimated the prudence of elderly 
 people resigning in due time to younger men those occupa- 
 tions, the continuance of which is calculated to draw ridicule 
 on their gray hairs. 
 
 St. John, whose love indulged my labors past, 
 
 Matures my present, and shaU bound- my last, 
 
 Why will you break the Sabbath of my age. 
 
 Now sick alike of envy and of praise ? 
 
 Public too long, ah, let me hide my age ! 
 
 See, modest Gibber now has left the stage ; 
 
 Our generals now retired to their estates 
 
 Hang their old trophies o'er the garden gates, 
 
 In Life's cool evening, satiate of applause, 
 
 Nor fond of bleeding even in Brunswick's cause. 
 
 A voice there is that whispers in my ear 
 
 (Its Reason's voice, which sometimes one can hear) 
 
 Friend Pope ! be prudent, let your muse take breath, 
 
 And never gallop Pegasus to death. 
 
 Lest stiff and stately, void of fire and force ; 
 
 You limp like Blackraore on a Lord Mayor's horse. 
 
 And again, in another Epistle — 
 
 Learn to live well, or fairly make your will, 
 
 You 've play'd, and lov'd, and eat, and drank your fill. 
 
THE AGES OP HUMAN LIFE. 65 
 
 Walk sober off, before a sprightlier age 
 Comes tittering on, and shoves you from the stage. 
 Leave such to trifle with more grace and ease 
 Whom foil y pleases, and whose follies please. 
 
 The Romans had an old custom for wrhich various reasons 
 are assigned in Ovid's Fasti, but which is very intelligible, 
 if regarded as a hint to old people not to stand in the w^ay 
 of the young in transactions more suitable to youth. On the 
 13th or Ides of May the images of thirty old men made of rush- 
 es used to be thrown from the Sublician bridge by the Vestal 
 Virgins, attended by the Magistrates and Priests. It was 
 a tradition that in the ancient times the same number of old 
 men were thrown alive annually from the same bridge into 
 the Tiber. In those ancient days, the virgins probably made a 
 selection analogous to what would take place, if we had 
 liberty to throw into the water old persons who continued 
 to preach after losing their teeth, or bachelors turned of 
 forty, or old married men who ask spinsters to dance at 
 balls. 
 
 One of the principal occasions on which Old Age is expos- 
 ed to ridicule or censure, is where an old person marries a 
 young one. Instances may, no doubt, be cited of such unions 
 being judicious and happy, but the reverse generally hap- 
 pens, as on most occasions when a deviation is made from 
 the order of nature. There is a curious masque by Ben 
 Jonson, called the Masque of Gypsies. It was performed at 
 Burleigh on the Hill before King James, the celebrated Duke 
 of Buckingham acting the part of the Captain of the Gypsies. 
 After examining the hands of the king and the lords and 
 ladies present, a few characteristic verses are addressed to 
 
66 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 each. To the Countess of Exeter, a young woman married to 
 an Earl whose age was 70, is spoken. 
 
 An old man's wife 
 Is the light of his life, 
 A young one is but his shade. 
 
 Similar verses were addressed by Pan, in an entertain- 
 ment, called the Penates, performed at Highgate. As it is 
 to be presumed, especially from the frequent repetition of 
 the Masque of Gypsies at various places before the king, 
 that the personalities contained in the verses were appropri- 
 ate, and agreeable to the taste of the Court, these composi- 
 tions may seem to deserve greater attention, as illustrative 
 of the manners of the times, and of personal history, than 
 they have ever received. They are more satirical, even when 
 addressed to royalty, than adulatory, though the following 
 lines spoken by Buckingham, as Captain of the Gypsies, to 
 James, would wash down a good deal of raillery. 
 
 Your Mercury's hill too, a wit doth betoken, 
 
 Some book craft you have, and are pretty well spoken. 
 
 The subject of an old man marrying a young wife is touch- 
 ed upon with much humor in the characters of January and 
 May, in Chaucer's Merchant's Tale. Pope has translated the 
 tale into very harmonious modern verse ; but both he and 
 Dryden have entirely failed in preserving Chaucer's simplicity 
 of narrative, and his humor. 
 
 Whilom there was dwelling in Lumbardie 
 A worthy knight that born was at Pavie, 
 In which he lived in gret prosperitee. 
 And sixty yere a wifles man v/as he." 
 And whan that he was passed sixty yere, 
 Were it for holiness or for dotage 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 67 
 
 I cannot sale, but swiche a greet corage 
 Hadde this knight to ben a wedded man, 
 That night and day he doth all that he can, 
 To espien wher that he might wedded be. 
 
 He calls in two friends Placebo and Justinus to advise him. 
 Placebo advises the marriage ; intimating- that v^hen asked for 
 advice, after the asker has given his own opinion, he has al- 
 ways found it safest to " say the same, or elles things sembla- 
 ble." Justinus, on the other hand, quotes Seneca to shew 
 that it is " no childe's play" to " take a wif without avisement." 
 That with regard to himself he found matrimony only " cost 
 and care." And although all his neighbours, and " of wo- 
 men many a route" declared that he had the steadiest and 
 meekest of wives that ever breathed ; nevertheless " But I 
 woot best, where wringeth me my sho." As Placebo intimat- 
 ed, January falls into a great rage with Justinus, saying " straw 
 for Senek, and straw for thy proverbs ;" and he forthwith 
 pays his addresses to May, a damsel " of age tendre, hire 
 middle smal, hire arms long and slendere." But before the 
 nuptials a doubt perplexes him ; he called to mind having read 
 
 that a man cannot be happy both in heaven and earth, and 
 » 
 
 therefore is afraid that his matrimonial felicity may shut him 
 out of heaven. He calls his friends together to advise him 
 upon this point. On this occasion Justinus jeers him with 
 much ironical humor, which is lost in Pope's version. The 
 following is a part of Justinus' suggestions : 
 
 Justinus, which that hated his folic. 
 Answered anon right in his japerie ; 
 And said — " Sire, so ther be non obstacle 
 Other than this, God, of his high miracle. 
 And of his mercy may so for you werche, 
 That er ye have your rights of holy cherche, 
 
 K 2 
 
68 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 Ye may repent of wedded manne's lif, 
 
 In which ye sain there is no wo ne strif. 
 
 And elles God forbid, but if he sent 
 
 A wedded man his grace him to repent 
 
 Wei often, rather than a single man. 
 
 And, therefore, Sire, the best rede that I can, 
 
 Despeire you not, but haven in memoire, 
 
 Paraventure she may be your purgatorie. 
 
 She may be Godde's mene, and Godde's whippe, 
 
 That shall your soul make up to heven skippe. 
 
 January at last marries May. The marriage ceremony in 
 Chaucer's time shews that the language of the exhortations 
 was not altogether changed at the Reformation. 
 
 Forth Cometh the Freest, with stole about his nekke, 
 And bade hire be like Sara and Rebekke. 
 
 The bed is blessed by the Priest, according to Catholic 
 usage, and the bride is brought to it, " as still as ston." Soon 
 after marriage, January becomes blind, and very jealous ; 
 whilst May falls in love with a young squire who waited 
 on her husband. In order that she may talk to the squire 
 without being overheard by her blind husband, who followed 
 her wherever she went, she pretends a sudden longing for 
 some pears in a pear tree, up which her lover had previously 
 ascended, and she makes her husband kneel, in order that she 
 may step upon his back, and get up into the tree. 
 
 For ought that may betide, 
 I moste have of the peres that I see, 
 Or I moste die, so sore longeth me 
 To eten of the smale peres grene. 
 Help for hire love that is of heven quene ! 
 I tell you wel a woman in my plit, 
 May have to fruit so great an appetit, 
 That she may dien, but she of it have. 
 
 " Then wol I clumber wel ynough (quod she) 
 So I my fote might setten on your back." 
 " Certes," said he " therein shal be no lack 
 Might I you helpen with min herte blood.'' 
 
THE AGES OP HUMAN LIFE. 69 
 
 He stoupeth doun, and on his back she stood, 
 And caught hire by a twist, and up she goth. 
 
 In Swift's poem *' The Progress of Marriage," he supposes 
 some consequences which might naturally follow from an 
 injudicious union of January and May. 
 
 ^ tat is suoe fifty- two, 
 
 A rich Divine began to woo 
 
 A handsome young imperious girl, 
 
 Nearly related to an Earl. 
 
 Then on her finger's end she counts, 
 Exact to what his age amounts, 
 " The Dean," she heard her uncle say, 
 "Is sixty, if he be a day. 
 His ruddy cheeks are no disguise ; 
 You see the crow's feet round his eyes." 
 
 His mind is full of other cares, 
 And, in the sneaking parson's airs, 
 
 Computes that half a parish dues 
 Will hardly find his wife in shoes. 
 
 Hither (Bath), though much against the grain, 
 The Dean has carried Lady Jane. 
 
 He, for a while, would not consent, 
 
 But vowed his money all was spent. 
 
 His money spent ! a clownish reason ; 
 
 And must my Lady slip her season ? 
 
 The Doctor, with a double fee, 
 
 Was brib'd to make the Dean agree. 
 He dies, and leaves his mourning mate 
 
 (What could be less ?) his whole estate. 
 
 The widow goes through all her forms ; 
 
 New lovers now will come in swarms. 
 
 Oh, may I see her soon dispensing 
 
 Her favors to some broken Ensign. 
 
 Lord Erskine, when at the Bar, in the case of Morton v» 
 Fenn, which was an action brought by a middle-aged woman 
 against an old and infirm man, for breach of promise of mar- 
 
70 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 riage, thus describes the defendant. "It is probable, that 
 her (the plaintiff's) circumstances were very low, from the 
 character in which she was introduced to the defendant, who 
 being an old and infirm man, was desirous of some elderly 
 person as a housekeeper, and no imputation can be justly 
 cast upon the plaintiff for consenting to such an introduc- 
 tion ; for, by Mr. Wallace's favour, the jury had a view of 
 this defendant, and the very sight of him rebutted every sus- 
 picion that could possibly fall upon a woman of any age, 
 constitution, or complexion, I am sure every body who was 
 in court must agree with me, that all the diseases catalogued 
 in the dispensary seemed to be running a race for his life, 
 though the asthma appeared to have completely distanced his 
 competitors, as the fellow was blowing hke a smith's bellows 
 the whole time of the trial. His teeth being all gone, I shall 
 say nothing of his gums ; and as to his shape, to be sure, 
 a bass-fiddle is perfect gentility compared to it." He con- 
 cluded with expressing a wish, that the young woman whom 
 the defendant had married " would manifest her affection by 
 furnishing him with a pair of horns, sufficient to defend himself 
 against the sheriff, when he came to levy the money under 
 the verdict." 
 
 The effects of the tender passion upon females of a certain 
 age are thus described by Fielding, in Tom Jones. " It hath 
 been observed by wise men or women, I forget which, that 
 all persons are doomed to be in love once in their lives. No 
 particular season, as I remember, is assigned for this, but the 
 age at which Miss Bridget was arrived, seems to me as pro- 
 per a period as any to be fixed on for this purpose. It often 
 indeed, happens much earher ; but, when it does not, I have 
 observed, it seldom or never fails about this time. Moreover, 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 71 
 
 we may remark, that, at this season, love is of a more serious 
 and steady nature than what sometimes shews itself in the 
 younger parts of life. The love of girls is uncertain, capri- 
 cious, and so foolish, that we cannot always discover what 
 the young lady would be at ; nay, it, may almost be doubted, 
 whether she always knows this herself. Now we are never 
 at a loss to discern this in women about forty. For, as 
 such grave, serious, and experienced ladies well know their 
 own meaning ; so it is always very easy for a man of the 
 least sagacity to discover it with the utmost certainty. And 
 to say the truth, there is, in all points, great diiFerence be- 
 tween the reasonable passion which women at this age con- 
 ceive towards men, and the idle and childish liking of a girl to 
 a boy, which is often fixed on the outside only, and on things 
 of little value, and no duration ; as on cherry cheeks, small 
 lily-white hands, sloe-black eyes, flowing locks, downy chins, 
 dapper shapes; nay, sometimes on charms more worthless 
 than these, and less the party's own ; such are the outward 
 ornaments of the person, for which men are beholden to the 
 tailor, the laceman, the perriwig-maker, the hatter, and the 
 milliner, and not to nature. Such a passion girls may well 
 be ashamed, as they generally are, to own either to them- 
 selves or to others." 
 
 Quinctihan, in his institutes of eloquence, in a chapter 
 where he speaks of the means which were sometimes resorted 
 to for the purpose of aiFecting the minds of a public assem- 
 bly, — mentions a failure of an attempt of this kind. The 
 advocate for a young widow wanted to produce a great effect 
 in his peroration by pointing to a waxen image of her deceas- 
 ed husband. But unfortunately the people who had the 
 charge of the image, not understanding their orders, held it 
 
72 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 up whenever the orator looked towards the place where they 
 stood. The image was that of an ugly old man, which in 
 fact her husband was. The contrast with the pretty widow 
 who was also present, and weeping in her weeds, occasioned, 
 among the Romans in the Forum, a general burst of laugh- 
 ter. Quinctilian gives some other curious illustrations. The 
 production of Julius Caesar's bloody robe had a powerful 
 effect. He mentions how an opposing counsel has some- 
 times parried an exhibition of this nature. One advocate 
 took up his client, a little boy, in his arms ; his adversary 
 immediately turned to his own client, a large fat man, and 
 said he was sorry, he was not able to dangle ^m. Another ad- 
 vocate produced the children of his client, in order to move 
 compassion, when his opponent threw amongst them a hand- 
 ful of marbles, for which they began scrambling and fight- 
 ing. 
 
 Our literature contains several poetical descriptions of the 
 infirmities incident to old age. We have an allegorical 
 picture of old age by one of the most distinguished authors 
 in our very early literature, Sackville, (Lord Buckhurst and 
 Earl of Dorset.) To the second edition of the Mirror of Ma- 
 gistrates, which was published 1563, (four years after the 
 first edition,) Sackville contributed the Induction, and the 
 Legend of Buckingham. The Mirror of Magistrates was con- 
 tinued, by the addition of legends written by various authors, 
 into the reign of James. It would seem to have been of great 
 use in directing the attention of our ancestors to historical 
 events, and, in that way, probably stimulated them in main- 
 taining and advancing the liberties of the country. Sack- 
 ville's Induction is generally considered as evincing more 
 genius than any other of the contributions to the Mirror of 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFB. 73 
 
 Magistrates. There is reason to beKeve that its allegories 
 led the way to those of the Faery Queen. After the manner 
 of Dante's Inferno, Sackville describes several allegorical 
 characters with whom he meets in the infernal regions — 
 amongst others is the following : 
 
 And next in order sad Old Age we found, 
 His beard all hoar, his ej^es hollow and blind ; 
 With -drooping cheer still poring on the ground, 
 As on the place where nature him assigned 
 To rest, when that the sisters had entwin'd 
 His vital thread, and ended with their knife 
 'Jhe fleeting course of fast declining life. 
 
 Crook'd-back'd he was, tooth-shaken, and blear-ey'd, 
 Went on three feet, and sometime crept on four \ 
 With old lame bones that rattled by his side, 
 His scalp all pill'd, and he with eld forlore, 
 His wither'd fist still knocking at Death's door ; 
 Trembling and driv'ling as he draws his breath, 
 For brief, the shape, and messenger of Death. 
 
 In Dr. Johnson's Vanity of Human Wishes, which is a 
 paraphrase of a satire of Juvenal, with modern illustrations in 
 the place of the ancient examples, we have a catalogue of the 
 miseries of old age which is nearly complete. 
 
 " Enlarge my life with multitude of days." 
 In health, in sickness, thus the suppliant prays. 
 Hides from himself his state, and shuns to know 
 That life protracted is protracted woe. 
 Time hovers o'er, impatient to destroy. 
 And shuts up all passages of joy : 
 In vain their gifts the bounteous seasons pour, 
 The fruit autumnal, and the vernal flow'r ; 
 With listless eyes the dotard views the store, 
 He views, and wonders that they please no more ; 
 Now pall the tasteless meats, and joyless wines ; 
 And luxury with sighs her slave resigns. 
 
74 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 Approach, ye minstrels, try the soothing strain, 
 Diffuse the tuneful lenitives of pain : 
 No sounds, alas ! would touch th' impervious ear, 
 Though dancing mountains witness'd Orpheus near. 
 Nor lute nor lyre his feeble pow'rs attend, 
 Nor sweeter music of a virtuous friend ; 
 But everlasting dictates crowd his tongue, 
 Perversely grave, or positively wrong. 
 The still returning tale, and ling'ring jest 
 Perplex the fawning niece, and pamper'd guest, 
 While growing hopes scarce awe the gathering sneer, 
 And scarce a legacy can bribe to hear : 
 The watchful guests still hint the last offence ; 
 The daughter's petulence, the son's expense, 
 Improve his heady rage with treach'rous skill, 
 And mould his passions till they make his will. 
 
 Unnumber'd maladies his joints invade, 
 Lay siege to life, and press the dire blockade ; 
 But unextinguish'd av'rice still remains, 
 And dreaded losses aggravate his pains ; 
 He turns, with anxious heart and crippled hands, 
 His bonds of debt, and mortgages of lands ; 
 Or views his coffers with suspicious eyes, 
 Unlocks his gold, and counts it till he dies. 
 
 But grant, the virtues of a temp'rate prime 
 Bless with an age exempt from scorn or crime ; 
 An age that melts with unperceiv'd decay, 
 And glides in modest innocence away ; 
 Whose peaceful day benevolence endears ; 
 Whose night congratulating science cheers ; 
 The gen'ral favorite as the gen'ral friend : 
 Such age there is, and who shall wish its end ? 
 
 Yet ev'n on this her load misfortune flings. 
 To press the weary minutes' flagging wings ; 
 New sorrow rises as the day returns, 
 A sister sickens, or a daughter mourns. 
 Now kindred merit fills the sable bier ; 
 Now lacerated friendship claims a tear ; 
 Year chases year, decay pursues decay. 
 Still drops some joy from with'ring life away ; 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 75 
 
 New forms arise, and diff'rent views engage, 
 Superfluous lags the vet'ran on the stage. 
 Till pitying nature signs the last release, 
 And bids afflicted worth retire to peace. 
 
 But few there are whom hours like these await. 
 Who sit unclouded in the gulfs of fate. 
 From Lydia's monarch should the search descend, 
 By Solon caution'd to regard his end, 
 In life's last scene what prodigies surprise, 
 Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise. 
 From Marlb'rough's eyes the streams of dotage flow, 
 And Swift expires a driv'ler and a show. 
 
 Swift wrote a clever poem with reference to the supposed 
 comments of his friends and acquaintance on the subject of 
 his age, infirmities, and death. The two former of these 
 topics, are alone relevant to our subject. 
 
 Yet, thus, methinks, I hear them speak, 
 See how the Dean begins to break ! 
 Poor gentleman, he droops apace ! 
 You plainly find it in his face. 
 That old vertigo in his head 
 Will never leave him till he's dead. 
 Besides his memory decays, 
 He recollects not what he says ; 
 He cannot call his friends to mind ; 
 Forgets the place where last he dined. 
 Plies you with stories o'er and o'er. 
 He told them fifty times before. 
 How does he fancy we can sit 
 To hear his out-of-fashion wit ? 
 But he takes up with younger folks, 
 Who for his wine, will hear his jokes. 
 Faith ! he must make his stories shorter, 
 Or change his comrades once a quarter. 
 For poetry he's past his prime, 
 He takes an hour to find a rhyme ; 
 His fire is out, his wit decayed, 
 His fancy sunk, his Muse a jade. 
 
 L 2 
 
76 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIPE. 
 
 I'd have him throw away his pen ; — 
 
 But there's no talking to some men. 
 
 And then their tenderness appears 
 
 By adding largely to my years. 
 
 H e's older than he would be reckon'd, 
 
 And well remembers Charles the Second, 
 
 He hardly drinks a pint of wine, 
 
 And that, I doubt, is no good sign. 
 
 His stomach too begins to fail, 
 
 Last year we thought him strong and hale ; 
 
 But now he's quite another thing, 
 
 I wish he may hold out till spring. 
 
 Dr. Johnson appears, in the poem above cited, to have 
 exaggerated the infirmities of Marlborough. The duke died 
 in the year 1722, at the age of 72. He had, indeed, attacks 
 of palsy at intervals from 1716, and in consequence he be- 
 came incapable of articulating some particular words, which 
 made him averse to conversation with strangers. He was in 
 his latest years very sociable with intimate friends, and took 
 an interest in private theatricals at Blenheim. He attend- 
 ded the House of Lords, and its committees till within six 
 months of his death ; being present at every debate on the 
 business of the impeachment of Lord Oxford. He discharg- 
 ed the duties of Captain General, and Master of the Ord- 
 nance, till he died. 
 
 Neither is the example of Swift altogether in point for the 
 purpose to which Dr. Johnson applies it. It is, indeed, rela- 
 ted by Swift's biographers, that his servants sometimes took 
 money for showing him during his insanity. But indepen- 
 dently of his general fame, many Irishmen would have been 
 anxious to have seen the Drapier once in their lives, under 
 any circumstances and at any price. He died in 1745, at 
 the age of 78. In 1741, he became incapable of conversa- 
 
THE AGES OP HUMAN LIFE. 77 
 
 tion, and in the beginning of 1 742, his reason was wholly- 
 subverted. But, so early as 1717, pointing out to Dr. Young 
 an old elm tree which was much withered in its upper 
 branches, Swift said, " I shall be like that tree, I shall die 
 at the top." And in 1732, he entertained the design of 
 building a lunatic asylum, to which £10,000 of his property 
 was afterwards appropriated. His own account of the design 
 is thus — 
 
 He gave the little wealth he had, 
 To build a house for fool or mad, 
 To show by one satiric touch. 
 No nation wanted it so much. 
 
 Swift's letters to the Countess of Suffolk in 1726 contain 
 numerous complaints of giddiness in the head. He talks of 
 a ** hundred oceans roaring in his ears, into which no sense 
 had been pressed for a fortnight." He says he got his gid" 
 diness by " eating a hundred golden pippins at a time at 
 Richmond." The utter political defeat of Swift's party in 
 consequence of Queen Anne's death, at the moment when 
 they were anticipating the brightest prospects, — may have 
 aggravated his constitutional infirmities. In reference to 
 that event Arbuthnot writes to Pope — " I have seen a letter 
 from Dean Swift ; he keeps up his noble spirit, and though 
 like a man knocked down, you may behold him still with a 
 stern countenance, and aiming a blow at his adversaries." 
 And in our enquiry into the causes why Swift became " a 
 driveller and a show," we must consider the heart-rending 
 scenes which preceded the death of Stella in 1728, after an 
 intimacy of no ordinary kind during 25 years, and after a 
 marriage, that had been kept secret, but which had subsisted 
 for thirteen years. We must also bear in mind, that, shortly be- 
 
78 - THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 fore Stella's death, Swift had, by his conduct, occasioned the 
 death of Vanessa, whose praises he had often sung, and 
 whom for many years he had held bound to himself by the 
 most ardent attachment. Under all these circumstances, phy- 
 sical and mental, we may, perhaps, think that the gloomy 
 character of Swift's " last scene of all," is not strictly or at 
 least mainly imputable to the effects of age. Cowper was 
 as mad as Swift, and, indeed, attempted to destroy himself, 
 at the age of 32 ; though he did not commence his career 
 as an author till he was 50. His poetry was composed in 
 lucid intervals during a life which was continued to the age 
 of 69. 
 
 But, perhaps, in the last days of Charles V. we may recog- 
 nize some more unequivocal proofs of the influence of dotage ; 
 the description, which begins earlier, is by Robertson, who 
 was long considered, if the title be not still appropriate, one 
 of the Triumvirate of English Historians. 
 
 " While these preliminary steps were taking towards a 
 treaty which restored tranquillity to Europe, Charles V., whose 
 ambition had so long disturbed it, ended his days in the 
 monastery of St. Justus. When Charles entered this retreat, 
 he formed such a plan of life for himself, as would have suit- 
 ed the condition of a private gentleman of a moderate for- 
 tune. His table was neat, but plain ; his domestics few ; 
 his intercourse with them familiar ; all the cumbersome and 
 ceremonious forms of attendance on his person were entirely 
 abolished, as destructive of that social ease and tranquillity 
 which he courted in order to soothe the remainder of his 
 days. As the mildness of the climate, together wdth his 
 deliverance from the burdens and cares of Government, pro- 
 cured him, at first, a considerable remission from the acute 
 
THE AGES OP HUMAN LIFE. 79 
 
 pains with which he had been long tormented ; he enjoyed, 
 perhaps, more complete satisfaction in his humble solitude, 
 than all his grandeur had ever yielded him. The ambitious 
 thoughts and projects which had so long engrossed and disquiet- 
 ed him, were quite effaced from his mind : far from taking any 
 part in the political transactions of the princes of Europe, 
 he restrained his curiosity even from any inquiry concerning 
 them ; and he seemed to view the busy scene which he had 
 abandoned with all the contempt and indifference arising 
 from his thorough experience of its vanity, as well as from 
 the pleasing reflection of having disentangled himself from 
 its cares. 
 
 Other amusements and other objects now occupied him. 
 Sometimes he cultivated the plants in his garden with his 
 own hands ; sometimes he rode out to the neighbouring wood 
 on a little horse, the only one that he kept, attended by a 
 single servant on foot. When his infirmities confined him 
 to his apartment, which often happened, and deprived him of 
 these more active recreations, he either admitted a few gen- 
 tlemen who resided near the monastery to visit him, and 
 entertained them familiarly at his table ; or he employed 
 himself in studying mechanical principles, and in the forming 
 curious works of mechanism, of which he had always been 
 remarkably fond, and to which his genius was peculiarly 
 turned. With this view he had engaged Turriano, one of the 
 most ingenious artists of that age, to accompany him in his 
 retreat. He laboured together with him in framing models 
 of the most useful machines, as well as in making experi- 
 ments with regard to their respective powers, and it was not 
 seldom that the ideas of the monarch assisted or perfected 
 the inventions of the artist. He relieved his mind, at inter- 
 
80 " THE AGES OP HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 vals, with slighter and more fantastic works of mechanism, 
 in fashioning puppets, which, by the structure of internal 
 springs, mimicked the gestures and actions of men, to the 
 astonishment of the ignorant monks, who beholding move- 
 ments which they could not comprehend, sometimes distrust- 
 ed their own senses, and sometimes suspected Charles and 
 Turriano of being in compact with invisible powers. He 
 was particularly curious with regard to the construction of 
 clocks and watches ; and having found, after repeated trials, 
 that he could not bring any two of them to go exactly alike, 
 he reflected, it is said, with a mixture of surprise as well as 
 regret, on his own folly, in having bestowed so much time 
 and labour on the more vain attempt of bringing mankind to 
 a precise uniformity of sentiment concerning the profound 
 and mysterious doctrines of religion. 
 
 But in what manner soever Charles disposed of the rest 
 of his time, he constantly reserved a considerable portion of 
 it for religious exercises. He regularly attended divine ser- 
 vice in the chapel of the monastery, every morning and even- 
 ing ; he took great pleasure in reading books of devotion, 
 particularly the works of St. Augustine and St. Bernard ; 
 and conversed much with his confessor, and the prior of the 
 monastery, on pious subjects. 
 
 Thus did Charles pass the first year of his retreat, in a 
 manner not unbecoming a man perfectly disengaged from the 
 affairs of the present life, and standing on the confines of a 
 future world ; either in innocent amusements, which soothed 
 his pains, and relieved a mind worn out with excessive appli- 
 cation to business ; or in devout occupations, which he deem- 
 ed necessary in preparing for another state. 
 
 But about six months before his death, the gout, after a 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 81 
 
 longer intermission than usual, returned with a proportional 
 increase of violence. His shattered constitution had not 
 vigour enough remaining to withstand such a shock. It 
 enfeebled his mind as much as his body, and from this period 
 we hardly discern any traces of that sound and masculine 
 understanding, which distinguished Charles among his con- 
 temporaries. An illiberal and timid superstition depressed 
 his spirit. He had no relish for amusements of any kind. 
 He endeavoured to conform, in his manner of living:, to all 
 the rigour of monastic austerity. He desired no other society 
 than that of monks, and was almost continually employed 
 with them in chanting the hymns of the Missal. As an expia- 
 tion for his sins, he gave himself the discipline in secret with 
 such severity, that the whip of cords, which he employed as 
 the instrument of his punishment, was found, after his decease 
 tinged with his blood. Nor was he satisfied with these acts 
 of mortification, which however severe, were not unexam- 
 pled. The timorous and distrustful solicitude which always 
 accompanies superstition still continued to disquiet him, and 
 depreciating all the devout exercises in which he had hither- 
 to been engaged, prompted him to aim at something extra- 
 ordinary, at some new and singular act of piety that would 
 display his zeal, and merit the favor of heaven. The act on 
 which he fixed was as wild and uncommon as any that super- 
 stition ever suggested to a weak and disordered fancy. He 
 resolved to celebrate his own obsequies before his death. He 
 ordered his tomb to be erected in the chapel of the monastery. 
 His domestics marched thither in funeral procession, with 
 black tapers in their hands. He himself followed in his 
 shroud. He was laid in his coffin with much solemnity. 
 The service of the dead was chanted, and Charles joined in 
 
92 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 the prayers which were oiFered up for the rest of his soul, 
 minghng his tears with those which his attendants shed, as 
 if they had been celebrating a real funeral. The ceremony 
 closed with sprinkhng holy water on the coffin in the usual 
 form, and all the assistants retiring, the doors of the Chapel 
 were shut. Then Charles rose out of the coffin, and with- 
 drew to his apartment, full of those awful sentiments which 
 such a singular solemnity was calculated to inspire. But 
 either the fatiguing length of the ceremony, or the impression 
 which the image of death left on his mind, affected him 
 so much, that next day he was seized with a fever. His 
 feeble frame could not long resist its violence, and he expired 
 on the twenty-first of September, after a life of fifty- eight 
 years, six months, and twenty- five- days. 
 
 Some persons, for whom worldly power has greater charms 
 than philosophy, may regard the relinquishment of empire as 
 an undeniable proof of dotage, imbecihty or aberration of mind. 
 But it is remarkable, that neither Diocletian nor Charles 
 V. who afford the most memorable instances of abdications of 
 empire in history, were, when they retired into private life, 
 of a very advanced age. The former was only 55 and the 
 latter was not quite 59. Charles had met with disap- 
 pointments in his schemes of ambition. But the reign of 
 Diocletian was signalized by uninterrupted success, ft is 
 remarkable also that he had been born a slave. His abdica- 
 tion, if not also that of Charles, ought, perhaps, to be regard- 
 ed rather as an instance of strength of mind than of dotage. 
 We have few authentic notices of the nine years which Dio- 
 cletian spent in retirement, (Charles spent only three.) He 
 used to expatiate on the errors to which Governors were sub- 
 ject, from being obliged to see and hear with the eyes and 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 83 
 
 ears of other people. His answer to some inducements which 
 were held out for resuming the imperial purple do not esta- 
 blish imbecihty. It is, indeed, called by Gibbon, a bon-mot. 
 " If I could shew the cabbages I have planted with my own 
 hands at Salona, I should not be urged to relinquish the 
 enjoyment of happiness for the pursuit of power." 
 
 It may be observed that, in old and quiet monarchies, 
 where affairs of State are not attended with the wear and tear 
 which must have been felt by Diocletian and Charles V. in no 
 ordinary degree, Government has been represented by Voltaire 
 as an agreeable occupation for old age. 
 
 La Parque de ses vilains doigts 
 Marquait d'un sept avec un trois 
 La tete froide et peu pensante 
 De Fleuri, qui donna des lois 
 A notre France languissante, 
 II porta le sceptre des Rois 
 Et le garda jusqu'a nonaiite. 
 Regner est un amusement 
 Pour un viellard triste et pesant, 
 De tout autre chose incapable. 
 Mais vieux bel-esprit, vieux amant, 
 Vieux chanteur est insupportable. 
 
 With regard to Governments directed by Old Men, a singu- 
 lar phenomenon in the political history of the world is an 
 ecclesiastical and temporal Government in the hands of the 
 Popes. For a long time they have not been ehgible under 
 the age of 55 ; and few have been elected before they had 
 attained nearly 70. Leo X. was, indeed, only 37, but indepen- 
 dently of the great interest of the Medici family, he was so 
 promisingly ill during the sitting of the conclave that a 
 physician was sent for, who was strictly locked up, like 
 the Cardinals, till they finished the election. Leo only 
 M 2 
 
84 THE AGES OP HUMA.N LIFE. 
 
 wore his crown nine years. Robertson and Gibbon have very 
 philosophically considered the consequences which might be 
 naturally looked for as resulting from such a Government, 
 which is exempt from the dangers of minorities and the sallies 
 of youth, but where the Popes would usually be eager to make 
 the most of the short period during which they have the pros- 
 pect of enjoying power, in order to aggrandize their own fami- 
 Iv, and to attain their private ends. The reflexions of these 
 distinguished historians are not the less just, because we may 
 occasionally meet, as during the pontificate of Leo X., with some 
 acts which might be expected to emanate from a young sove- 
 reign, influenced by all the benevolent feelings for futurity, as 
 well as for the present generation, which Bolinbroke ascribes 
 to his Patriot King. But on the general tenor of the admi- 
 nistration of the Popes, it may be curious to extract a passage 
 from the translation of Erasmus's Encomium on Folly. Eras- 
 mus was the precursor of Luther, but would not follow him 
 to all the lengths of his zeal, which sometimes partook of 
 intemperance. For this he incurred Luther's bitter and vin- 
 dictive animosity. The following passage is supposed to be 
 spoken by Folly : 
 
 " Now as to the Popes of Rome, who pretend themselves 
 Christ's Vicars, if they would but imitate his exemplary life, 
 in the being employed in an uninterrupted course of preach- 
 in o- ; in the being attended with poverty, nakedness, hunger, 
 and a contempt of this world ; if they did but consider the 
 import of the word Pope, which signifies a Father ; or if 
 they did but practise their surname of Most Holy, what order 
 or degrees of men would be in a worse condition ? There 
 would be then no such vigorous making of parties, and buy- 
 ino- of votes in the conclave upon a vacancy of that see. And 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 85 
 
 those, who by bribery, or other indirect courses, should get 
 themselves elected, would never secure their sitting firm in 
 the chair by pistol, poison, force, and violence. How much 
 of their pleasure would be abated, if they were but endowed 
 with one dram of wisdom ? All their riches, all their honour, 
 their jurisdictions, their Peter's patrimony, their offices, their 
 dispensations, their licences, their indulgences, the long 
 train of attendants (see in how short a compass I have abbrevi- 
 ted all their marketing of religion ;) in a word, all their per- 
 quisites will be forfeited and lost ; and in their room will 
 succeed watchings, fastings, tears, prayers, sermons, hard 
 studies, repenting sighs, and a thousand such like severe 
 penalties : nay what's yet more deplorable, it would then fol- 
 low, that all their clerks, amanuenses, notaries, advocates, 
 proctors, secretaries, the offices of grooms, ostlers, serving- 
 men, pimps (and somewhat else, which for modesty's sake I 
 shall not mention ;) in short, all these Troops of attendants, 
 which depend on his Holiness, would all lose their several em- 
 ployments. This indeed would be hard ; but what yet remains 
 would be more dreadful : the very head of the Church, the 
 spiritual prince, would th^n be brought from all his splendor 
 to the poor equipage of a scrip and staff. But all this is 
 upon the supposition only, that they understood what circum- 
 stances they are placed in ; whereas now, by a wholesome 
 neglect of thinking, they live as well as heart can wish : what- 
 ever of toil and drudgery belong to their office, that they 
 assign over to St. Peter, or St. Paul, who have time enough 
 to mind it ; but if there be any thing of pleasure and gran- 
 deur, that they assume to themselves, as being thereunto 
 called : so that by my influence no sort of people live more 
 to their own ease and content." 
 
86 ^ THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 Prior, in his Alma, has some -clever lines on the Aged 
 Popes being designated in Protestant, especially Calvinistic 
 countries, as sustaining a more youthful character. 
 
 You love maps, and may perceive, 
 Rome not far distant from Geneve ; 
 If the good Pope remains at Rome, 
 He's the first Prince in Christendom. 
 Choose then, good Pope, at home to stay. 
 Nor westward curious take thy way. 
 Thy way unhappy shouldst thou take 
 From Tyber's bank to Leman lake; 
 Thou art an aged Priest no more. 
 But a young flaring painted whore. 
 Thy sex is lost, thy town is gone, 
 No longer Rome, but Babylon. 
 
 Something similar to the vagary which has been above re- 
 lated of Charles V. occurs in the hfe of Donne. This distin- 
 guished Prelate, who has always had the reputation of taking 
 the lead among the wits during the age of conceits, devoted 
 himself to religious studies and exercises after he became 
 the Dean of St. Pauls. Towards the close of his life he did 
 some things, which, perhaps, have the appearance of dotage. 
 Very shortly before his death he preached his own funeral ser- 
 mon. One day he sent for an eminent painter, and before his 
 arrival he had procured a board of his own length upon which 
 he had himself laid. He was dressed for this purpose in a 
 winding sheet tied with knots at his head and feet; being 
 shrouded and placed just as a dead body in a coffin. When 
 the picture was finished, he kept it by his bedside till he died. 
 He wrote his own epitaph, and with the simplicity of first or 
 second childhood, he mentions in it, that at the late age of 42 
 he took orders, by the instinct and impulse of the Holy Ghost, 
 andhy the admonition and exhortation of King James. (In- 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 87 
 
 stinctu et impulsu Sp. Sancti. Monitu et Hortatu Regis Jacobi 
 ordines sacros amplexus.) 
 
 Wolsey is a remarkable example of the combined effects 
 of age and misfortune on a mind of great capacity. Our 
 poetry, by the talents of Shakspeare and Dr. Johnson, affords 
 us a vivid picture of his prosperous state, and of his adversity. 
 Cavendish, his chamberlain, has supplied the facts. He 
 mentions the Cardinal being supported on his mule, from 
 which he nearly fell several times from weakness in journey- 
 ing to Leicester abbey ; his arrival at the Abbey, and his being 
 received by the abbot and monks who came out to meet him 
 with torches ; his speech, " Father Abbot, I am come here 
 to leave my bones among you ;" and his words spoken a few 
 hours before his death, " If I had served God as dihgently 
 as- 1 have done the king he would not have given me over in 
 my grey hairs." He was not, however, more than 59 years 
 of age. A scene described by Cavendish, shortly after Wol- 
 sey delivered up the Great Seal, about a year before his 
 death, is, perhaps, more indicative of a broken spirit, and a 
 mind almost reduced to second childishness, than even the 
 closing hours of his life. , 
 
 " When he was with all his train arrived and landed at 
 Putney he took his mule, and every man his horse. And 
 setting forth not past the length of a pair of garden butts, he 
 espied a man come riding empost down the hill, in Putney 
 town, demanding of his footman who they thought it should 
 be ? And they answered again and said, that they supposed 
 it should be Sir Harry Norris . And by and bye he came to 
 my lord und saluted him, and said " that the King's majesty 
 had him commended to his Grace, and "billed him in any 
 wise to be of good cheer, for he was as much in his Highness' 
 
88 THE AGES OP HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 favour as ever he was, and so shall be." And in token there- 
 of, he delivered him a ring of gold, with a rich stone, which 
 ring he knew very well, for it was always the privy token 
 between the King and him, whensoever the King would have 
 any special matter dispatched at his hands. And said further- 
 more, that " the King commanded him to be of good cheer, 
 and take no thought, for he should not lack." And although 
 the King hath dealt with you unkindly as ye suppose, he saith 
 that " it is for no displeasure that he beareth you, but only to 
 satisfy more the minds of some (which he knoweth be not 
 your friends) than for any indignation :" and also ye know 
 right well, that he is able to recompense you with twice as 
 much as your goods amounteth unto ; and all this he bade 
 me, that I should show you, therefore, sir, take patience. 
 And for my part, I trust to see you in better estate than ever 
 ye were. But when he heard Master Norris rehearse all the 
 good and comfortable words of the King, he quickly lighted 
 from off his mule, all alone, as though he had been the youngest 
 person amongst MS,and incontinent kneeled down in the dirt upon 
 both his knees, holding up his hands for joy. Master Norris, 
 perceiving him so quickly from his mule upon the ground, 
 mused, and was astonied. And therewith he alighted also, 
 and kneeled by him embracing him in his arms, and asked 
 him how he did, calling upon him to credit his message. 
 " Master Norris," quoth he, " when I consider your com- 
 fortable and joyful news, I can do no less than to rejoice, for 
 the sudden joy surmounted my memory, having no respect 
 neither to the place nor time, but thought it my very bounden 
 duty to render thanks to God, my Maker, and to the King, my 
 sovereign lord and master, who hath sent me such comfort 
 in the very place where I received the same." 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 8^ 
 
 ** And talking with Master Norris upon his knees in the mire, 
 he would have pulled off his under cap of velvet, but he could 
 not undo the knot under his chin ; wherefore with violence 
 he rent the laces and pulled it from his head, and so kneeled 
 bare-headed. And that done, be covered again his head, 
 and arose, and would have mounted his mule, but he could 
 not mount again with such agility as he lighted before, where his 
 footmen had as much ado to set him in his saddle as they could 
 have. Then rode he forth up the hill into the town, talking 
 with Master Norris. And when he came upon Putney Heath 
 Master Norris took his leave and would have departed. Then 
 quoth my lord unto him, " Gentle Norris, if I were lord of 
 a realm, the one half thereof were insufficient a reward ta give 
 you for your pains, and good comfortable news. But, good 
 Master Norris, consider with me, that I have nothing left me 
 but my clothes on my back. Therefore I desire you to take 
 this small reward of my hands," the which was a little chain 
 of gold, made hke a bottle chain, with a cross of gold hanging 
 thereat, wherein was a piece of the Holy Cross, which he wore 
 continually about his neck next his skin ; and said further- 
 more, " I assure you. Master Norris, that when I was in 
 prosperity, although it seem but small in value, yet I would 
 not gladly have departed with it for the value of a thousand 
 pounds. Therefore I beseech you to take it in gree, and wear 
 it about your neck for my sake, and as often as ye shall hap- 
 pen to look upon it, have me in remembrance to the King's 
 majesty, as opportunity shall serve you ; unto whose High- 
 ness and clemency, I desire you to have me most lowly 
 commended ; for whose charitable disposition towards me, 
 I can do nothing but only minister my prayer unto God for 
 the preservation of his royal estate long to reign in honour 
 
 N 
 
90 _ THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 health and quiet hfe. I am his obedient subject, vassal, and 
 poor chaplain, and do so intend, God willing, to be during 
 my life, accounting that of myself I am of no estimation nor 
 of no substance, but only by him and of him, whom I love 
 better than myself, and have justly and truly served to the 
 best of my gross wit." And with that he took Master Norris 
 by the hand and bade him farewell. And being gone but 
 a small distance he returned, and called Master Norris again, 
 and when he was returned he said unto him. I am sorry — •■ 
 " quoth he, that I have no condign token to send to the King, 
 But if ye would at this my request present the King with this 
 poor fool, I trust his Highness would accept him well, for 
 surely for a nobleman's pleasure he is worth a thousand pounds ;'* 
 so Master Norris took the fool with him ; with whom my 
 lord was fain to send six of (his) tall yeoman, to conduct and 
 convey the fool to the Court, because the poor fool took on and 
 fired so in such a rage when he saw that he must needs de- 
 part from my lord. Yet notwithstanding they conveyed him 
 with Master Norris to the court where the King received 
 him most gladly." 
 
 There are some curious circumstances connected with this 
 part of our subject in the Hfe of Newton. He lived to 85, 
 and presided at meetings of the Royal Society till within a 
 month of his death. But he never published a new work after 
 his Principia in 1687, when he was 45 years of age. The 
 French mathematician Biot discovered a few years ago, in 
 the correspondence of Huygens and Leibnitz, contemporaries 
 of Newton, in the year 1693, that Newton's mind had been 
 affected about that time in consequence of some of his papers 
 having been lost by fire. This new fact appears to have ex- 
 cited attention to an old diary in the possession of the pre- 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 91 
 
 sent Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge which had 
 been kept by an ancestor who lived in Trinity College at the 
 same time Newton resided there. In the diary it is men- 
 tioned that the manuscripts had been destroyed by a fire, and 
 of Newton, it is said, " every one thought he would have 
 run mad ; he was so troubled thereat that he was not him- 
 self for a month after." There are extant letters from 
 Newton to Locke and to Pepys, written about the period 
 adverted to by Biot, which certainly indicate a nervous and 
 irritable state of mind, not at all consonant with his general 
 character. La Place and Biot intimate that this accident 
 occasioned some dotages in Newton : and they advert parti- 
 cularly to his theological works. There are many theological 
 papers of Newton which have never been published. His 
 theological scholium was not inserted in the Principia until 
 the second edition in 1 7 1 3, after the loss of his papers. Brew- 
 ster combats these inferences of the French mathema- 
 ticians. 
 
 A melancholy instance of dotage occurs in the life of one 
 of our most eminent dramatists, Ben Jonson. His quarrel with 
 Inigo Jones, on account of Jiis putting his own name first in the 
 pubUcation of a masque ; his treatment by the Court, and by 
 the aldermen of London, and his supplicatory letter, now in 
 the British Museum, addressed to the Duke of Newcastle (which 
 contains a curious story about taming a fox for his amusement) 
 have been noticed in the Aviary. His play of the New Inn, one 
 of the first after his attack of palsy, was like the Archbishop 
 of Grenada's Homily, of which, we have mentioned, it was 
 said" il sent I'apoplexie" — Jonson could not restrain his feelings 
 on the occasion, but published an ode commencing thus, 
 K 2 
 
92 THE AGES^ OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 Come, leave the lothed stage, 
 And the more lothsomeage. 
 
 This produced an attack fromi Feltham, beginning thus. 
 
 Come, leave this angry way, 
 Of baiting those that pay 
 Dear for the sight of your declining wit. 
 
 Randolph wrote a poem in defence of Jonson, being thus, 
 
 Come, do not leave the stage, 
 'Cause 'tis a lothsome age. 
 
 Carew may be thought to have written very sensibly on this 
 occasion. His epistle contains the following lines apphcable 
 to our subject : 
 
 'Tis true (dear Ben) thy just chastising hand 
 Hath fixed upon the sotted age a brand 
 To their swoln pride, and empty scribbling due; 
 It can nor judge, nor write. And, yet, 'tis true 
 Thy comic muse from the exalted line 
 Touched by the alchemist^ doth since decline 
 From that her zenith, and foretells a red 
 And blushing evening, when she goes to bed. 
 Yet such as shall outshine the glimmering light 
 With which all stars shall gild the following night. 
 Why should the follies then of this dull age 
 Draw from thy pen such an immodest rage ? 
 The wiser world doth greater thee confess 
 Than all men else, than thyself only less. 
 
 Dryden, in one of those essays which by many are considered 
 the best specimens of English composition, exhibits Ben Jon- 
 son in his Zenith, and hints at his evening lucubrations. " As 
 for Jonson, if we look upon him while he was himself {for his 
 last plays were but his dotages,) I think him the most leanied 
 and judicious writer which any theatre ever had. He was a 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 93 
 
 most severe judge of himself as well as others. One cannot 
 say he wanted wit, but rather was frugal of it. In his works 
 you find little to retrench or alter. Wit, and language, and 
 humor also in some measure, we had before him ; but some- 
 thing of art was wanting to the drama till he came. He 
 managed his strength to more advantage than any who pre- 
 ceded him. You seldom find him making love in any of his 
 scenes, or endeavouring to move the passions ; his genius was 
 too sullen and saturnine to do it gracefully, especially when he 
 knew he came after those who had performed both to such a 
 height. Humor was his proper sphere ; and, in that, he de- 
 lighted most to represent mechanic people. He was deeply 
 conversant with the ancients both Greek and Latin, and he 
 borrowed boldly from them. But he has done his robberies 
 so openly, that one may see he fears not to be taxed by any 
 law. He invades authors like a monarch, and what would be 
 theft in other poets, is only victory in him, &c." 
 
 A similar tribute to Jonson's meridian talents, with a notice 
 of their setting occurs in the very interesting account which 
 Lord Clarendon has left us of his early associates among the 
 lawyers and poets. The incidental notice of Cowley will be 
 thought curious. It may be coupled with the notice of Milton 
 by Waller, and the want of noticing him by Sir W. Temple. 
 
 " Ben Jonson's name can never be forgotten, having by his 
 very good learning, and the severity of his nature and man- 
 ners, very much reformed the stage, and, indeed, the English 
 poetry itself. His natural advantages were judgment to 
 order and govern fancy, rather than excess of fancy, his pro- 
 ductions being slow and upon deliberation, yet abounding with 
 great wit and fancy, and will live accordingly. And, surely, 
 as he did exceedingly exalt the English language in eloquence, 
 
94 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 propriety, and masculine expressions, so he was the best judge 
 of, and fittest to prescribe rules to poetry and poets of any man 
 who had lived with, or before him, or since, if Mr. Cowley 
 had not made a flight heyond all men, with that modesty yet, 
 to ascribe much of this to the example and learning of Ben 
 Jonson. His conversation was very good and with the men of 
 most note. He had for many years an extraordinary kindness 
 for Mr. Hyde, till he found he betook himself to business, 
 which he believed ought never to be preferred before his com- 
 pany. He lived to be very old, and till the palsy made a 
 deep impression on his body and mind." 
 
 A remarkable view of the effects of age may be taken 
 from the lives of players. It is rarely optional with them to 
 continue on the stage when their faculties, strength, or animal 
 spirits begin to wane — when they cease to please, they cease 
 to be engaged, and their occupation is gone. 
 
 And, first, concerning the age of Betterton, whose fame is 
 not echpsed even by that of Garrick. He was a principal 
 performer after the restoration of the monarchy, which was 
 attended by restoration of the theatres. He performed with 
 great applause when he was seventy-five years of age ; his 
 death, which occurred three days after his performance in one 
 of his favorite characters, Melantius, in the Maids tragedy, is 
 supposed to have been hastened by his exertions. He died 
 in 1710, having acted in four reigns, besides clandestinely 
 under the Commonwealth. Colley Cibber, who was made 
 Poet Laureat in 1730, performed in 1745 when upwards of 
 seventy-four years of age, in the character of Pandulph, in 
 his own drama called Pfl/?«/ Tyranny ; founded on Shakspeare's 
 play of King John. But Vv^ forte had always been that of act- 
 ing feeble old men. He lived to the age of eighty-six. Quin 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 95 
 
 after his retirement from the stage, used to come annually 
 from Bath and leave his John-Dories to act Falstaff for the 
 benefit of a friend till he had reached the age of sixty- one ; 
 he then wrote that he had lost several of his teeth from age, 
 and would *' whistle Falstaff for no man." He lived to the age 
 of seventy-three. Garrick took leave of the stage after act- 
 ing Don Felix, in the Wonder, at the age of sixty. He 
 lived three years afterwards. King, who was celebrated 
 for acting the characters of Lord Ogleby and Sir P. Teazle, 
 performed the latter at the age of seventy- two. Kemble 
 acted at the age of sixty, and Mrs. Siddons at that of sixty- 
 one. 
 
 Ulie most melancholy instance of an actor attempting to 
 sustain a character, in which he had been eminently successful, 
 after the decay of his faculties, occurred in the instance of 
 Mackhn. He had reformed the character of Shylock from 
 the low buffoonery with which the usage of the stage had in- 
 vested it, and merited, by his conception of it, the exclama- 
 tion of Pope " This is the Jew, whom Shakspeare drew." In 
 the year 1789, he attempted Shylock for his own benefit. He 
 had then been certainly si,sty-four years on the London stage, 
 and, according to his own statement ninety-two years of age ; 
 though there is evidence to shew that he was in fact one hun- 
 dred and two. Macklin having dressed himself with his usual 
 accuracy, went into the green room, and coming up to Mrs. 
 Pope, said " My dear, are you to play to-night ?" " To be 
 sure I am, don't you see I am dressed for Portia." — " But who 
 is to play Shylock ?" " Why you are, are you not dressed for the 
 part V He put his hand up to his forehead, and said " God 
 help me ! my memory has, I fear left me." He went upon the 
 stage and deHvered two or three speeches, but did not appear 
 
96 THE AGES OP HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 to understand what he was repeating— he, however, ralUed 
 for a short time, and after delivering a few sentences with the 
 energy of former days, he paused, and looking helplessly 
 around said — " I can do no more" — and retired. He lived 
 eight years afterwards ; and went every night to the Pit, where 
 the public always reserved his place, on the centre of the bench 
 immediately behind the orchestra, however crowded the house 
 might be. 
 
 Having witnessed the desolating effects of old age in mo- 
 dern instances it may be interesting to notice how persons living 
 in very ancient times have been overladen with the burden of 
 vears. There is a curious narrative in 2 Sam. ch. xx. — A 
 person of the name of Barzillai had conducted David over the 
 river Jordan — " Now Barzillai was a very aged man, even 
 fourscore years old : and he had provided the King sustenance 
 when he lay at Mahanaim ; for he was a very great man. 
 And the King said unto Barzillai, come thou over with me, 
 and I will feed thee with me in Jerusalem. And Barzillai 
 said unto the King, How long have I to live, that I should 
 go up with the King unto Jerusalem } I am this day fourscore 
 years old ; and can I discern between good and evil .'' Can 
 thy servant taste what I eat or what I drink } Can I hear any 
 more the voice of the singing men or singing women } 
 Wherefore therefore should thy servant be yet a burden to 
 my lord the King?" In the end a friend of Barzillai goes in 
 his stead with the king to Jerusalem. 
 
 The advance of age appears to have materially affected the 
 mind of David himself. It is stated that one Shimei had 
 cursed him ; but he declared, at the time, that he knew " the 
 Lord had bidden Shimei" to do so, and therefore that he felt 
 no resentment against Shimei personally. Nevertheless, such 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 97 
 
 was the effect of age upon his memory and temper, that, in 
 his dying injunctions to Solomon, he says, "Behold thou hast 
 with thee Shimei who cursed me with a grievous curse ; but 
 he came down to meet me at Jordan, and I sware to him by 
 the Lord, saying, I will not put thee to death by the sword. 
 Now, therefore, hold. him not guiltless, for thou art a wise 
 man, and knowest what thou oughtest to do unto him ; but 
 his hoar head bring thou down to the grave with blood." In 
 point of fact the King's oath to Shimei was " Thou shalt 
 not die." So Solomon, though he was endowed with wisdom 
 by a miraculous interposition of Providence, yet " it came to 
 pass, when Solomon was old, his wives (700 in number, be- 
 sides 300 concubines) turned away his heart after other gods," 
 and accordingly the last acts of his life consisted in building 
 altars and sacrificing to Idols. 
 
 Let us revert, however, from these particular instances, to 
 considerations less painful although more general. On the 
 aggravations of poverty, when occurring in conjunction with 
 old age, we have an anonymous poem, which must be coupled 
 with the school reminiscences of most readers ; it has con- 
 siderable merit in simplicity and pathos. It is so well known 
 that it will be sufficient to* cite two stanzas. 
 
 Pity the sorrows of a poor old man, 
 
 Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door, 
 Whose days are dwindled to the shortest spar, 
 
 Oh give relief, and Heaven will bless your store ! 
 
 These tattered clothes my poverty bespeak, 
 
 These hoary locks proclaim ray lengthen'd years, 
 
 And many a furrow in my grief- worn cheek, 
 Has been the channel to a flood of tears. 
 
 On this subject of beggary and age combined we have the 
 
 description of the Monk in Sterne's Sentimental Journey. 
 
 o 
 
98 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 " A poor Monk of the order of St. Francis came into the 
 room to beg something for his convent. The moment I cast 
 my eyes upon him, I was pre-determined not to give him a 
 single sous, and accordingly I put my purse into my pocket — 
 buttoned it up — set myself a little more upon my centre, and 
 advanced up gravely to him : there was something, 1 fear, 
 forbidding in my look ; I have his figure this moment before 
 my eyes, and think there was that in it which deserved better. 
 The Monk, as I judge from the break in his tonsure, a few 
 scattered white hairs upon his temples being all that remained 
 of it, might be about seventy — ^l^ut from his eyes, and that 
 sort of fire which was in them, which seemed more tempered 
 by courtesy than years, could be no more than sixty — truth 
 might lie between, he was certainly sixty-five; and the 
 general air of his countenance, notwithstanding something 
 seemed to have been planting wrinkles in it before their time, 
 agreed to the account. It was one of those heads which 
 Guido has often painted — mild — ^pale — penetrating, free from 
 all common-place ideas of fat, contented ignorance, looking 
 downwards upon the earth — it looked forwards ; but looked 
 as if it looked at something beyond this world. How one of 
 his order came by it, Heaven above, who let it fall upon a 
 Monk's shoulders, best knows ; but it would have suited a 
 Bramin, and had I met it upon the plains of Indostan, I had 
 reverenced it. The rest of his outHne may be given in a few 
 strokes; one might put it into the hands of any one to design, 
 for 'twas neither elegant nor otherwise, but as character and 
 expression made it so : it was a thin, spare form, something 
 above the common size, if it lost not the distinction by a 
 bend forwards in the figure — but it was the attitude of en- 
 treaty ; and as it now stands present to my imagination, it 
 gained more than it lost by it. 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 99 
 
 '*When he had entered the room three paces, he stood still; 
 and laying his left hand upon his breast (a slender white staff 
 with which he journeyed being in his right) — when I had got 
 close up to him, he introduced himself with the little story of 
 the wants of his convent, and the poverty of his order — and 
 did it with so simple a grace — and such an air of deprecation 
 was there in the whole cast of his look and figure — I was 
 bewitched not to have been struck with it, A better reason 
 was, I had pre- determined not to give him a single sous. 
 'Tis very true, said I, replying to a cast upwards with his 
 eyes, with which he had concluded his address — 'tis very 
 true — and heaven be their resource who have no other bu^ 
 the charity of the world, the stock of which, I fear, is no way 
 sufficient for the many great claims which are hourly made 
 upon it. As I pronounced the words * great claims' he 
 gave a slight glance with his eye downwards upon the sleeve 
 of his tunic — I felt the full force of the appeal — I acknow- 
 ledge it, said I — a coarse habit, and that but once in three 
 years, with meagre diet — are no great matters : and the 
 true point of pity is, as they can be earned in the world with 
 so little industry, that your order should wish to procure 
 them by pressing upon a 'fund which is the property of the 
 lame, the blind, the aged, and the infirm : the captive, who 
 lies down counting over and over again the days of his aflSiic- 
 tion, languishes also for his share of it ; and had you been of 
 the order of Mercy, instead of the order of St. Francis, poor 
 as I am, continued I, pointing at my portmanteau, full cheer- 
 fully should it have been opened to you for the ransom of the 
 unfortunate. The Monk made me a bow — but of all others, 
 resumed I, the unfortunate of our own country, surely, have 
 the first rights ; and I have left thousands in distress upon 
 o 2 
 
100 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 our own shore. The Monli gave a cordial wave with his 
 head — as much as to say, no doubt, there is misery enough 
 in every corner of the world, as well as within our convent. 
 — But we distinguish, said I, laying my hand upon the sleeve 
 of his tunic, in return for his appeal — we distinguish, my 
 good father ! betwixt those who wish only to eat the bread 
 of their own labour — and those who eat the bread of other 
 people's, and have no other plan in life, but to get through it 
 in sloth and ignorance, for the love of God. The poor Fran- 
 ciscan made no reply : a hectic of a moment passed across 
 his cheek, but could not tarry. Nature seemed to have had 
 done with her reseritments in him ; he shewed none — but 
 letting his staff fall within his arm, he pressed both his hands 
 with resignation upon his breast, and retired. My heart 
 smote me the moment he shut the door — Psha ! said I, with 
 an air of carelessness, three several times — but it would not 
 do ; every ungracious syllable I had uttered crowded back 
 into my imagination ; I reflected I had no right over the poor 
 Franciscan but to deny him ; and that the punishment of 
 that was enough to the disappointed, without the addition of 
 unkind language — I considered his g cy hairs, — his courteous 
 figure seemed to re-enter, and gently ask me what injury he 
 had done me .? and why I could use him thus .'' I would have 
 given twenty livres for an advocate. I have behaved very ill, 
 said I within myself; but I have only just set out upon my 
 travels ; and shall learn better manners as I get along." 
 
 We have some curious particulars concerning Sterne from 
 his valet La Fleur, who accompanied him in his travels, and 
 survived him. La Fleur says, that he never saw Sterne exhi- 
 bit any particular sympathy for Monks ; he remembered several 
 pressing in upon him, to all of whom his answer was the 
 
THE AGES OF HUMi^N LIFE. 101 
 
 same — Mon pere, je suis occupe. Je suis pauvre comme vous. 
 He acknowledged the truth of what Sterne said of his valet 
 The stories of the Grisette and of the Dead Ass were true ; 
 so was that of Poor Maria. " When we came up to her,'* 
 said LaFleur, " she was grovelling in the road like an infant, 
 and throwing the dust upon her head — and yet few were more 
 lovely. Upon Sterne's accosting her with tenderness, and 
 raising her in his arms, she collected herself, and resumed 
 some composure — told her tale of misery, and wept upon his 
 breast — my master sobbed aloud. I saw her gently disengage 
 herself from his arms, and she sung him the service to the 
 Virgin. My poor master covered his face with his hands, and 
 walked by her side to the cottage where she lived ; then he 
 talked earnestly to the old woman. Every day while we 
 stayed there, I carried them meat and drink from the hotel, 
 and when we departed from Moulines, ray master left his 
 blessing and some money with the mother; how much, I 
 know not : he always gave more than he could aflford. 
 
 On the subject of another of the evils, to which, according to 
 Johnson's representation, old people are subject. Legacy-hunt- 
 ing, we have a curious imputation cast upon one of our poets 
 by Lady M. W. Montague — " Pope courted with the utmost 
 assiduity all the old men from whom he could hope a legacy. 
 The Duke of Buckingham, Lord Petersham, Sir G. Kneller, 
 Lord Bolinbroke, Mr. Wycherley, Mr. Congreve, Lord Har- 
 court and others ; and I do not doubt projected to sweep the 
 Dean's whole inheritance, if he could have persuaded him to 
 throw up his deanery, and come and die in his house. His 
 general preaching against money was meant to induce people 
 to throw it away, that he might pick it up." Probably there 
 is little more in this than an eiFusion of malevolence after her 
 
102 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 quarrel with Pope. Her ladyship in another letter expresses 
 herself with much aristocratic disdain both of Dean Swift 
 and Pope. " It is pleasant to consider that had it not been 
 for the good nature of these very mortals they contemn, these 
 two superior beings were entitled by their birth and hereditary 
 fortune to be only a couple of link-hoys." 
 
 Legacy- hunting is treated of in a variety of amusing forms 
 by the Roman poets, particularly by Juvenal and Martial ; but, 
 perhaps, there is nothing in literature superior upon this 
 subject, to Ben Jonson's celebrated play of Volpone, or the 
 Fox, 
 
 (One knocks without.) 
 Volp. Who's that ? Away, look, Mosca ; fool, begone. 
 Mos. 'Tis Signior Voltore, the advocate, 
 I know him by his knock. 
 
 Volp' Fetch me my gown. 
 My furs, and night- caps ; say, my couch is changing : 
 And let him entertain himself awhile 
 Without i' th' gallery. Now, now, my clients 
 Begin their visitation ! Vulture, kite. 
 Raven, and gorcrow, all my birds of prey. 
 That think me turning carcass, now they come ; 
 I am not for 'em yet. How now } the news ? 
 Mns. A piece of plate, Sir. 
 Volp. Of what bigness } 
 Mos. Huge, 
 Massy, and antique, with your name inscrib*d. 
 And arms engraven. 
 
 Volp. Good ! and not a fox 
 Stretcht on the earth, with fine delusive slights 
 Mocking a gaping crow } ha, Mosca .^ 
 
THE AGES OP HUMAN LIFE. 103 
 
 Mos. Sharp, Sir. 
 
 Volp. Give me my furs. Why dost thou laugh so, man ? 
 
 Mos. I cannot chuse, Sir, when I apprehend 
 What thoughts he has (without) now, as he walks : 
 That this might be the last gift he should give ; 
 That this would fetch you ; if you die to-day. 
 And gave him all, what he should be to-morrow. 
 What large return would come of all his ventures. 
 How he should worshipp'd be, and reverenced ; 
 Ride with his furs, and foot- clothes ; waited on 
 By herds of fools, and clients ; have clear way 
 Made for his moile, as letter'd as himself ; 
 Be call'd the great and learned advocate : 
 And then concludes, there's nought impossible. 
 
 Volp. Yes, to be learned, Mosca. 
 
 Mos. O, no : rich 
 Imphes it. Hood an ass with reverend purple, 
 So you can hide his two ambitious ears. 
 And he shall pass for a cathedral doctor. 
 
 Volp. My caps, my caps, good Mosca ; fetch him in. 
 
 Mos. Stay, Sir, your ointment for your eyes. 
 
 » 
 Volp, That's true ; 
 
 Dispatch, dispatch : I long to have possession 
 
 Of my new present. 
 
 Mos, That, and thousands more, 
 I hope to see you lord of. 
 
 Volp. Loving Mosca, 
 'Tis well, my pillow now, and let him enter. 
 Now my feign'd cough, my phthisick, and my gout. 
 My apoplexy, palsy and catarrh. 
 Help, with your forced functions, this my posture, 
 
104 THE AGES QP HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 Wherein this three year, I have milk'd their hopes. 
 He comes, I hear him (uh, uh, uh, uh) O. 
 
 ScENfi III. 
 
 Mosca, Voltore, Volpone. 
 
 Mos. Sir, Signior Voltore is come, this morning 
 To visit you. 
 
 Volp. I thank him. 
 
 Mos. And hath brought 
 A piece of antique plate, bought of St. Mark, 
 With which he here presents you. 
 
 Volp. He is welcome. 
 Pray him to come more often. 
 
 Volt. How fare you, Sir } 
 
 Volp. I thank you, Signior Voltore, 
 Where is the plate } mine eyes are bad. 
 
 Volt. I'm sorry. 
 To see you still thus weak. 
 
 Mos. That he's not weaker, (aside) 
 
 Volp. You are too munificent. 
 
 Volt. No, Sir, would to heaven, 
 I could as well give health to you as that plate. 
 
 Volp. You give, Sir, what you can. I thankyou. Your love 
 Hath taste in this, and shall not be unanswer'd. 
 I pray you see me often. 
 
 Volt. Yes, I shall, Sir. 
 
 Volp. Be not far from me. 
 
 Mos. Do you observe that, Sir ? 
 
 Volp. Hearken unto me still : it will concern you. 
 
 Mos. You are a happy man, Sir, know your good. 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 105 
 
 Volp. I cannot now last long — - 
 
 Mos. You are his heir, Sir. 
 
 Volt. Am I ? 
 
 Volp. I feel me going, (uh, uh, uh, uh.) 
 I'm sailing to my port, (uh, uh, uh, uh,) 
 And I am glad I am so near my haven. 
 
 Mos. Alas, kind gentleman, well, we must ^11 go— 
 
 Volt. But, Mosca — 
 
 Mos. Age will conquer. 
 
 Volt, Tray thee, hear me. 
 Am I inscribed his heir for certain ? 
 
 Mos. Are you } 
 I do beseech you. Sir, you will vouchsafe 
 To write me i' your family. All my hopes 
 Depend upon your worship. I am lost. 
 Except the rising sun do shine on me. 
 
 Volt. It shall both shine, and warm thee, Mosca. 
 
 Mos. Sir, 
 I am a man, that hath not done your love 
 All the worst offices ; here I wear your keys. 
 See all your coffers, and your caskets lockt. 
 Keep the poor inventory of your jewels. 
 Your plate and moneys, am your steward, Sir, 
 Husband your goods here. 
 
 Volt. But am I sole heir ? 
 
 Mos. Without a partner, Sir, confirm'd this morning j 
 The wax is warm yet, and the ink scarce dry 
 Upon the parchment. 
 
 Volt. Happy, happy, me \ 
 By what good chance, sweet Mosca ? 
 
 Mos. Your desert, Sir, 
 p 
 
106 THE AGES OF HUMAN LlFl^. 
 
 I know no second cause. 
 
 Volt. Thy modesty 
 Is loth to know it ; well, we shall requite it. 
 
 Mos. He everlik'd your course, Sir, that first took him. 
 I oft have heard him say, how he admir'd 
 Men of your large profession, that could speak 
 To every cause, and things mere contraries, 
 Till they were hoarse again, yet all be law ; 
 That, with most quick agility, could turn, 
 And return ; make knots, and undo them ; 
 Give forked counsel ; take provoking gold 
 On either hand, and put it up ; these men. 
 He knew, would thrive with their humility. 
 And (for his part) he thought he should be blest 
 To have his heir of such a suffering spirit. 
 So wise, so grave, of so perplex'd a tongue. 
 And loud withal, that would not wag nor scarce 
 Lie still, without a fee ; when every word 
 Your worship but lets fall, is a cecchine ! 
 
 (Another knocks.) 
 Who's that? one knocks, 1 would not have you seen. Sir, 
 And yet — pretend you came, and went in haste ; 
 I'll fashion an excuse. And, gentle. Sir, 
 When you do come to swim in golden lard. 
 Up to the arms in honey, that your chin 
 Is borne up stiff, with fatness of the flood. 
 Think on your vassal ; but remember me : 
 I ha' not been your worst of clients. 
 
 Volt, Mosca, — 
 
 Mos. When will you have your inventory brought, Sir } 
 Or see a copy of the will ? Anon 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 107 
 
 I'll bring 'em to you. Sir. Away, begone, 
 Put business i' your face. 
 
 Volt. Excellent Mosca ! 
 Come hither, let me kiss thee. (Departs.) 
 
 Mos, Keep you still. Sir. 
 Here is Corbaccio. 
 
 Volp. Set the plate away. 
 The vulture's gone, and the old raven's come ! 
 
 Scene iv. 
 Mosca, Corbaccio, Volpone. 
 
 Mos, Betake you to your silence, and your sleep. — 
 Stand there and multiply. — Now shall we see. 
 A wretch who is (indeed) more impotent, 
 Than this can feign to be ; yet hopes to hop 
 Over his grave. Signior Corbaccio ! 
 You're very welcome, Sir. 
 
 Corb. How does your patron } 
 
 Mos. Troth, as he did. Sir ; no amends . 
 
 Corb. What } mends he } 
 
 Mos, No, Sir : he'^ rather worse. 
 
 Corb. That's well. Where is he } 
 
 Mos. Upon this couch. Sir, newly fall'n asleep. 
 
 Corb. Does he sleep well t 
 
 Mos. No wink. Sir, all this night. 
 Nor yesterday ; but slumbers. 
 
 Corb. Good ! he should take 
 Some counsel of Physicians : I have brought him 
 An opiate here, from mine own doctor — 
 
 Mos, He will not hear of drugs. 
 p 2 
 
108 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE, 
 
 Corh. Why ? I myself 
 Stood by, while it was made, saw all the ingredients 
 And know, it cannot but most gently work , 
 My life for his, 'tis but to make him sleep, 
 
 Volp. ly his last sleep, if he would take it. (Aside,} 
 Mos. Sir, 
 He has no faith in physick. 
 Corb. 'Say you, say you ? 
 
 Mos. He has no faith in physick : he does think 
 Most of your doctors are the greater danger. 
 And worse disease, to escape. I often have 
 Heard him protest, that your physician 
 Should never be his heir. 
 Corh. Not I his heir ? 
 Mos. Not your physician, Sir. 
 Corb. O, no, no, no, 
 I do not mean it, 
 
 Mos. No, Sir, nor their fees 
 He cannot brook : he says, they flay a ma>n^ 
 Before they kill him. 
 
 Corb. Right, I do conceive yon. 
 Mos. And then they do it by experiment ; 
 For which the law not only doth absolve 'em. 
 But gives them great reward x and he is loth 
 To hire his death, so. 
 
 Corb. It is true, they kill. 
 With as much license, as a judge. 
 
 Mos. Nay, more ; 
 For he but kills, Sir, when the law condemns. 
 And these can kill him too. 
 Corb. I, or me ; 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 109 
 
 Or any man. How does his apoplex ? 
 Is that strong on him still ? 
 
 Mos. Most violent. 
 His speech is broken, and his eyes are set. 
 His face drawn longer, than 'twas wont — 
 
 Corb. How ? How ? 
 Stronger than he was wont ? 
 
 Mos. No, Sir : his face 
 Drawn longer than 'twas wont. 
 Corb. O good. 
 Mos. His mouth 
 Is ever gaping, and his eyelids hang. 
 Corb. Good. 
 
 Mos. A freezing numbness stiffens all his joints. 
 And makes the colour of his flesh like lead . 
 Corb. *Tis good. 
 
 Mos. His pulse beats slow, and dull. 
 Corb. Good symptoms still. 
 Mos. And from his brain — 
 Corb. I conceive you, (good.) 
 Mos. Flows a cold sweet, with a continual rheum. 
 Forth the resolved corners of his eyes. 
 
 Carb. Is 't possible ? Yet I am better, ha ! 
 How does he, with the swimming of his head ? 
 
 Mos. O, Sir, 'tis past the scotomy ; he now 
 Hath lost his feeling, and hath left to snort : 
 You hardly can perceive him, that he breathes. 
 
 Corb. Excellent, excellent, sure I shall outlast him ; 
 This makes me young again, a score of years. 
 Mos. I was a coming for you. Sir. 
 Corb. Has he made his will ? 
 
HO THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 What has he given me ? 
 
 Mos. No, Sir. 
 
 Corb. Nothing } Ha .? 
 
 Mos. He has not made his will, Sir. 
 
 Corb. Oh, oh, oh. 
 What then did Voltore, the lawyer, here } 
 
 Mos. He smelt a carcass, Sir, when he but heard 
 My master was about his testament ; 
 As I did urge him to it for your good — 
 
 Corb. He came unto him, did he } I thought so. 
 
 Mos. Yes, and presented him this piece of plate. 
 
 Corb. To be his heir ? 
 
 Mos. I do not know, Sir. 
 
 Corb. True. 
 I know it though. 
 
 Mos. By your own scale. Sir. 
 
 Corb. Well, 
 I shall prevent him, yet. See Mosca, look, 
 Here, I have brought a bag of bright cecchines. 
 Will quite weigh down his plate. 
 
 Mos. Yea, marry, Sir. 
 This is true physick, this your sacred medicine ; 
 No talk of opiates, to this great elixir. 
 
 Corb. 'Tis aurum palpabile, if not potabile. 
 
 Mos. It shall be minister'd to him, in his bowl .^^ 
 
 Corb. I, do, do, do. 
 
 Mos. Most blessed cordial. 
 This will recover him. 
 
 Corb. Yes, do, do, do. 
 
 Mos. I think it were not best, Sir, 
 
 Corb. What } 
 
 t 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. Ill 
 
 Mos. To recover him. 
 
 Corb. O, no, no, no ; by no means. 
 
 Mos. Why, Sir, this 
 Will work some strange effect, if he but feel it. 
 
 Corb. 'Tis true, therefore forbear, I'll take my venture ; 
 Give me it again. 
 
 Mos. At no hand ; pardon me ; 
 You shall not do yourself that wrong. Sir. I 
 Will so advise you, you shall have it all. 
 
 Corb, How ? 
 
 Mos, All, Sir, 'tis your right, your own, no man 
 Can claim a part : 'tis yours without a rival. 
 Decreed by destiny. 
 
 Corb. How ; how, good Mosca ? 
 
 Mos. I'll tell you. Sir. This fit he shall recover. 
 
 Corb. 1 do conceive you. 
 
 Mos. And, on first advantage 
 Of his gain'd sense, will I re-importune him 
 Unto the making of his testament ; 
 And shew him this. 
 
 Corb. Good, good. 
 
 Mos. 'Tis better yet. 
 If you will hear. Sir. 
 
 Corb, Yes, with all my heart. 
 
 Mos, Now, would I counsel you, make home with speed, 
 There, frame a will ; whereto you shall inscribe 
 My master your sole heir. 
 
 Corb, And disinherit 
 My son ? 
 
 Mos. O, Sir, the better : for that colour 
 Shall make it much more taking. 
 
112 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 Corh. O, but colour ? 
 
 Mos. This will, Sir, you shall send it unto me, 
 Now, when I come to inforce (as I will do) 
 Your cares, your watchings, and your many prayers, 
 Your more than many gifts, your this day's present. 
 And last, produce your will ; where, (without thought, 
 Or least regard, unto your proper issue, 
 A son so brave, and highly meriting,) 
 The stream of your diverted love hath thrown you 
 Upon my master, and made him your heir : 
 He cannot be so stupid, or stone-dead. 
 But out of conscience, and mere gratitude — 
 
 Corb. He must pronounce me his ? 
 
 Mos. 'Tis true. 
 
 Corb This plot 
 Did I think on before. 
 
 Mos. I do believe it. 
 
 Corb, Do you not believe it } 
 
 Mos. Yes, Sir. 
 
 Corb. Mine own project. 
 
 Mos. Which, when he hath done. Sir — 
 
 Corb. Publish'd me his heir } 
 
 Mos. And you so certain to survive him — 
 
 Corb. I. 
 
 Mos. Being so lusty a man — 
 
 Corb. 'Tis true, 
 Mos. Yes, Sir. — 
 
 Corb. I thought on that too ; see how he should be 
 The very organ to express my thoughts ! 
 
 Mos. You have not only done yourself a good — 
 Corb. But multiplied it on my son. 
 
THE AGES OP HUMAN LIFE. 113 
 
 Mos. I do desire your worship to make haste, Sir, 
 Corb. 'Tis done, 'tis done, I go. (Departs.) 
 Volp. O, I shall burst c 
 Let out my sides, let out my sides — 
 
 Mos. Contain 
 Your flux of laughter, Sir : you know this hope 
 Is such a bait, it covers any hook. 
 
 Volp. O, but thy working, and thy placing it 1 
 I cannot hold ; good rascal, let me kiss thee : 
 i never knew thee in so rare a humour. 
 
 Mos. Alas, Sir, I but do as I am taught ; 
 Follow your grave instructions ; give 'em words ; 
 Pour oil into their ears, and send them hence. 
 
 Volp. 'Tis true, 'tis true. What a rare punishment 
 Is avarice to itself.^ 
 
 Mos. I, with our help. Sir. 
 Volp. So many cares, so many maladies, 
 So many fears attending on old age. 
 Yea, death so often call'd on, as no wish 
 Can be more frequent with 'em, their limbs faint. 
 Their senses dull, their seeing, hearing going. 
 All dead before them ; yea, their very teeth. 
 Their instruments of eating, failing them : 
 Yet this is reckon'd life ! nay, here was one. 
 Is now gone home, that wishes to live longer ! 
 Feels not his gout, nor palsie, feigns himself 
 Younger by scores of years, flatters his age. 
 With confident belying it, hopes he may. 
 With charms like GEson, have his youth restor'd ; 
 And with these thoughts so battens, as if fate 
 Would be as easily cheated on, as h€, 
 Q 
 
114 -^ THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 And all turns air ! Who's that there, now ? a third ? 
 (Another knocks.) 
 Mos. Close to your couch again : I hear his voice 
 It is Corvino, our spruce merchant. 
 
 Scene v. 
 
 Mosca, Corvino, Volpone. 
 Mos. Siguier Corvino ! come most wisht for ! O, 
 How happy were you, if you knew it, now ! 
 
 Corv. Why ? what ? wherein ? 
 Mos. The tardy hour is come. Sir. 
 
 Corv. He is not dead ? 
 
 Mos. Not dead. Sir, but as good ; 
 He knows no man. 
 
 Corv. How shall I do then ? 
 
 Mos. Why, Sir } 
 
 Corv. I have brought him here a pearl. 
 
 Mos. Perhaps he has 
 So much remembrance left, as to know you, Sir, 
 He still calls on you ; nothing but your name 
 Is in his mouth ; is your pearl orient. Sir ? 
 
 Corv. Venice was never owner of the like. 
 
 Volp. Signior Corvino. 
 
 Mos. Hark. 
 
 Volp. Signior Corvino. 
 
 Mos. Hark. 
 
 Volp. Signior Corvino. 
 
 Mos. He calls you. Step and give it him. He's here. Sir, 
 And he has brought you a rich pearl. 
 
 Corv. How do you. Sir } 
 Tell him it doubles the twelfth caract. 
 
THJB AGES OP HUMAN LIFE. 115 
 
 Mos. Sir, 
 He cannot understand, his hearing's gone, 
 And yet it comforts him to see you- — 
 
 Corv. Say 
 I have a diamond for him too. 
 
 Mos. Best shew't. Sir, 
 Put it into hand ; 'tis only there 
 He apprehends : he has his feelings, yet. 
 See how he grasps it ! 
 
 Corv. 'Las, good gentleman ! 
 How pitiful the sight is ! 
 
 Mos. Tut, forget. Sir. 
 The weeping of an heir should still be laughter. 
 Under a visor. 
 
 Corv. Why .'' am I his heir ? 
 
 Mos. Sir, I am sworn, I may not shew the will. 
 Till he be dead : but there has been Corbaccro, 
 Here has been Voltore, here were others too, 
 I cannot number 'em, they were so many. 
 All gaping here for legacies ; but I 
 Taking the vantage of hjs naming you, 
 (Signior Corvino, Signior Corvino) took 
 Paper, and pen, and ink, and here I ask'd him. 
 Whom he would have his heir ! Corvino. Who 
 Should be executor ? Corvino. And, 
 To any question he was silent to, 
 I still interpreted the nods he made 
 
 Through weakness for consent : and sent home th' others. 
 Nothing bequeath'd them, but to cry and curse. 
 
 Corv. O, my dear Mosca. Does he not perceive us } 
 
 (They embrace.) 
 Q 2 
 
116 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 Mos. No more than a blind harper. He knows no man^ 
 No face of friend, nor name of any sei-vant. 
 Who 'twas that fed him last, or gave him drink : 
 Not those he hath begotten, or brought up, 
 Can he remember. 
 
 Corv. That's well, that's well. Art sure he does not 
 
 [hear us ? 
 
 Mos. Sure, Sir ? Why, look you, credit your own sense. 
 (You may come near. Sir) Would you once close 
 Those filthy eyes of youis, that flow with slime. 
 Like two frog-pits : and those same hanging cheeks, 
 Cover'd with hide instead of skin, (nay, help. Sir,) 
 That look like frozen dish- clouts set on end. 
 
 Co7'v. Or like an old smok'd wall, on which the rain 
 Ran down in streaks. 
 
 Mos, Excellent, Sir, speak out : 
 You may be louder yet : a culverin 
 Discharged in his ear, would hardly bore it. 
 
 Corv. His nose is like a common sewer, still running. 
 
 Mos. 'Tis, good ! And what his mouth ! 
 
 Corv. A very draught. 
 
 Mos. O, stop it up. 
 
 Corv, By no means. 
 
 Mos. 'Pray you, let me. 
 Faith I could stifle him rarely with a pillow. 
 As well as any women that should keep him. 
 
 Corv. Do as you will, but I'll begone. 
 
 Mos. Be so ; 
 It is your presence makes him last so long. 
 
 Corv. I pray you, use no violence. 
 
 Mos. No, Sir ? Why ; 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 117 
 
 Why should you be thus scrupulous, 'pray you, Sir ? 
 
 Corv. Nay at your discretion. 
 
 Mos. Well, good Sir, be gone. 
 
 Corv. I will not trouble him now, to take my pearl. 
 
 Mos. Puh, nor your diamond, what a needless care 
 Is this afflicts you } Is not all here yours ? 
 Am not I here ? whom you have made your creature ? 
 That owe my being to you ? 
 
 Corv* Grateful Mosca ! 
 Thou art my friend, my fellow, my companion. 
 My partner, and shall share in all my fortunes. 
 
 Mos^ Excepting one. 
 
 Corv, What's that } 
 
 Mos. Your gallant wife, Sir. {Corvino departs.) 
 Now is he gone : we had no other means. 
 To shoot him hence, but this. 
 
 Volp. My divine Mosca ! 
 Thou hast to-day out-gone thyself. Who's there ? 
 
 (Another knocks.) 
 I will be troubled with no more. Prepare 
 Me music, dances, banquets, all delights ; 
 The Turk is not more sensual in his pleasures. 
 Than will Volpone. Let me see ; a pearl } 
 A diamond ? plate } cecchines ? Good morning's purchase ; 
 Why, this is better than rob churches." 
 
 With regard to the vices of old age, we have a spirited 
 view taken of them by Lord Chatham when entering on his 
 parliamentary career, after being taunted by the elder Horace 
 Walpole with the juvenility of his sentiments, and theatrical 
 style of speaking. 
 
118 THE A.GES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 " Sir, the atrocious crime of being a young man, which 
 the honorable gentleman has, with such spirit and decency, 
 charged upon me, I shall neither attempt to palHate nor deny ; 
 but content myself with wishing, that I may be one of those, 
 whose foUies may cease with their youth ; and not of that 
 number, who are ignorant in spite of experience. 
 
 " Whether youth can be imputed to any man as a reproach, 
 I will not, Sir, assume the province of determining ; but sure- 
 ly, age may become justly contemptible, if the opportunities, 
 which it brings, have passed away without improvement ; 
 and vice appears to prevail, when the passions have subsided. 
 The wretch that after having seen the consequences of a 
 thousand errors, continues still to blunder ; and whose age 
 has only added obstinacy to stupidity, is surely the object of 
 either abhorrence or contempt, and, deserves not, that his 
 grey head should secure him from insults. Much more. Sir, 
 is he to be abhorred who, as he has advanced in age, has re- 
 ceded from virtue, and becomes more wicked, with less temp- 
 tation ; who prostitutes himself for money, which he cannot 
 enjoy, and spends the remains of his life in the ruin of his 
 country." 
 
 Avarice is of all vices that which is generally regarded as 
 most characteristic of Old Age. Thus Lord Byron — 
 
 My days of love are over ; me no more 
 The charms of maid, wife, and still less of widow, 
 
 Can make the fool of which they made before, 
 In short I must not lead the life I did do. 
 
 The credulous hope of mutual minds is o'er. 
 The copious use of claret is forbid too, 
 
 So for a good old- gentlemanly vice 
 
 I think I must take up with avarice. 
 
 The subject of the avarice of old people is dwelt upon by 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 119 
 
 Sir J. Denham (the author of Cowper's Hill) in a poem upon 
 old age now but little read, and in which he very much fol- 
 lows the arrangement and thoughts in Cicero's treatise. Sir 
 J. Denham and Waller are styled by Dryden the ** Fathers" 
 of modern EngUsh poetry, and Pope has treated a union of 
 Denham's *• strength" and Waller's " sweetness" as the per- 
 fection of fine writing. Dr. Johnson in his life of Denham 
 has exemplified his " strength" by examples. The following 
 lines are chiefly interesting with reference to the state of 
 English poetry at the time they were written : 
 
 Of Age's avarice I cannot see 
 
 What colour, ground, or reason there should be : 
 
 Is it not folly, when the way we ride 
 
 Is short, for a long voyage to provide ? 
 
 To avarice some title youth may own, 
 
 To reap in autumn what the spring had sown ; 
 
 And with the providence of bees, or ants. 
 
 Prevent with summer's plenty, winter's wants. 
 
 But age scarce sows, till death stands by to reap ; 
 
 And to a stranger's hand transfers the heap ; 
 
 Afraid to be so once, she's always poor, 
 
 And to avoid a mischief, makes it sure. 
 
 Such madness as fqr fear of death, to die, 
 
 Is, to be poor, for fear of poverty. 
 
 It is not to be supposed that avaricious feelings would be 
 so prevalent with old people, if the case merely depended on 
 the weak considerations which Cicero and Sir J. Denham take 
 into view. But many old people may feel, after the loss of 
 relatives and friends, that their money is the only hold they 
 retain on the respect and sympathy of mankind ; and that 
 they would be incapable of repairing its deprivation. It is 
 also natural to old men, upon this, as upon other subjects, ac- 
 
120 THE AGES OP HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 cording to Polonius, to '* cast beyond themselves in their 
 opinions." Dr. Johnson in his Rambler, says, " The most 
 usual support of old age is wealth. He whose possessions 
 are large, and whose chests are full, if he has lost all other 
 means of government, if his strength and his reason fail him, 
 he can at least alter his will. And therefore all that have 
 hopes must likewise have fears, and he may still continue to 
 give laws to such as have not ceased to regard their own in- 
 terest. This is, indeed, too frequently the citadel of the do- 
 tard, the last fortress to which age retires, and in which he 
 makes a stand against the upstart race that seizes his do- 
 mains, disputes his commands, and cancels his prescriptions." 
 In Pope's time. Sir John Cutler, of whom particular men- 
 tion is made in the Epistle to Lord Bathurst, was the miser 
 par excellence — he has been eclipsed by Elwes. This re- 
 nowned miser attained the age of 80 : he was possessed of 
 £500,000. In the last year of his life he went to hve in his 
 son's house, and took with him five guineas and a half 
 crown. One night he alarmed all the inmates with pas- 
 sionate exclamations that he had lost all his money : His 
 memory in his advanced age had failed; the money was 
 found hid in a corner behind a window shutter. In harvest 
 time he would amuse himself with going into the fields to 
 glean corn on the grounds of his own tenants, and they used 
 to leave more than usual, in order to please him. He used 
 commonly to travel on horseback, feeding himself with some 
 hard-boiled eggs which he took in his pocket, and his horse 
 with any hay that might be hanging on hedges. He did not 
 commonly shoe his horse, but rode it in green lanes, alleging 
 that the turf was pleasant to its feet. On one occasion, com- 
 ing from Newmarket, he nearly occasioned the death of a tra- 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 121 
 
 veiling companion, a Mr. Sparling, by indacing him on a cold 
 and dark night to take a cut across some fields. Having with 
 danger and difficulty got over a precipitous ditch, Mr. 
 Sparling thanked Heaven for his escape. " Aye," said old 
 Elwes, " you mean from the turnpike ; very right, never pay 
 a turnpike if you can avoid it !" At the age of 60 Elwes was 
 elected Member for Berkshire, at Loid Craven's expense. In 
 London he always took up his abode at some one of his nu- 
 merous houses that m.ight be vacant, moving from it as soon 
 as any tenant offered. A couple of beds, a couple of chairs, 
 a table, and an old woman, were all his furniture, and he 
 moved them at a minute's warning. On returning fi'om the 
 House of Commons the persons who were acquainted with 
 liim often proposed a hackney coach ; which he rejected, say- 
 ino-, that he preferred walking. But on overtaking him, after 
 they had hired the coach, he was easily persuaded to get into 
 it. Widking home one dark niglit he received a contusion 
 on his legs from a sedan chair. Some friends insisted on an 
 Apothecary being sent for ; when he came, he expatiated on 
 the dangerous state of his legs. Upon which Elwes proposed 
 
 and made an agreement with him that he should take and 
 » 
 
 doctor one leg, and himself would take and do nothing to the 
 other, and that he would wager the Apothecary his bill, on 
 the undoctored leo- getting well first. He used often to 
 
 '& t!)^^'-'"& 
 
 men- 
 
 tion, with triumph, that he beat the Apothecary by a fort- 
 night." Elwes's mother and uncle were celebrated misers : 
 but it would seem that he himself, until he succeeded to his 
 uncle's property at the age of 40, mixed in all the gaieties of 
 life, was distinguished for his riding, and was much addicted 
 to gambling. When he visited his old uncle he put on a 
 
122 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIPE. 
 
 masquerade dress of darned worsted stockings, iron buckles, 
 tattered waistcoat and worn-out coat. 
 
 Roger North's description of the Old Serjeant with whom 
 Lord Guilford, when a young man, used to ride the circuit 
 presents a somewhat more common example of covetousness 
 in aged people. "He (the Lord Keeper, when he first went 
 circuit:>) was exceeding careful to keep fair with tlie cocks of 
 the circuit, and particularly Serjeant Earl, who had almost a 
 monopoly. The serjeant was a very covetous man, and when 
 none would starve with him onjournies, this young gentleman 
 kept him company. Once, at Cambridge, the Serjeant's man 
 brought young North a cake, telling him he would want it, 
 for he knew his master would not draw bit till he came to 
 Norwich. And it proved so. They jogged on, and, at Bar- 
 ton Mills, young North asked the serjeant if he would not take 
 a mouthful there," " No, boy," said he, " w^e will light at 
 every ten miles' end, and get to Norwich as soon as we can." 
 And there was no remedy. Once he asked the serjeant in 
 what method he kept his accounts — "for you have" said he 
 " lands, securities, and great comings-in of all kinds." " Ac- 
 counts, boy," said the serjeant, " I get as much as I can, and 
 1 spend as little as I can, and there is all the account I keep." 
 But young North v^as sure to keep the Serjeant's discourse 
 flowing all the way they rode ; and, being mostly of law, 
 and tricks, and sometimes of purchases, management and the 
 like, it was very beneficial to one who had his experience to 
 gather." 
 
 Misers in painting, as in the well known picture of the Two 
 Misers in Windsor Castle, and in poetry, are generally repre- 
 sented as old men. Pope's miser is old; he introduces him 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 123 
 
 as one of his instances of the "ruling passion strong in 
 death." 
 
 " I give and I devise" (old Euclio said 
 And sighed) " mv lands and tenements to Ned." 
 Your money, Sir ? — " My money, Sir, M^hat all ? 
 Why if I must" (then wept) " I give it Paul." 
 1'he manor, Sir ?— " The manor ! hold," he cried, 
 " Not that— I cannot part with that," — and died. 
 
 The name of Euclio is taken from Plautus' play, which is 
 the foundation of one of the most popular comedies of modern 
 literature, Moliere's Jvare. Ben Jonson has also borrowed 
 a miser, in the play of " The case is altered," from Plautu?;. 
 Moliere's Harpagon has again been imitated by Shadwell and 
 Fielding. It is observable that Moliere makes his miser odious, 
 Plautus only ridiculous. The modern misers on the stage 
 are usually represented as in love. In the Plutus of Aristo- 
 phanes, the plot of which play turns on giving Plutus his 
 eyesight, the Dramatist has not singled out old people as the 
 only persons who were slaves to their wealth. The Priest 
 of Jupiter complains that he is beggared, for that now Plutus 
 could see, and had made the good to be also the rich, they 
 had left otf resorting to» Jupiter's temple. In like manner 
 it is observed by Sadi in his Gulistan — " Dervises require 
 not direms and dinars : when they receive money, look out 
 for other dervises." 
 
 The anecdotes of misers, and persons evincing a strong 
 desire for money, without the possibihty of enjoying it, are 
 endless. Most persons have read of the dying Catholic who 
 wanted to bargain for the crucifix placed m his hands, during 
 the ceremony of extreme unction, and many other instances 
 which have found their way into books ; the following 
 R 2 
 
124 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 is mentioned, principally because I have not seen it in print, 
 and recollect very well the person of whom it is related. An 
 eminent Barrister, after his faculties were quite decayed, had 
 invented for him a daily source of pleasurable excitement ; sham 
 briefs were prepared, with large fees marked upon them. These 
 were taken to him when he seemed particularly dull. — Having 
 been a king's counsel, it had been only usual to sign his initials 
 and not his name under the fee ; and for a considerable time 
 before his decease this was his only pleasure in life. 
 
 With regard to crimes imputed to Old Age ; a very serious 
 calamity in times not very remote was that of being sus- 
 pected for a ivitch. Addison and Blackstone, amongst others, 
 have admitted their belief generally in witchcraft. And the 
 horse-shoe (which is mentioned in Hudibras,) over many a 
 cottage door in England shews that these writers are, at least, 
 supported by opinions that are not quite extinct. In ancient 
 times when Joseph kept a divining cup, supernatural agency 
 eeems to have been of very common occurrence. When 
 Balaam is accosted by his ass, he falls into conversation with 
 the animal, without exhibiting any surprize. St. Augustin 
 explains this by observing that he was probably familiar with 
 supernatural phsenomena (talibus monstris assuetus) And in 
 the trial of jealousy ; which was part of the code of the 
 Jewish law, an extraordinary occurrence must have so often 
 been witnessed as to have been scarcely deemed supernatural. 
 " And the priest shall cause the woman to drink the bitter 
 water that causeth the curse, &c. — And it shall come to pass, 
 that if she be defiled, and have done trespass against her hus- 
 band that the water that causeth the curse shall enter into 
 her and become bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her 
 thigh shall rot, &c. — This is the law of jealousies." 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 125 
 
 Many institutions which have been referred to a divine 
 origin are in accordance with the customs generally preva- 
 lent in the East. The Mosaical injunction, " Thou shalt not 
 suffer a witch to live" has been practically enforced upon 
 supposed witches on various occasions in the East Indies. 
 In Macnaghten's Reports several cases occur for trials con- 
 nected with this subject. In the case of Runjooah and six 
 others in 1821, the prisoners were convicted in the Nizamut 
 Adawlut of murdering a woman on suspicion of being a 
 witch. A regular trial of the deceased for witchcraft appeared 
 to have taken place in her village. — In Jugjeet Sing's case, 
 1822, the prisoner was the head of a village ; he had a sick 
 child whose illness he imputed to the incantations of the pro- 
 secutor's wife ; he therefore confined the woman in the 
 stocks ; a few days afterwards she was found hanging by her 
 neck to a tree. There are no less than ten decisions in the 
 five first volumes of the Nizamut Adawlut Reports in charges 
 of murder for killing persons on the alleged ground of being 
 witches or sorcerers. In one of the cases, Churrun the pri- 
 soner murdered the deceased under the impression that he 
 
 had transformed himself into a tiger, and carried off the prison- 
 
 » 
 
 er's daughter. The prisoner was sentenced only to impri- 
 sonment for seven years by Mr. J. Shakspeare. This was in 
 1833. 
 
 The Book written by Enoch, " the seventh from Adam" as 
 he is styled by St. Jude, and which is quoted by that Apostle, 
 and also several of the Fathers, throws great hght on the 
 " Sons of God" mentioned in Genesis, and enumerates by 
 name several devils. The Fathers of the Church, who, it is 
 shown by Dr. Middleton, for several centuries, professed to 
 work miracles and cast out devils, have added largely to the 
 
126 THK AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 supernatural history recorded in. the Acts of the Apostles. 
 They give us many details of the feats of Simon Magus, and 
 Elymas the Sorcerer, as, for example, the placing of a sickle 
 in a field of corn, the whole of which it reaped without being 
 held by any one. Indeed in English Bibles down to a very 
 late date, there was retained a service for the king healing the 
 sick ^ I have got a copy of that service " Published by his 
 Majesty's command" of the date 1686. It is a singular argu- 
 ment to have been used by so sensible a man as Sir W. Temple, 
 in the celebrated controversy on the comparative advantages of 
 ancient and modern learning. " What have ive remaining of 
 magic, by which the Indians, the dial dees and Egyptians were 
 so renowned ?" 
 
 The first English statute against witchcraft was passed in 
 the reign of Henry VIII, ; it was repealed in the first year of 
 the reign of Edward VI. — But Cranmer's Articles of Visita- 
 tion, and the Articles of Visitation in Elizabeth's reign con- 
 tain directions about witchcraft. — A new statute on the sub- 
 ject was passed in 1562 ; and a more severe one in the first 
 year of King James, when it was made felony to " suckle 
 imps." 
 
 The state of feehng which occasioned Queen Elizabeth's 
 statute against witchcraft may be collected from a sermon 
 preached before Her Majesty by Bishop Jewel. " Witches 
 and sorcerers within these last few years are marvellously 
 increased within your Grace's realm. These eyes have seen 
 most evident and manifest marks of their wickedness. Your 
 Grace's subjects pine away even unto the death ; their color 
 fadeth, their flesh rotteth, their speech is benumbed, their 
 senses are bereft. Wherefore your })oor subjects' most hum- 
 ble petition to your Highness is, that the laws touching such 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 12/ 
 
 malefactors may be put into execution. For the shoal of them 
 is great, their doing horrible, their malice intolerable, the 
 examples most miserable. And I pray God they never prac- 
 tise further than upon the subject." 
 
 King James wrote a book on Dcemonology, which, in the 
 preface, he says, he undertook on account of the " fearful 
 abounding of those slaves of the Devil, witches and enchan- 
 ters." Lord Bacon, in his natural history, relates without 
 comment that " the ointment which witches use is reported to 
 be made from the fat of children digged out of their graves." 
 Among early legal notices of witchcraft are the proceedings 
 connected with the poisoning of Overbury by the Duke and 
 Duchess of Somerset, the trials of the Lancashire witches of 
 Pendleton forest in 1612, and the sanguinary assizes held by 
 Hopkins, " the witch-finder," during the time of the Common- 
 wealth. Hopkins was at last thrown into the water himself by 
 the enfuriated populace, with his toes and fingers tied together, 
 after the manner of a suspected witch. 
 
 The trial of witches which has, perhaps, excited most at- 
 tention is that of two old women. Amy Denny and Rose 
 Cullender, in 1664, at Bury before Ch. B. Hale. There was 
 a great deal of ridiculous evidence about vomiting pins and 
 nails, and about a waggon stopping fast in a gateway, though 
 the posts did not come in contact with it. After hearing the 
 evidence Hale asked Sir John Brown, author of the work 
 on Vulgar Errors, what were his thoughts upon what 
 had transpired in court ? Sir J. Brown gave it as his opi- 
 nion that the children ivere bewitched, and mentioned that 
 some witches had been recently detected in Denmark, whose 
 practices were similar to those spoken to by the witnesses. 
 Hale would not sum up, for feiu* he should put a gloss of 
 
128 THE AGES OF HUMA.N LIFE. 
 
 his own upon any part of the evidence. He said, however, 
 that the Scriptures had left no doubt that there was such a 
 thing as witchcraft. 'I'lie two old women were hanged a 
 week after the trial. 
 
 In Roger North's life of Lord Keeper Guildford we have 
 some interesting accounts of the trials of witches, which may- 
 he thought to afford the best insight which we can obtain 
 into the real nature of such trials. " In trials of some cri- 
 minals, whose cases proved very obscure, or doubtful, as to 
 such especially if they were capital, he was infinitely scru- 
 tinous ; but never more puzzled than when a jjopular cry was 
 at the heels of a business ; for then he had his jury to deal 
 with, and if he did not tread upon eggs, they would conclude 
 sinistrously, and be apt to find against his opinion. And, for 
 tliis reason, he dreaded the trying of a witch. It is seldom 
 that a poor old wretch is brought to trial upon that account, 
 but there is, at the heels of her, a popular rage that does little 
 less than demand her to be put to death : and, if a judge is 
 so clear and open as to declare against that impious vulgar 
 opinion, that the devil himself has power to torment and kill 
 iimocent children, or that he is pleased to divert himself with 
 the good people's cheese, butter, pigs, and geese, and the 
 like errors of the ignorant and foolish rabble ; the country- 
 men, (the triers) cry this judge hath no religion, for he doth 
 not believe witches ; and so, to shew they have some, hang 
 the poor wretches. All which tendency to mistake requires 
 a very prudent and moderate carriage in a judge, whereby 
 to convince rather by detecting of the fraud, than by denying 
 authoritatively such power to be given to old women. 
 
 "His Lordship was somewhat more thoughtful upon t is 
 subject ; because that, in the year in which Mr. Justice Ray- 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 129 
 
 mond was his co-judge in that circuit, two old women were 
 hurried out of the country to be tried at Exeter for witch- 
 craft ; and the city rang with tales of their preternatural ex- 
 ploits, as the current of such tattle useth to overflow. Nay, 
 they went so far as to say that the judges' horses were at 
 a stand, and could not draw the coach up the Castle- 
 lane : all which the common sort firmly beheved. It fell out 
 that Raymond sat on the crown side there, which freed his 
 lordship of the care of such trials. But he had really a con- 
 cern upon him at what happened ; which was that his bro- 
 ther Raymond's passive behaviour should let those poor 
 women die. The cases were so far clear, viz. that the old 
 women confessed, and owned in court, that they were witches. 
 These were two miserable old creatures, that, one may say, 
 as to sense or understanding, were scarce alive ; but were 
 overwhelmed with melancholy, and waking dreams, and so 
 stupid as no one could suppose they knew either the con- 
 struction or consequence of what they said. All the rest of 
 the evidence was trifling. I sitting in the court the next day, 
 took up the file of informations, taken by the justices, which 
 were laid out upon the table, and against one of the old wo- 
 men, read thus : — " this informant saith, he ' saw a cat leap 
 in at her (the old woman's) window, when it was twilight ;' " 
 and this " informant further saith, that he verily believeth 
 the said cat to be the devil, and more saith not." The judge 
 made no nice distinctions, as how possible it was for old 
 women, in a sort of melancholy madness, by often thinking 
 in pain, and want of spirits, to contract an opinion of them- 
 selves that was false ; and- that their confession ought not to 
 be taken against themselves, w^ithout a plain evidence that it 
 was rational and sensible, no more than that of a lunatic, or 
 
130 THK AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 distracted person, but he left the point upon the evidence 
 fairly (as they called it) to the jury, and they convicted them 
 both, as I remember ; but one most certainly was hanged. 
 
 " The first circuit his lordship went westward, Mr. Justice 
 Rainsford, who had gone former circuits there, went with 
 him ; and he said that, the year before, a witch was brought^ 
 to Salisbury, and tried before him. Sir James Long came to 
 his chamber, and made a heavy complaint of this witch, and 
 said that if she escaped, his estate would not be worth any 
 thing ; for all the people would go away. It happened that 
 the witch was acquitted, and the knight continued extremely 
 concerned ; therefore the judge, to save the poor gentleman's 
 estate, ordered the woman to be kept in gaol and that the 
 town should allow her 2^. 6d. per week ; for which he was 
 very thankful. The very next assizes, he came to the judge 
 to desire his lordship would let her come back to the town. 
 And why ? They could keep her for 1.9. 6d. there, and in 
 the gaol, she cost them a shilling more. 
 
 " His lordship had not the good fortune of escaping all busi- 
 ness of that kind ; for at Taunton-Dean he was forced to try 
 an old man for a wizard ; and, for the curiosity of observing 
 the state of a male witch or wizard, I attended in the Court, 
 and sat near where the poor man stood. The evidence against 
 hira was, the having bewitched a girl of about thirteen years 
 old : for she had strange and unaccountable fits and used 
 to cry out upon him, and spit out of her mouth straight pins, 
 and whenever the man was brought near her, she fell in her 
 fits, and spit forth straight pins. His Lordship wondered at 
 the straight pins, which could not be so well couched in the 
 mouth as crooked ones ; for such only used to be spit out 
 by people bewitched. He examined the witnesses very ten- 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 131 
 
 €erly and carefully, and so as none could collect what his 
 opinion was ; for he was fearful of the jurymen's precipitancy, 
 if he gave them any offence. When the poor man was told 
 he must answer for himself, he entered upon a defence as 
 orderly and well expressed as I ever heard spoke by any man, 
 counsel, or other; and if the attorney -general had been 
 his advocate I am sure he would not have done it more sen- 
 sibly. The sum of it was malice, threatening, and circum- 
 stances of imposture in the girl ; to which matters he called 
 his witnesses, and they were heard. After this was done, 
 the judge was not satisfied to direct the jury before the im- 
 posture was fully declared, but studied, and beat the bush 
 awhile, asking sometimes one and then another, questions 
 as he thought proper. At length he turned to the justice 
 of peace that committed the man, and took the first examina- 
 tions, and Sir, said he, pray you will ingenuously declare 
 your thoughts, if you have any, touching these straight pins 
 which the girl spit ; for you saw her in her fit ? Then, my 
 lord, said he, I did not know that I might concern myself in 
 this evidence having taken the examination, and committed 
 the man : But, since your lordship demands it, I must needs 
 say, I think the girl doubling herself in her fit, as being con- 
 vulsed, bent her head down close to her stomacher, and, with 
 her mouth, took pins out of the edge of that, and then, right- 
 ing herself a little, spit them into some by-standers' hands. 
 This cast an universal satisfaction upon the minds of the whole 
 audience, and the man was acquitted. As the judge went down- 
 stairs, out of the Court, an hideous old woman cried, " God 
 bless your lordship." '' What's the matter, good woman ?" 
 said the judge. " My Lord" said she, " forty years ago, they 
 would have hanged me for a witch, and they could not ; and, 
 s 2 
 
132 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 now they would have hanged my poor son." It was not till 
 the ninth year of George IL that the penalties for witchcraft 
 were abolished. 
 
 With regard to the judge asking the opinion of the com- 
 mitting Magistrate in the last mentioned case, and Sir M* 
 Hale asking Sir J. Brown for his opinion in the trial of witches 
 at Bury, such communications would not be consistent with 
 modern usage ; they appear to have been not unfrequent in 
 former times, The Spectator describes Sir Roger de Coverly 
 •• getting up to speak in the midst of a trial." 
 
 We are enabled to take a later contemporary view of witch- 
 craft and its penalties, which, like the writings of Roger North, 
 may be interesting to literary as well as historical readers. 
 
 " As I was walking with my friend Sir Roger, by the side 
 of one of his woods, an old woman applied herself to me for 
 my charity. Her dress and figure put me in mind of the fol- 
 lowing description in Otway : 
 
 In a close lane, as I pursu'd my journey, 
 I spy'd a wrinkled hag, with age grown double, 
 Picking dry sticks, and mumbling to herself. 
 Her eyes with scalding rheum were gall'd and red ; 
 Cold palsy shook her head ; her hands seem'd withered ; 
 And on her crooked shoulders she had wrapp'd 
 'J'he tatter'd remnants of an old strip'd hanging, 
 Which serv'd to keep her carcass from the cold, 
 So there was nothing of a piece about her 
 Her lower weeds were all o'er coarsely patch'd 
 With difF'rent colour'd rags, black, red, white, yellow, 
 And seem'd to speak variety of wretchedness. 
 
 " As I was musing on this description, and comparing it 
 with the object before me, the Knight told me, that this very 
 old woman had the reputation of being a witch all over the 
 country, that her lips were observed always to be in motion, 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 133 
 
 and that there was not a switch about her house which her 
 neighbours did not beheve had carried her several hundreds 
 of miles. If she chanced to stumble, they always found 
 sticks and straws that lay in the figure of a cross before her. 
 If she made any mistake at Church, and cried amen in a 
 wrong place, they never failed to conclude that she was 
 saying her prayers backwards. There was not a maid in the 
 parish that would take a pin of her, though she should ofi'er 
 a bag of money with it. She goes by the name of Moll 
 White, and has made the country ring with several imaginary 
 exploits which are palmed upon her. If the dairy-maid does 
 not make her butter to come as soon as she would have it, 
 Moll White is at the bottom of the churn. If a horse sweats 
 in the stable, Moll White has been upon his back. If a hare 
 makes an unexpected escape from the hounds, the huntsman 
 curses Moll White. Nay (says Sir Roger) I have known 
 the master of the pack, upon such an occasion, send one of 
 his servants to see if Moll White had been out that morning. 
 " This account raised my curiosity so far, that I begged my 
 friend Sir Roger to go with me into her hovel, which stood 
 in a solitary corner under^ the side of the wood. Upon our 
 first entering. Sir Roger winked to me, and pointed at some- 
 thing that stood behind the door, which, upon looking that 
 way, I found to be an old broomstafi". At the same time 
 he whispered me in the ear, to take notice of a tabby cat, 
 that sat in the chimney corner, which, as the Knight told me, 
 lay under as bad a report as Moll White herself ; for besides 
 that Moll is said often to accompany her in the same shape, 
 the cat is reported to have spoken twice or thrice in her fife, 
 and to have played several pranks above the capacity of an 
 ordinary cat. 
 
134 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 *' I was secretly concerned to see human nature in so much 
 wretchedness and disgrace ; but at the same time could not 
 forbear smiling to hear Sir Roger, who is a little puzzled 
 about the old woman, advising her, as a justice of peace, to 
 -avoid all communication with the devil, and never to hurt 
 any of her neighbours' cattle. We concluded our visit with a 
 bounty, which was very acceptable. 
 
 " In our return home. Sir Roger told me, that old Moll had 
 been often brought before him for making children spit pins, 
 and giving maids the night-mare ; and that the country people 
 would be tossing her into a pond, and trying experiments 
 with her every day, if it was not for him and his chaplain. 
 
 " I have since found, upon inquiry that Sir Roger was seve- 
 ral times staggered with the reports that had been brought him 
 concerning this old woman, and would frequently have bound 
 her over to the county sessions, had not his chaplain with 
 much ado persuaded him to the contrary. 
 
 " 1 have been the more particular in this account because 
 I hear there is scarce a village in England that has not a 
 Moll White : when an old woman begins to doat and grows 
 chargeable to a parish, she is generally turned into a witch, 
 and fills the whole country with extravagant fancies, imagi- 
 nary distempers, and terrifying dreams. In the mean time 
 the poor wretch that is the innocent occasion of so many 
 evils, begins to be frightened at herself, and some times con- 
 fesses secret commerce and familiarities that her imagina- 
 tion forms in a delirious old age. This frequently cuts off 
 charity from the greatest objects of compassion, and inspires 
 people with a malevolence towards those poor decrepit parts 
 of our species, in whom human nature is defaced by infirmity 
 and dotage." 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 135 
 
 Specimens of the various notices of witchcraft ^^ and other 
 demoniacal agency in English poetry would fill a volume. The 
 Dr. Faustus of Marlowe, an Anti-Shaksperian dramatist, is pow- 
 erfully written, particularly the sohloquy between the clock 
 striking eleven, the half hour, and twelve, w^hen his compact 
 with the devil is concluded. We have, besides, Middleton's 
 Witch, Macbeth, Ben Jonson's Masque, which he pubhshed with 
 an explanation of all the classical allusions to witchcraft, for 
 the benefit of Prince Henry. Jonson's Sad Shepherd describes a 
 Witch-hunt by Robin Hood's followers. We have old plays, one 
 called the Lancashire Witches, where a man discovers a horse 
 in his stable to be his wife ; he having unknowingly married a 
 witch. Another, the Witch of Edmonton with Mother Sawyer 
 and her black familiar dog. W. Scott has given us a very strik- 
 ing description of the opening of the tomb of Michael Scot, and 
 taking his magical book, at which the dead man appeared to 
 frown. Roger Bacon's single- speeched brazen head is noticed 
 inHudibras. Shakspeare has introduced the pretended bewitch- 
 ment of Richard's arm. He has touched more than our other 
 poets on the power of witches over the winds. King James 
 had, in fact, considered himself ill used by witches in this 
 respect on the occasion of bringing to Scotland his Danish 
 wife. Calypso is represented to have had power over the 
 winds, and in Ephesians ch. ii. v. 2, the Devil is called "The 
 Prince of the power of air." 
 
 When the witty Harrington was asked by King James, if he 
 could account for the circumstimce that sorcery was generally 
 practised by old women, he answered his Majesty that he 
 supposed it was because, as is written in the Scriptures, "The 
 devil walketh in dry places." The king was of opinion that 
 it was because the serpent having had so much success with 
 
136 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 Eve, felt himself more " homelier" with the female sex. 
 Witches were supposed to be unable to shed tears ; to have an 
 extra teat ; to be unable to say the Lord's prayer correctly, at 
 least when reading it forwards ; to be insensible to any pain 
 from pins run into their sides ; to swim upon water, when their 
 hands and feet w^ere tied across, the right hand to the left 
 foot, and left hand to the right foot. King James, in his 
 Book on Dsemonology, thus accounts for the water-proof and 
 that of the absence of the tears — " It appears that God hath 
 appointed, for a supernatural sign of the monstrous impiety 
 of witches, that the water shall refuse to receive them in her 
 bosom that have shaken off the sacred water of baptism : no 
 not so much as their eyes are able to shed tears (threaten 
 and torture them as you please ;) albeit the women -kind espe- 
 cially be able otherways to shed tears at very light occasion 
 when they will : yea, although it were dissemblingly, like the 
 crocodiles." 
 
 The witch's cat spoken of by Addison has made a consi- 
 derable figure in the history of Dsemonology. The witches 
 in Macbeth begin their incantations with " thrice the brin- 
 ded cat hath mewed," and one of the witches is called Gray- 
 7nalkin ; the commentators suppose that she used to speak her 
 part in a tone resembling that of cats. In 1618, two witches 
 were hanged at Lincoln for bewitching a child of the earl of 
 Rutland ; the child's monument relating the circumstance may 
 be seen in Bottesworth Church : A. fact proved at the trial was, 
 that one of the witches rubbed her cat with a handkerchief be- 
 longing to the child, and bade her fly and go ; to which the cat 
 answered mew. On the trial of the witches of Warboys who 
 were hanged in 1593, at Huntingdon, (on which occasion the 
 prosecutor left a considerable sum to Queen's College Cam- 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 137 
 
 bridge for an annual sermon against witchcraft) it was part 
 of the evidence against the prisoners, that one of the bewitch- 
 ed persons dreamt of a cat. 
 
 It would appear from some very ancient laws, that within 
 traditionary times cats were rare in Great Britain. The statu- 
 tory price of a kitten before it could see was fixed at a penny ; 
 till it caught a mouse twopence ; when it commenced mouser 
 fourpence. If any one stole or killed the cat that guarded 
 the king's granary, he was to forfeit as much wheat extending 
 along the whole floor of the granary, as when poured on the 
 cat suspended by its tail, (the head touching the floor,) would 
 form a heap high enough to cover the tail's tip. 
 
 Several authentic instances are known of the familiarity 
 of cats with particular horses. A black cat was a favorite 
 companion of the famous Godolphin Arabian. When the 
 horse died in 1753, the cat continued sitting upon it, till it 
 was put under ground ; it then crawled slowly and reluctant- 
 ly away, and was not heard of for a long time afterwards, 
 when its dead body was found in a loft. 
 
 Would the nature of our subject permit, we should derive 
 much edification and some amusement from Whittington and 
 his cat. Mother Hubbard and her cats, Montaigne's cat, and 
 ■the story of the cat transformed into a woman. A very scarce 
 morality of the time of Edward VI. is called bewai^e the cat. 
 In Gammer Gurton s Needle printed 1551, which was long 
 considered our earliest English play, and is clearly the second 
 in point of antiquity, Gibb the cat, whose shining eyes in 
 the dark create considerable surprize and terror, is a princi- 
 pal character. 
 
 In Romeo and Juliet, Benvoho asks **Why what is Tybalt?" 
 Mercutio §ays " More than Prince of cats." This is an allusion 
 
 T 
 
138 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 to Tybert the name given to the cat, a conspicuous character, m 
 the tale of Repiard the Fox. This was a well known story in old 
 times ; it was translated from the Dutch, and printed by Cax- 
 ton in England in 1481 : the earliest book printed in Eng- 
 land is the Caxton Game of Chess 1474. On the subject of 
 the Prince of cats there is the following story in the amusing 
 letters fictitiously attributed to the mysterious Lord Lyttle- 
 ton. " A traveller, benighted in a wild and mountainous coun- 
 try, (if my recollection does not fail me, in the Highlands 
 of Scotland,) at length beholds the welcome light of a neigh- 
 bouring habitation. He urges his horse towards it, when, 
 instead of a house, he approached a kind of illuminated Cha- 
 pel, from whence issued the most alarming sounds he had 
 ever heard. Though greatly surprised and terrified, he ven- 
 tured to look through a window of the building, when he was 
 amazed to see a large assembly of cats, who, arranged in 
 solemn order, were lamenting over the corpse of one of their 
 own species, which lay in state, and was surrounded with 
 the various emblems of sovereignty. Alarmed and terrified 
 at this extraordinary spectacle, he hastened from the place 
 with greater eagerness than he approached it ; and arriving, 
 some time after, at the house of a gentleman who never 
 turned the wanderer from his gate, the impressions of what 
 he had seen were so visible on his countenance, that his 
 friendly host inquired into the cause of his anxiety. He 
 accordingly told his story, and, having finished it, a large 
 family cat, who had lain, during the narrative, before the fire, 
 immediately started up, and very articulately exclaimed, " Then 
 1 am king of cats ?" and, having thus announced its new 
 dignity, the animal darted up the chimney, and was seen no 
 more." 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 159 
 
 Doa Quixote had a terrible conflict with cats, which he 
 took for necromancers. They have more electricity than any 
 other animal with which we are acquainted. Shylock adverts 
 to the extraordinary antipathies which some people have taken 
 to them. We occasionally hear of the same antipathies in the 
 present day. Addison mentions them in one of his Specta- 
 tors. " When we had sat down, this civility among us turn- 
 ed the discourse from eatables to other sorts of aversions ; 
 and the eteraai cat, which plagues every conversation of this 
 nature, began then to engross the subject. One had sweated at 
 the sight of it ; another had smelled it out as it lay concealed 
 in a very distant cupboard ; and he who crowned the whole 
 set of these stories, reckoned up the number of times in which 
 it had occasioned him to swoon away. At last, says he, 
 that you may all be satisfied of my invincible aversion to a 
 €at, T shall give an unanswerable instance. * As I was going 
 through a street of London, where I had never been till then, 
 I felt a general damp and a faintness all over me, which I 
 could not tell how to account for, till I chanced to cast my 
 eyes upwards, and found that I was passing under a sign- 
 post on which the picture of a cat was hung.' " 
 
 The famous Kit-cat club was so called from the landlord of 
 the house where the members met ; his name was Christopher 
 Cat. Addison in a paper of the Spectator gives a dissertation 
 on the origin, and uses of the cat-call, which, it appears, in 
 his time was very commonly employed to express disapproba- 
 tion at theatres. He incidentally notices how much our 
 stringed musical instruments are behoven to cats. 
 
 In the obituary of the Gentleman's Magazine will be found 
 A.D. 1 791, as follows — "Lately, in Southampton-row, Blooms- 
 bury, Mrs. Gregg, a single lady, at the age of 59, remarkable 
 T 2 
 
140 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 for her benevolence to cats. No fewer than 80 were entertained 
 under her hospitable roof at the time of her decease, at an 
 allowance of a guinea a week. She suffered no man servant 
 to sleep in her house ; and her maids being frequently tired 
 of their attendance on such a numerous household, she was 
 obhged, at last, to hire a black woman to look after her cats." 
 One of the beauties of King Charles II. 's Court, whose pic- 
 tures by Sii* Peter Lely still embellish the walls of Windsor, 
 the La Belle Stewart of Grammont, (the lady whose marriage 
 with the Duke of Richmond occasioned the rupture between 
 the King and Lord Clarendon,) made several legacies of cats. 
 She left them by her will to her friends, with annuities during 
 the lives of the animals for their support. This testamentary 
 disposition is what Pope alludes to when he says — 
 Die, and endow a college — or a cat. 
 
 We have several familiar adages, expressions, and vulgar 
 errors connected with cats. As that "a cat may look at 
 a king," " letting the cat out of the bag," " a catspaw," a 
 " cat-o-nine-tails," " a cat in hell without claws," " belling 
 the cat," " all cats are grey in the dark," (a favorite adage 
 with a character in Roderick Random.) Lady Macbeth incites 
 her husband to commit murder by comparing him to the 
 " poor cat in the adage," (viz. the cat loves fish, but dares 
 not wet her feet.) "The cat will have its mew" is used by 
 Hamlet. A phrase, to " turn cat in the pan" applied to turn- 
 coats, is probably a metaphor derived from frying pancakes 
 (cates.) In Gay's Song of Similes we have — 
 
 I, melancholy as a cat^ 
 
 Am kept awake to weep ; 
 But she, insensible to that, ^ 
 
 Sound as a top can sleep. 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 141 
 
 Hudibras compares the resurrections of the Rump Parlia- 
 ment to the nine lives of a cat — 
 
 That, after several rude ejections, 
 And as prodigious resurrections, 
 With new reversions of nine lives 
 Starts up, and, like a cat, survives. 
 
 The modern Poets, if they have not excelled the ancients 
 in many respects, have at least outshone them in their de- 
 scriptions of cats. We have the cat in Pope's town and country 
 mouse ; the simile of Grimalkin to the bailiff in Philip's splen- 
 did shilling ; Grays Cat drowned in a tub of gold fishes ; 
 Cowper's Poet's cat ; the Kitten in Goldsmith's Edwin and 
 Angelina ; Jacob Bryant wrote verses on a cat in the Gen- 
 tleman's Magazine ; Gough, the Antiquary, wrote a parody on 
 Lycidas by way of elegy on a cat. One of our most primi- 
 tive poetical compositions relates to a cat in connection with 
 a fiddle. But in order to shew that this animal might well 
 be looked upon by believers in witchcraft as endowed with 
 supernatural powers, we may quote from Southey a passage in 
 which he regards the animal as capable of instructing 
 mankind — 
 
 Swell thy tail, 
 And stretch thy claws, most democratic beast ! 
 I like thy independence ! Treat thee well. 
 Thou art as playful as young innocence. 
 But, if we play the governor, and break 
 The social compact, God has given thee claws. 
 And thou hast sense to use them. Oh ! that man 
 Would copy this thy wisdom ! spaniel fool, 
 He crouches down, and licks his tyrant's hand 
 And courts oppression. M^iser animal ! • 
 1 gaze on thee familiar, not enslaved ! 
 
142 THE 413ES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 •ON THE SOLACES; USE.FUL OCCUPATIONS AND HONORS OF OLD MEN. 
 
 In the preceding chapter we viewed old age in most of 
 the gloomy or unamiable lights in which it is commonly re- 
 garded by mankind. We shall now endeavour to present it 
 under a more captivating face and garb. It appears that 
 Goldsmith, in his travels, used often to accompany, on his 
 flute, the light fantastic toes of the cHmacterical. The fol- 
 lowing lines are taken from his description of France : 
 
 Gay, sprightly land of mirth and social ease, 
 Pleas'd with thyself, whom all the world can please, 
 How often have I led thy sportive choir, 
 With tuneless pipe beside the murmuring Loire. 
 And haply, though my harsh touch falt'ring still 
 But mock'd all tune, and marr'd the dancers' skill, 
 Yet would the village praise my wond'rous power, 
 And dance, forgetful of the noontide hour. 
 Alike all ages ; dames of ancient days 
 Have led their children thro' the mirthful maze ; 
 And the gay grandsire, skilFd in gestic lore 
 Has frisked beneath the burthen of threescore. 
 
 Similar examples are to be found among the records of our 
 own Inns of Courts. Thus so late as 1733, when Mr. Talbot 
 took leave of the Inner Temple on having the Great Seal 
 delivered to him, it is related by Dugdale that the master of 
 the Revels took the Lord Chancellor by the right hand, and 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 143 
 
 he, with his left, took Mr. Justice Page, who joined to the 
 other Judges, Sergeants, and Benchers present danced round 
 about the coal fire in the Hall three times according to the 
 old ceremony, and that they were aided in the figure of the 
 dance by Mr. George Cook, the Prothonotary, then sixty 
 years old. During the dance the ancient song, " round about, 
 &c." accompanied by music was sung by one Toby Aston, 
 dressed in a Bar gown. 
 
 In like manner Gray, in his Long Story, speaks of Lord 
 Keeper Hatton, who is introduced in Sheridan's play of the 
 Critic as turning out his toes when he walks. 
 
 Full oft within these spacious halls, 
 When he had fifty winters o'er him, 
 My grave Lord Keeper led the brawls, 
 The Seal and Maces danced before him. 
 
 His bushy beard and shoe-strings green, 
 His high crown'd hat and satin doublet. 
 Moved the stout heart of England's Queen, 
 Though Pope and Spaniard could not trouble it. 
 
 One of the most mirthful characters which the human 
 imagination has conjured up, certainly one who has been the 
 cause of the most mirth in others, is a character on whom the 
 effects of age will appear from the following dialogue : 
 
 Falstaff. You, that are old, consider not the capacities of 
 us, that are young. You measure the heat of our livers with 
 the bitterness of your galls. And we, that are in the vaward 
 of our youth, I must confess, are wags too. 
 
 Chief Justice. Do you set down your name in the scroll of 
 youth, that are written down old with all the characters of 
 age ? Have you not a moist eye } a dry hand } a yellow 
 cheek ? a white beard } a decreasing- leg- } an increasing; 
 
144 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 belly ? Is not 5'our voice broken ? your wind short ? your chin 
 double ? your wit single ^ and every part about you blasted 
 with antiquity ? and will you yet call yourself young ? Fye, 
 fye, fye, Sir John ! 
 
 Falstaff. My lord, I was born about three o'clock in the 
 afternoon, with a white head, and something a round belly. 
 For my voice, I have lost it with hollaing, and singing of 
 anthems. To approve my youth further, I will not ; the 
 truth is, I am only old in judgment and understanding. 
 
 Falstaff, in a different scene, hints at the Chief Justice's 
 age more delicately than the Chief Justice does at his — 
 
 Chief Justice. Sir John Falstaff, a word with you. 
 
 Falstaff. My good Lord ! God give your Lordship good 
 time of day. 1 am glad to see your Lordship abroad. I heard 
 say your Lordship was sick, I hope your Lordship goes 
 abroad by advice. Your Lordship, though not clean past 
 your youth, hath vet some smack of age in you, some relish 
 of the saltness of time ; and I must humbly beseech your 
 Lordship to have a reverend care of your health. 
 
 To represent the mirth-moving sallies which Shakspeare 
 associates with age " inclining to threescore" in the cha- 
 racter of Falstaff, would be to transcribe almost every pas- 
 sage which he utters. The following scene is a fair speci- 
 men of Falstaff's humor, and is connected with our subject. 
 
 P. Hen. Do thou stand for my father, and examine me 
 upon the particulars of my life. 
 
 Fal. Shall I ? content : — this chair shall be my state, this 
 dagger my sceptre, and this cushion my crown. 
 
 P. Hen. Thy state is taken for a joint-stool, thy golden 
 sceptre for a leaden dagger, and thy precious rich crown, 
 for a pitiful bald crown ! 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 145 
 
 Fal. Well, an the fire of grace be not quite out of thee, 
 now shalt thou be moved. Give me a cup of sack, to make 
 mine eyes look red, that it may be thought I have wept ; for 
 I must speak in passion, and I will do it in King Cambyses' 
 vein. 
 
 P. Hen. Well, here is my leg. 
 
 Fal. And here is my speech : — stand aside nobility. 
 
 Hostess. This is excellent sport, i' faith. 
 
 Fal. Weep not, sweet Queen, for trickling tears are vain. 
 
 Host. O, the father, how he holds his countenance ! 
 
 Fal. For God's sake, lords, convey my tristful queen, for 
 tears do stop the flood-gates of her eyes. 
 
 Host. O rare ! he doth it as like one of these harlotry 
 players, as I ever see. 
 
 Fal. Peace, good pint-pot, peace, good tickle-brain. Harry ! 
 I do not only marvel where thou spendest thy time, but also 
 how thou art accompanied : for though the camomile, the 
 more it is trodden on, the faster it grows, yet youth, the 
 more it is wasted, the sooner it wears. That thou art my 
 son, I have partly thy mother's word, partly my own opinion, 
 but chiefly, a villainous trick of thine eye, and a foolish 
 hanging of thy nether lip, that doth warrant me. If then 
 thou be son to me, here lies the point ; why, being son to 
 me, art thou so pointed at ? Shall the blessed sun of heaven 
 prove a micher, and eat blackberries ? a question not to be 
 asked. Shall the son of England prove a thief, and take 
 purses ? a question to be asked. There is a thing, Harry, 
 which thou hast often heard of, and it is known to many 
 in our land by the name of pitch : this pitch, as ancient 
 writers do report, doth defile ; so doth the company thou 
 keepest : for, Harry, now T do not speak to thee in drink 
 u 
 
146 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 but in tears ; not in pleasure, but in passion ; not in words 
 only, but in woes also : — and yet there is a virtuous man, 
 w^hom I have often noted in thy company, but I know not his 
 name. 
 
 P. Hen. What manner of man, an it like your majesty ? 
 
 Fal. A good portly man, i' faith, and a corpulent ; of a 
 cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage ; and, 
 as I think his age some fifty or, by W-lady, inclining to three- 
 score ; and now I remember me, his name is Falstaff : if that 
 man should be lewdly given, he deceiveth me ; for, Harry, I 
 see virtue in his looks. If then the tree may be known by 
 the fruit, as the fruit by the tree, then, peremptorily I speak 
 it, there is virtue in that Falstaff : him keep with, the rest 
 banish. And tell me now, thou naughty varlet, tell me, 
 where hast thou been this month .-^ 
 
 P. Hen. Dost thou speak hke a king ? Do thou stand 
 for me, and I'll play my father. 
 
 Fal. Depose me "^ if thou dost it half so gravely, so ma- 
 jestically, both in word and matter, hang me up by the heels 
 for a rabbet- sucker, or a poulter's hare. 
 
 P. Hen. Well, here I am set. 
 
 Fal. And here I stand : — judge, my masters. 
 
 P. Hen. Now Harry .'' whence come you .'' 
 
 Fal. My noble lord, from Eastcheap. 
 
 P. Hen. The complaints I hear of thee are grievous. 
 
 Fal, Sblood, my Lord, they are false : — nay, I'll tickle 
 ye for a young Prince, i' faith. 
 
 P. Hen. Swearest thou, ungracious boy ? henceforth ne'er 
 look on me. Thou art violently carried away from grace : 
 there is a devil haunts thee, in the likeness of a fat old man : 
 a tun of man is thy companion. Why dost thou converse with 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 147 
 
 that trunk of humours, that bolting-hutch of beasthness, that 
 swoln parcel of dropsies, that huge bombard of sack, that 
 stuffed cloak- bag of guts, that roasted Manningtree ox, with 
 the pudding in his belly, that reverend vice, that grey iniquity, 
 that father ruffian, that vanity in years ! Wherein is he good, 
 but to taste sack and drink it ? wherein neat and cleanly, but 
 to carve a capon and eat it ? wherein cunning, but in ci aft ? 
 wherein crafty, but in villainy ? wherein villainous but in all 
 things ? wherein worthy, but in nothing ? 
 
 Ful. I w^ould, your grace would take me with you ? whom 
 means your grace ? 
 
 P. Hen. That villainous abominable misleader of youth, 
 Falstoff, that old white-bearded Satan. 
 Fal. My lord, the man I know. 
 P. Hen. I know, thou dost. 
 
 Fal. But to say, I know more harm in him than in myself, 
 were to say more than I know. That he is old, (the more 
 the pity,) his white hairs do witness it : but that he is (saving 
 your reverence,) a whore-master, that I utterly deny. If 
 sack and sugar be a fault, God help the wicked ! If to be 
 old and merry be a sin, then many an old host that I know, 
 is damned : if to be fat be to be hated, then Pharoah's lean 
 kine are to be loved. No, my good lord ; banish Peto, banish 
 Bardoph, banish Poins : but for sweet Jack Falstaff, kind 
 Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack Falstaff, and 
 therfore more valiant, being as he is, old Jack Falstaff, banish 
 not him thy Harry's company, banish not him thy Harry's 
 company ; banish plump Jack, and banish all the world, 
 P. Hen. I do, 1 will. 
 
 A knocking heard. 
 u 2 
 
148 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 A Roman Poet has observed, that a person whose early 
 days have been well spent, enjoys two lives, by means of the 
 pleasure which he has of hving- over agaia the former scenes 
 in which he has been engaged. Goldsmith has drawn a 
 pleasing picture of the old soldier who " talked the night 
 away," at the Parson's fireside, and, in the course of his 
 stories, 
 
 " Shouldered his crutch, and shewed how fields were won." 
 
 On the same theme we have a passage in Rogers's Pleasures 
 of Memory — 
 
 Nor yet to pleasing objects are confined 
 The silent feasts of the reflecting raind ; 
 Danger and death a dread delight inspire, 
 And the bald veteran glows with wonted fire, 
 When, richly bronzed by many a summer- sun, 
 He counts his scars, and tells what deeds were done. 
 
 Go, with old Thames, view Chelsea's glorious pile ; 
 And ask the shattered hero ; — Whence his smile ? 
 Go, view the splendid domes of Greenwich — Go, 
 And own what raptures from reflection flow. 
 
 Hail, noblest structures imaged in the wave ! 
 A nation's grateful tribute to the brave. 
 Hail blest retreats from war and shipwreck, hail ! 
 That oft arrest the wondering stranger's sail. 
 Long have ye heard the narratives of age, 
 The battle's havoc, and the tempest's rage ; 
 Long have ye known Reflection's genial ray 
 Gild the calm close of Valour's various day. 
 
 Time's sombrous touches soon correct the piece, 
 Mellow each tint, and bid each discord cease : 
 A softer tone of light pervades the whole, 
 And steals a pensive languor o'er the soul. 
 
 One of the most agreeable pictures of a veteran amusing 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 149 
 
 himself in his old age, is in the account given by Sterne of 
 the campaigns of my uncle Toby, and Corporal Trim,. 
 
 "My uncle Toby came down, as the reader has been in- 
 formed, with plans along with him, of almost every fortified 
 town in Italy and Flanders ; so let the duke of Marlborough, 
 or the alKes, have set down before what town they pleased, 
 my uncle Toby was prepared for them. 
 
 " His way, which was the simplest one in the world, was 
 this ; as soon as ever a town was invested — (but sooner when 
 the design w^as known) to take the plan of it (let it be what 
 town it would) and enlarge it upon a scale to the exact size 
 of his bowhng-green ; upon the surface of which, by means 
 of a large roll of packthread, and a number of small piquets 
 driven into the ground at the several angles, he transferred 
 the Hnes from his paper ; then taking the profile of the place 
 with its works, to determine the depths and slopes of the 
 ditches, — the talus of the glacis, and the precise height of 
 the several baaquets, parapets, &c. — he set the corporal to 
 
 work — and sweetly went it on : — the nature of the soil, the 
 
 nature of the work itself, — and above all, the good nature of 
 my uncle Toby sitting by from morning to night, and chat- 
 ting kindly with the corporal upon past — done deeds, — left 
 labour little else but the ceremony of the name. 
 
 •* When the place was finished in this manner, and put 
 into a proper posture of defence, — it was invested, — and my 
 uncle Toby and the corporal began to run their first parallel. 
 I beg I may not be interrupted in my story, by being told, 
 that the first parallel should be at least three hundred toises 
 distant from the main body of the place, — and that I have 
 not left a single inch for it ; — for my uncle Toby took the 
 liberty of incroaching upon his kitchen-garden, for the sake 
 
150 THE AGES OP HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 of enlarging his works on the bowHng- green, and for tJiat 
 reason generally ran his first and second parallels betwixt 
 two rows of his cabbages and his cauliflowers. 
 
 " When the town, with its works, was finished, my uncle 
 Toby and the corporal began to run their first parallel — not 
 at random, or anyhow — but from the same points and dis- 
 tances the aUies had begun to run theirs ; and regulating 
 their approaches and attacks, by the accounts my uncle Toby 
 received from the daily papers, — they went on, during the 
 whole siege, step by step with the" allies. 
 
 " When the Duke of Marlborough made a lodgement, — my 
 uncle Toby made a lodgement too. And when the face of a 
 bastion was battered down, or a defence ruined, — the corpo- 
 ral took his mattock and did as much, — and so on ; — 
 gaining ground, and making themselves masters of the works 
 one after another, till the town fell into their hands. 
 
 " To one w^ho took pleasure in the happy state of others, — 
 there could not have been a greater sight in the world, than 
 on a post morning, in which a practicable breach had been 
 made by the Duke of Marlborough, in the main body of the 
 place, — to have stood behind the horn-beam hedge, and ob- 
 served the spirit with which my uncle Toby, with Trim be- 
 hind him, saUied forth ; — the one with the Gazette in his 
 hand, — the other with a spade on his shoulder to execute 
 the contents. What an honest triumph in my uncle Toby's 
 looks as he marched up the ramparts ! What intense pleasure 
 swimming in his eye as he stood over the corporal, reading 
 the paragraph ten times over to him, as he was at work, lest 
 peradventure, he should make the breach an inch too wide ; — 
 or leave it an inch too narrow. But when the chamade was 
 beat, and the corporal helped my uncle up it, and followed 
 
THE AGES OP HUMAN LIFE. 151 
 
 with the colours in his hand, to fix them upon the ramparts — 
 Heaven ! Earth ! Sea ! — but what avails apostrophes ? — with 
 all your elements, wet or dry, ye never compounded so intoxi- 
 cating a draught." 
 
 Shakspeare has finely described a Veteran's reminiscences, 
 in King Henry's speech before the battle of Agincourt : 
 
 He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, 
 
 Will stand a tip-toe, when this day is named, 
 
 And rouse him at the name of Crispian. 
 
 He that shall live this day, and see old age 
 
 Will yearly on its vigil feast his neighbour. 
 
 And say, " 'i'o-morrow is St. Crispian !" 
 
 Then will he strip his sleeve, and shew his scars. 
 
 Old men forget ; yet shall not all forget. 
 
 But they '11 remember with advantages 
 
 W'hat feats they did that day. I'hen shall our names, 
 
 Familiar in their mouths, as household words, 
 
 IJarry the King, Bedford, and Exeter, 
 
 Warwick and Talbot, Sahsbury and Glocester, 
 
 Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered. 
 
 The pleasures of memory in Old People may be thought, in 
 a great measure, to counterbalance those of hope in the 
 young. They, at all events afibrd more solid satisfaction, and 
 are less exposed to the keenness of disappointment. This sub- 
 ject is adverted to in the following verses, which conclude 
 Rogers's Poem : 
 
 Lighter than air, Hope's summer-visions die. 
 If but a fleeting cloud obscure the sky ; 
 If but a beam of sober reason play, 
 Lo, Fancy's fairy frost-work melts away ! 
 But can the wiles of art, the grasp of power, 
 Snatch the rich relics of a well-spent hour? 
 These, when the trembling spirit wings her flight, 
 Pour round her path a stream of living light ; 
 
152 
 
 THE AGES OP HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 And gild those pure and perfect realms of rest, 
 Where virtue triumphs, and her sons are blest ! 
 
 There is a very good paper, by Addison, in the Spectator, 
 upon this subject. After contrasting the opinions of Locke 
 and Mallebranche with a passage in the Alcoran, and a story 
 in the Turkish Tales illustrative of the nature of time or dura- 
 tion, he concludes thus — " How different is the view of past 
 life, in the man who is grown old in knowledge and wisdom, 
 from that of him who is grown old in ignorance and folly ! 
 The latter is like the owner of a barren country, that fills 
 his eye with the prospect of naked hills and plains, which 
 produce nothing either profitable or ornamental. The other 
 beholds a beautiful and spacious landscape divided into de- 
 lightful gardens, green meadows, fruitful fields ; and can 
 scarce cast his eye on a single spot of his possessions, that is 
 not covered with some beautiful plant or flower," 
 
 Ezra describes the different feelings of the Jewish people, 
 on the rebuilding of their temple : The old Priests and Levites 
 who had served in the former edifice, had the memory of it 
 and of its associations revived in their minds by the festival 
 in honor of its restoration. This power of resuscitating for- 
 mer emotions has deservedly engaged much of the attention 
 of our poets ; as for example, in the Irish Melody called 
 " The Meeting of the Waters," where the Poet indulges 
 his memory in recalling a beautiful scene associated in his 
 mind with the friends in whose company he had formerly 
 visited it. 
 
 There is not in this wild world a valley so sweet, 
 As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet. 
 Oh ! the last rays of feeling and life must depart, 
 Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart. 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 153 
 
 " Yet it was not that nature had shed o'er the scene 
 Her purest of chrystal, and brightest of green, 
 'Twas not the soft magic of streamlet or hill, 
 Oh ! no, it was something more exquisite still. 
 
 'Twas that friends the beloved of my bosom were near, 
 Who made every dear scene of enchantment more dear. 
 
 Wordsworth pursues a similar train of thought in a poem 
 called Yarrow Revisited, in which he commemorates a day 
 spent with Walter Scott, among the ruins of Newark Castle, 
 the scene where the Last Minstrel recited his Lay. 
 
 Bear witness, ye, whose thoughts that day 
 
 In Yarrow's groves were centred; 
 Who, through the silent portal arch 
 
 Of mouldering Newark enter'd, 
 And clombed the winding stair that once 
 
 'I'oo timidly was mounted 
 By the " last Minstrel," (not the last) 
 
 Ere he his tale recounted ! 
 
 Flow on for ever. Yarrow Stream ! 
 
 Fulfil thy pensive duty, 
 Well pleased that future bards should chaunt 
 
 For simple hearts thy beauty. 
 To dream-light deai> while yet unseen, 
 
 Dear to the common sunshine, 
 And dearer still, as now I feel, 
 
 To Memory's shadowy moonshine. 
 
 The recollections of childhood and youth could not fail 
 to attract the attention of Poets. Gray expresses some natu- 
 ral feelings on this subject in his " Ode on Eton College." 
 
 Ah happy hills ! ah pleasing shade ! 
 Ah fields beloved in vain ! 
 Where once my careless childhood strayed 
 A stranger yet to pain ! 
 
 X 
 
154 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE, 
 
 I feel the gales that from ye blow 
 
 A momentary bliss bestow ; 
 
 As waving fresh their gladsome wingj 
 
 My weary soul they seem to soothj 
 
 And redolent of joy and youth 
 
 'i'o breathe a second spring. • 
 
 So in Rogers's poem^ in which seVerul historical examples 
 
 of like feeling are introduced. 
 
 'Twas here we chased the slipper by the sound, 
 And tUrn'd the blindfold hero round and round, 
 
 Soar'd in the swing, half pleased and half afraid, 
 Through sister elms that waved their summer-shade, 
 Or strewed with crumbs yon root-inwoven seat, 
 To lure the redbreast from his lone retreat- 
 Childhood's loved group revisits every scene ; 
 The tangled wood-walk, and the tufted green ! 
 Indulgent Memory wakes, and lo, they live ! 
 Clothed with far softer hues than light can give. 
 
 Lord Byron, in his early poeitis, thus describes the pleasure 
 of revisiting the elm in Harrow Churchyard. 
 
 Spot of my youth ! whose heavy branches sigh 
 Swept by the breeze that fans thy cloudless sky \ 
 Where now alone I move, who oft have trod 
 With those I lov'd thy soft and verdant sod. 
 
 Oh as I trace again thy winding hill, 
 Mine eyes admire, my heart adores thee still, 
 'J'hou drooping Elm ! beneath whose boughs I lay 
 And frequent mused the twilight hours away. 
 When as they once were wont, my limbs recline ; 
 But ah ! without the thoughts which then were mine. 
 
 Wai-ton thus celebrates his Alma Mater, Oxford — 
 
 Ye fretted pinnacles, ye fanes sublime. 
 Ye towers that wear the mossy vest of time ! 
 Ye massy piles of old munificence, 
 At once the pride of learning and defence ; 
 Ye cloisters pale, that lengthening to the sight, 
 To contemplation, step by step, invite 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 155 
 
 Ye higli-arph'd walks, where oft the whispers clear 
 Of harps unseen have swept the poet's ear ; 
 Ye temples dim, where pious duty pays 
 ller holy hyuuis of ever-echoing praise ; 
 Lo ! your lov'd I sis, from the bordering vale 
 With all a mother's fondness bids you hail ! 
 Hail! Oxford, hail! 
 
 Cowley and Gray have celebrated Cambridge where they 
 were educated. — In Gray's installation ode we have — 
 
 " Ye brown o'er-arching groves 
 That contemplation loves, 
 Where willowy Camus lingers with delight ; 
 Oft at the blush of dawn 
 I trod your level lawn, 
 
 Oft woo'd the gleam of Cynthia silver-bright, 
 in cloisters dim, far from the haunts of folly. 
 With freedom by my side, and soft-eyed melanclioly." 
 
 But hark ! the portals sound, and pacing forth 
 With solemn steps and slow, 
 High Potentates, and Dames of royal birth. 
 And mitred Fathers, in long order go, 
 Great Edward with his lilies on his brow 
 From haughty Gallia torn ; 
 And sad Chantillon, on her bridal morn 
 That wept her bleeding love, and princely Clare 
 And Anjou's heroine ; and the paler rose, 
 The rival of her crown, and of her woes ; 
 And either Flenry there, 
 'J'he murdered Saint, and the majestic Lord 
 That broke the bonds of Rome : 
 (Their tears, their little triumphs o'er, 
 1'heir human passions now no more, 
 Save charity, that glows beyond the tomb,) 
 All that on Granta's fruitful plain 
 Rich streams of regal bounty pour'd, 
 And bade these awful fanes, and turrets rise, 
 
 Moore has charmingly noticed the recollections of Love's 
 young dream. But though he says they afford '•' the greenest 
 X 2 
 
156 THE AGKS OF HUMAN LIFE, 
 
 spot on memory's waste ;" he admits that the reality was far 
 more delightful. In this particular ease, perhaps, he is right. 
 But it may be doubted whether school-days are not presented 
 to us by our memories in more charming colors than belong- 
 ed to them at the time they were passing. The question, 
 however, is not between actual enjoyment, and the pleasure 
 of remembering that enjoyment. But it is, whether age may 
 not have an advantage over youth in the number and variety 
 of reminiscences which are delightful as reminiscences ? 
 
 The human mind is so constituted as to derive gratification 
 even from scenes which have been accompanied with the 
 most acute mental pain. Our memories soften what was 
 distressing, and convert it into a source of calm and con- 
 templative enjoyment, as, in Akenside's Pleasures of the 
 Imagination — 
 
 Ask the faithful youth 
 Why the cold urn of her whom long he loved 
 So often fills his arms ; so often draws 
 His lonely footsteps at the silent hour, 
 To pay the mournful tribute of his tears ? 
 Oh ! he will tell you that the wealth of worlds 
 Should ne'er seduce his bosom to forego 
 That sacred hour, when, stealing from the noise 
 Of care and envy, sweet remembrance soothes 
 With virtue's kindest looks his aching breast, 
 And turns his tears to rapture. 
 
 It is deserving of consideration with reference to the me- 
 mories of aged persons, that a part of human hfe is spent 
 in dreaming. In old age, the habit of dreaming increases, or, 
 Dugald Stewart would contend, the sleep being less sound, 
 our memories, among the faculties depending on our volition, 
 are less in a state of suspension. The older we grow, the 
 more rich and copious is the collection of images from which 
 
THK AGES OF HUMAN LIFK. 157 
 
 onr dreams are formed. <\ddison proposes this problem con- 
 cerning dreams, which indicates his opinion of their import- 
 ance in our estimates of human happiness. " Supposing a 
 man always happy in his dreams, and miserable in his waking 
 thoughts, and that his life was equally divided between them, 
 whether would he be more happy or miserable }'' Lord 
 Byron has some lines on this subject very characteristic of 
 his own peculiar feelings : 
 
 Our life is two-fold. Sleep hath its own world, 
 A boundary between the things misnamed 
 Death and existence. Sleep hath its own world, 
 And a wide realm of wild reality, 
 And dreams m their development have breath, 
 And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy; 
 They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts. 
 They take a weight from off our waking toils, 
 They do divide our being ; they become 
 A portion of ourselves as of our time, 
 And look like heralds of eternity ; 
 They pass like spirits of the past — they speak 
 Like sibyls of the future ; they have power, 
 The tyranny of pleasure and of pain ; 
 They make us what we were not — what they will, 
 And shake us with the vision that's gone by. 
 The dread of vanished shadows. Are they so ? 
 Is not the past all shadows ? What are they ? 
 Creations of the mind? The mind can make 
 Substance, and people planets of its own 
 With beings brighter than have been, and give 
 A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh. 
 I would recall a vision which I dreamed 
 Perchance in sleep— for in itself a thought, 
 A slumbering thought is capable of years, 
 And curdles a long life into one hour. 
 
 Of the eight scenes of Byron's dream, perhaps the most 
 pleasing is the fourth — 
 
158 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 A change came o'er the spirit of my dream, 
 The boy was sprung to manhood. In the wilds 
 Of fiery chmes he made himself a home, 
 And his soul drank their sunbeams ; he was girt 
 With strange and dusky aspects ; he was not 
 Himself like what he had been ; on the sea, 
 And on the shore he was a wanderer ; 
 There was a mass of many images 
 Crowded like waves upon me ; but lie was, 
 A part of all ; and in the last he lay 
 Reposing' from the noontide sultriness, 
 Couch'd among ftillen columns, in the shade 
 Of ruined walls that had survived the names 
 Of those that reared them ; by his sleeping side 
 Stood camels grazing, and some goodly steeds 
 Were fastened near a fountain ; and a man 
 Clad in a flowing garb did watch the while, 
 While many of his tribe slumber'd around, 
 And they were canopied by the blue sky, 
 So cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful. 
 That God alone was to be seen in heaven. 
 
 Chaucer and Shakspeare have described those dreams 
 which are suggested by the occupations of the day, and Pope, 
 in his Abelard and Eloisa, has, in glowing language, exhibited 
 '* the dreams of an erring soul." 
 
 When, at the close of each sad sorrowing day, 
 Fancy restores what vengeance snatched away. 
 
 The beautiful forms which may be conjured up in our 
 dreams are prettily noticed by Ben Jonson, in one of his 
 Masques — 
 
 Break, Phant'sie, from thy cave of cloud, 
 
 And spread thy purple wings ; 
 Now all th}^ figures are allow'd, 
 
 And various shapes of things. 
 Create of airy forms a stream 
 It must have blood, and nought of phlegm, 
 And, though it be a waking dream. 
 
TtlE AGES OF ttUMAN LIFK. 159 
 
 Yet let it, like an odour, ris^, 
 
 To all the senses here ; 
 And fall, like sleep upon the eyes, 
 
 Or music in their ear. 
 
 But, perhaps, one of the most beautiful descriptions of 
 dreams to be found in ancient or modern poetry, is that in 
 Thomson's Castle of Indolence. The restoration of lost friends, 
 and the revival of the scenes of infancy and youth more par- 
 ticularly belong to the dreams of the aged, which is the sub- 
 ject we are considering. 
 
 And hither Morpheus sent his kindest dreams, 
 Raising a world of gayer tinct and grace ; 
 O'er which were shadowy cast Elysian gleams, 
 That play'd, in waving lights, from place to place, 
 And shed a roseate smile on nature's face. 
 Not Titian's pencil e'er could so array, 
 So fleece with clouds the pure ethereal space : 
 Ne could it e'er such melting forms display. 
 As loose on flowery beds all languishingly lay. 
 
 No, fair illusions ! artful phantoms, no ! 
 
 My nmse will not attempt your fairy-land : 
 
 She has no colours that like yours can glow, 
 
 To catch your vivid scenes, too gross her hand. 
 
 But sure it is, was ne'er a subtler band 
 
 'J'han these same guileful angel-seeming sprights, 
 
 \V'ho thus in dreams, voluptuous, soft, and bland, 
 
 Pour'd all th' Arabian heaven upon her nights^ 
 
 And bless'd them oft besides with more retin'd delights. 
 
 They were, in sooth, a most enchanting train, 
 
 Ev'n feigning virtue ; skilful to unite 
 
 With evil good, and strew with pleasure pain. 
 
 But of those fiends, whom blood and broils delight ; 
 
 Who hurl the wretch, as if to hell outright, 
 
 Down, down black gulfs, where sullen waters sleep. 
 
 Or hold him clambering all the fearful night 
 
 On beetling cliffs, or pent in ruins deep ; 
 
 They, till due time should serve, were bid far hence to keep. 
 
160 THE AGliS OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 Ye Guardian Spirits, to whom man is dear, 
 
 From these foul demons shield the midnight gloom ! 
 
 Angels of fancy and of love, be near. 
 
 And o'er the blank of sleep diffuse a bloom, 
 
 Evoke the sacred shades of Greece and Rome, 
 
 And let them virtue with a look impart : 
 
 But chief, awhile, O ! lend us from the tomb 
 
 Those long-lost friends for whom in love we smart, 
 
 And fill with pious awe and joy-mixt woe the heart. 
 
 Or are you sportive. Bid the morn of youth 
 Rise to new light, and beam afresh the days 
 Of innocence, simplicity, and truth ; 
 To cares estranged, and manhood's thorny ways. 
 "What transport, to retrace our boyish plays. 
 Our easy bliss, when each thing joy supplied ; 
 The woods, the mountains, and the warbling maze 
 Of the wild brooks !— 
 
 In forming a due estimate of the pleasures of memory as 
 enjoyed in old age, it is necessary to make some allowance for 
 the circumstance, that the diminution of the brain, attended 
 with the partial failure of the powers of recollection, are com- 
 monly the earliest symptoms of decay in the machinery of 
 man. Let us, first, view this occurrence as is described by 
 Locke with eloquence very much above the plain and dry 
 style of his ordinary writings. 
 
 "The memory in some men is very tenacious, even to a 
 miracle : but yet there seems to be a constant decay of all 
 our ideas, even of those which are struck deepest, and in the 
 minds the most retentive ; so that, if they be not sometimes 
 renewed by repeated exercise of the senses, or reflection on 
 those kind of objects which at first occasioned them, the 
 print wears out, and at last there remains nothing to be seen. 
 Thus the ideas y as well as children of our youth, often die be- 
 fore us : and our minds represent to us those tombs, to which we 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE, 161 
 
 are approaching ; where, though the brass and marble remain, 
 yet the inscriptions are effaced by time, and the imagery mould- 
 ers away. The pictures drawn in our minds are laid in fad- 
 ing colours ; and if not sometimes refreshed, vanish and dis- 
 appear. How much the constitution of our hodies, and the 
 tone of our animal spirits are concerned in this, and whether 
 the temper of the brain make this difference, that in some it 
 retains the characters drawn on it like marble, in others like 
 free-stone, and in others little better than sand, I shall not 
 here enquire : though it may seem probable, that the consti- 
 tution of the body does sometimes influence the memory ; 
 since we sometimes find a disease quite strip the mind of all 
 its ideas, and the flames of a fever in a few days calcine all 
 those images to dust and confusion, which seemed to be as 
 lasting as if graved in marble." 
 
 It may be observed, on the other hand, that old people 
 will sometimes derive a pleasure even from the difficulty which 
 they experience in recalling particular impressions, as soon as 
 it is surmounted, and the wished-for images or sounds are 
 revived. This circumstance is beautifully described in the 
 
 opening of the Lay of the Last Minstrel. 
 
 > 
 
 The humble boon was soon obtained 
 The Aged Minstrel audience gained, 
 But, when he reached the room of state, 
 Where she, with all her ladies, sate. 
 Perchance he wished his boon denied : 
 For, when to tune his harp he tried, 
 His trembling hands had lost their ease. 
 Which marks security to please ; 
 And scenes, long past, of joy and pain. 
 Came wildering o'er his aged brain — 
 He tried to tune his harp in vain. 
 The pitying Duchess praised its chime, 
 
162 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 And gave him heart, and gave him time, 
 
 Till every string's according glee 
 
 Was blended into harmony, 
 
 And then, he said, he would full fain 
 
 He could recall an ancient strain, 
 
 He never thought to sing again. 
 
 It was not framed for village churles. 
 
 But for high dames and mighty earls ; 
 
 He had played it to king Charles the Good, 
 
 When he kept court in Holyrood ; 
 
 And much he wished, yet feared, to try 
 
 The long-forgotten melody. 
 
 Amid the strings his fingers strayed. 
 And an uncertain warbling made, 
 And oft he shook his hoary head. 
 But when he caught the measure wild, 
 The old man raised his face, and smiled ; 
 And lightened up his faded eye. 
 With all a poet's extacy! 
 In varying cadence, soft or strong. 
 He swept the sounding chords along : 
 The present scene, the future lot, 
 His toils, his wants, were all forgot : 
 Cold diffidence, and age's frost. 
 In the full tide of song were lost ; 
 Each blank, in faithless memory void. 
 The poet's glowing thought supplied. 
 
 With regard to one peculiarity in the Memories of old Peo- 
 ple, Swift expresses his surprise that old men should remember 
 their anecdotes distinctly, and should, notwithstanding, have 
 so little memory as to tell the same story twice in the course of 
 the same conversation. A similar remark is made by Montaigne. 
 " Surtout les viellards sont dangereux, a qui la souvenance des 
 choses passees demure, et ont perdu la souvenance de leurs 
 redites." Dugald Stewart thinks that the decay of memory 
 which is the common effect of age arises from a diminution 
 of the power of attention. He says — " It is probable, that 
 
THE AGES OP HUMAN LIFE. 163 
 
 as we advance in years, the capacity of attention is weakened 
 by some physical change in the constitution ; but it is also 
 reasonable to think that it also loses its vigor, partly from the 
 effect which the decay of our sensibility, and the extinction 
 of our passions have, in diminishing the interest which we feel 
 in the common occurrences of life." 
 
 The pleasures of memory, upon the whole, are greater with 
 old men ; for though they forget faster, they retain more 
 than the young can have acquired. We proceed to qualify a 
 charge of obstinate prejudice in favor of by-gone times, such 
 as has been described by Horace and Le Sage. An extract 
 on this subject from Dugald Stewart. will afford a very good 
 specimen of his philosophical writings. 
 
 "The Philosopher whose thoughts dwell habitually, not 
 merely upon what is, or has been, but upon what is best and 
 most expedient for mankind ; who to the study of books, and 
 the observation of manners, has added a careful examination 
 of the principles of the human constitution, and of those 
 which ought to regulate the social order, is the only person 
 who is effectually secured against the undue influence of 
 casual associations. By learning to separate what is essential 
 to morality and to happiness from those adventitious trifles 
 which it is the province of fashion to direct, he is equally 
 guarded against the follies of national prejudice, and a weak 
 deviation, in matters of indifference, from established ideas. 
 Upon his mind thus occupied with important subjects of 
 reflexion, the fluctuating caprices and fashions of the times 
 lose their influence. While accustomed to avoid the slavery 
 of local and arbitrary habits, he possesses, in his own genuine 
 simplicity of character, the same power of accommodation to 
 external circumstances, which men of the world derive from 
 Y 2 
 
164 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 the pliability of their taste, and the versatility of their manners. 
 As the order, too, of his ideas is accommodated, not to what 
 is casually presented from without, but to his own systematical 
 principles, his associations are subject only to those slow and 
 pleasing changes which arise from his growing light, and 
 improving reason. And, in such a period of the world as the 
 present, when the Press not only excludes the possibility of a 
 permanent retrogradation in human affairs, but operates with 
 an irresistible, though gradual progress, in undermining pre- 
 judices, and extending the triumphs of philosophy, he may 
 reasonably indulge the hope that Society will every day ap- 
 proach nearer and nearer to what he wishes it to be. A man 
 of such a character, instead of looking back on the past with 
 regret, finds himself more at home in the world, and more 
 satisfied with its order, the longer he lives in it. The melan- 
 choly contrasts which old men are sometimes disposed to 
 state between its condition, when they are about to leave it, 
 and that in which they found it at the commencement of their 
 career, arises, in most cases, from the unlimited influence 
 which, in their early years, they had allowed to the fashions 
 of the times, in the formation of their characters. How diflfer- 
 ent from those sentiments and prospects which dignified the 
 retreat of Turgot, and brightened the declining years of 
 Franklin !" 
 
 The posthumous manuscripts of Sir M. Hale, who, we have 
 seen, lived to the age of 67, do not indicate any obstinate pre- 
 judices in favor of the laws which he had studied in his 
 youth. One of these manuscripts is on the subject of 
 " The over-tenacious holding of laws, notwithstanding appa- 
 rent necessity for and safety in their change." He says, 
 " We must remember that laws were not made for their own 
 
THE AGES OP HUMAN LIFE. 165 
 
 sakes, but for the sake of those who were to be guided by 
 them ; and though it is true that they are and ought to be 
 sacred, yet if they be or are become unuseful for their end, they 
 must either be amended, if it may be, or new laws be sub- 
 stituted, and the old repealed, so it be done regularly, delibe- 
 rately, and so far forth only as the exigence or convenience 
 justly demands it ; and in this respect the saying is true, 
 Salus populi suprema lex esto." He that thinks a state can be 
 exactly steered by the same laws in every kind as it was two 
 or three hundred years ago, may as well imagine that the 
 clothes that fitted him when a child should serve him when 
 he was grown a man. The matter changeth, the custom, the 
 contracts, the commerce, the dispositions, education, and 
 tempers of men and societies, change in a long tract of time, 
 and so must their laws in some measure be changed, or they 
 will not be useful for their state and condition ; and besides 
 all this. Time is the wisest thing under heaven. These very 
 laws, which at first seemed the wisest constitution under hea- 
 ven, have some flaws and defects discovered in them by time. 
 As manufactures, mercantile arts, architecture, and building, 
 and philosophy itself secure new advantages and discoveries 
 by time and experience, so much more do laws which concern 
 the manners and customs of men. 
 
 Beattie, in his poem of the Minstrel, has beautifully noticed 
 a distinction between those losses which the bodily frame 
 suffers from age : and those of the intellect and heart of man. 
 The extinction of genius and sympathy will seldom be com- 
 plete, and will often be entirely avoided, in the most ad- 
 vanced age, where they have been duly fostered and exer- 
 cised in the spring and summer of life. 
 
 But sure to foreign climes we need not range, 
 Nor search the ancient records of our race 
 
166 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 To learn the dire effects of time and change, 
 
 ^Vhich, in ourselves, alas ! we daily trace. 
 
 Yet at the darken'd eye, the wither'd face 
 
 Or hoary hair I never will repine, 
 
 But spare, O Time ! whate'er of mental grace 
 
 Of candor, love, or sympathy divine, 
 
 Whate'er of Fancy's ray, or friendship's flame is mine. 
 
 A fair estimate of the comparative intellectual qualities of 
 the old and young may be taken from the writings of Lord 
 Bacon. His observations on the conduct of the affairs of life 
 generally evince very enlarged experience and deep reflec- 
 tion. And, although his style is too much formed upon an- 
 cient models, and is too stately and antithetical for modern 
 Enghsh composition, yet his w^ritings, independently of the 
 sense, may be studied with great advantage for the energy and 
 propriety of the expressions. " A man that is young in years 
 may be old in hours, if he have lost no time. But that hap- 
 peneth rarely. Generally youth is like the first cogitations, 
 not so wise as the second. For there is a youth in thoughts 
 as well as in ages. And yet the invention of young men is 
 more lively than that of old, and imaginations stream into 
 their minds better, and, as it were, more divinely. Natures 
 that have much heat, and great and violent desires and 
 perturbations are not ripe for action, till they have passed the 
 meridian of their years. But reposed natures may do well 
 in youth. On the other side, heat and vivacity in age is an 
 excellent composition for business. Young men are fitter to 
 invent than to judge ; fitter for execution than for counsel ; 
 and fitter for new projects than for settled business. For the 
 experience of age, for things which fall within the compass 
 of it, directeth them, but in things new abuseth them. The 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 167 
 
 errors of young men are the ruin of business ; but the errors 
 of aged men amount but to this, that more might have been 
 done, or sooner. Young men in the conduct and manage- 
 ment of actions, embrace more than they can hold ; stir more 
 than they can quiet ; fly to the end without consideration of 
 the means or degrees ; pursue some few principles which they 
 have chanced upon, absurdly ; care not to innovate, which draws 
 unknown inconveniences ; use extreme remedies at first ; and 
 that which doubleth all errors, will not acknowledge or re- 
 tract them, like an unready horse that will neither stop nor 
 turn. Men of age object too much, consult too long, adven- 
 ture too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business 
 home to the full period ; but content themselves with a medio- 
 crity of success." 
 
 Cicero's celebrated treatise on old age w^as written in his 
 climacterical year. He treats of four imputed evils of old age 
 — 1. Disqualification for business; 2. Bodily infirmities ; 3. 
 Privation of sensual gratifications ; 4. Approach of death. 
 His object is to shew that some of these evils are imaginary, 
 and that the rest are counterbalanced by higher gratifications. 
 As in other works he notices that there is one style of speak- 
 ing which is adapted to youth, and another which is efi"ective 
 in old age ; so in this treatise he argues that there is one 
 kind of business suitable to the young, and another to the 
 old. He adverts to the etymology of the Roman Senate, and 
 observes that a pilot who remains at the helm of a ship is, at 
 least, as usefully employed as any one of the sailors, whatever 
 maybe his personal activity. Of the eleven tracts of Cicero, 
 that De Senectute is one of five relating to ourselves. It is 
 remarkable, that, among the lenitives of Old Age, Cicero 
 does not advert to the pleasures of domestic society, on which 
 
168 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 it will be seen that Jefferson set great store. He had been 
 unhappy in his own family. 
 
 One of the principal advantages of age is the possession 
 of old friends. They may be deemed more trustworthy be- 
 cause longer tried, and tlie union is less likely to be severed 
 by caprices or changes of fortune. We have a hvely couple 
 of old friends in Burns's story of Tom O'Shanter. Tom and 
 Souter Johnny have been made the subject of sculpture ; the 
 figures were exhibited a few years ago in London, and were 
 generally admired. 
 
 And at his elbow, Souter Johnny, 
 His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony ; 
 Tom lov'd him like a vera brither ; 
 They had been fou for weeks thegither. 
 
 It is gratifying to notice Sir H. Davy, dedicating his later 
 works to friends with whom he states that he had lived on 
 terms of intimacy for upwards of a quarter- century. Darby 
 and Joan, it may be observed, are very popular English cha- 
 racters, as in a song by Rowe — 
 
 Old Darby with Joan by his side 
 
 You oft have regarded with wonder, 
 He is dropsical, she is sore-eyed, 
 
 Yet they 're ever uneasy asunder. 
 
 Together they totter about. 
 
 And sit in the sun at the door. 
 And, at night, when old Darby's pipe's out. 
 
 His Joan will not smoke a whifFmore. 
 
 And most readers have sympathized in the anticipated plea- 
 sure of Johnny Gilpin and his wife, after resolving to make 
 their wedding day a hohday, but not till it had been sanctified 
 by *• twice ten years" of matrimonial bliss. The feelings we 
 
I 
 
 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 169 
 
 are now considering are touclied upon by Cowper ; it is a fair 
 specimen of his compositions. 
 
 Though our years, 
 As Ufa decHnes, speed rapidly away, 
 And not a year but pilfers, as he goes, 
 Some youthful grace, that age would gladly keep ; 
 A tooth, or auburn loclc, and by degrees 
 Their length and colour from the locks they spare -, 
 Th' elastic spring of an unwearied foot, 
 That mounts the stile with ease, or leaps the fence, 
 'I'hat play of lungs, inhaling and again 
 Respiring freely the fresh air, that makes 
 Swift pace of steep ascent no toil to me. 
 Mine have not pilfer'd yet ; nor yet impaired 
 My relish of fair prospect : scenes that sooth'd 
 Or charmed me young, no longer young, I find 
 Still soothing, and of pow'r to charm me still, 
 And witness, dear companion of my ivalks, 
 Whose arm this twentieth luinter I perceive 
 Fast lock'd in mine, with pleasure such as love. 
 Confirmed by long experience of thy worth 
 And well-tried virtues, could alone inspire — 
 Witness a joy that thou hast doubted long. 
 Thou know'st my praise of nature most sincere. 
 And that my raptures are not conjur'd up 
 To serve occasions of poetic pomp, 
 But genuine, and art .partner of them all. 
 How oft upon yon eminence our pace 
 Has slackeu'd to a pause, and we have borne 
 The ruffling wind, scarce conscious that it blew. 
 While admiration, feeding at the eye, 
 And still unsated, dwelt upon the scene. 
 Thence with what pleasure have we just discern'd 
 The distant plow slow-moving, and beside 
 His lab'ring team, that swerv'd not from the track, 
 The sturdy swain diminish'd to a boy! 
 Here Ouse, slow winding through a level plain 
 Of spacious meads with cattle sprinkled o'er, 
 Conducts the eye, along his sinuous course 
 Delighted. 'J'here, fast rooted in their bank 
 
170 THE AGES OF HUM4N LIFE. 
 
 Stand, never overlook 'd, our favorite elms, 
 That skreen the herdsman's solitary hut; 
 While far beyond, and overthwart the stream, 
 That as with molten glass, inlays the vale. 
 The sloping land recedes into the clouds ; 
 Displaying on its varied side the grace 
 Of hedge-row beauties numberless, square tow'r, 
 Tall spire, from which the sound of cheerful bells 
 Just undulates upon the list'ning ear; 
 Groves, heaths, and smoking villages, remote. 
 Scenes must be beautiful, which daily view'd 
 Please dail}^, and whose novelty survives 
 Long knowledge and the scrutiny of years ; 
 Praise justly due to those that I describe. 
 
 In proportion as the union of Old Friends may be consider- 
 ed, as the Scriptures call it, a medicine of life, the disruption 
 of such unions cannot but be viewed with deep regret. On 
 such a breach in the friendship of Addison and Steele, Dr. 
 Johnson remarks — " Every reader surely must regret, that 
 these two illustrious friends, after so many years passed in 
 confidence and endearment, in unity of interest, conformity 
 of opinion and fellowship of study, should finally part in 
 acrimonious opposition. Such a controversy was Bellum plus- 
 quam civile, as Lucan expresses it. Why could not faction find 
 other advocates ? But, among the uncertainties of the human 
 state, we are doomed to number the instabihties of friend- 
 ship." They quarrelled on account of their opposition on the 
 subject of the Peerage Bill, for fixing permanently the num- 
 ber of Peers ; Steele writing four papers in the Plebeian 
 against the bill, and Addison two in the Old Whig in favor of 
 it. The Tatler was begun by Steele in April, 1 709, without 
 the knowledge by Addison of the authorship ; but Addison 
 discovered Steele by a criticism on Virgil in the sixth number. 
 The first number Addison wrote in the Tatler was the 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 171 
 
 eighteenth. Addison wrote in the Tatler 42 numbers and 
 Steele 188, and both together 36. Two months after the 
 cessation of the Tatler, the Spectator was commenced in 
 March, 1711. Addison took under his more immediate care 
 the Spectator, Sir R. De Coverley, and Will Honeycomb, and 
 Steele the other members of the Club. Addison wrote 274 
 numbers in the Spectator, and Steel 240, 14,000 copies were 
 distributed daily. The Spectator was closed in December, 
 1712. The Guardian was commenced in March, 1713, and 
 was continued till October, in the same year. Addison wrote in 
 it fifty-three papers, and Steele eighty-two. These works are 
 generally considered the commencement of English periodi- 
 cal literature, though the Ohservator of L'Estrange, the 
 Rehearsals of Lesley, and, still more, De Foe's Review, which 
 contains a Scandal Club, were approximations. Indeed Bacon's 
 and Temple's essays may be considered as the types of vari- 
 ous papers in the Spectator. But Addison and Steele may 
 justly claim to be the founders of our periodical literature. 
 Their literary union has no very similar parallel except that 
 of Beaumont and Fletcher. We can only regret that we are 
 unable to say of them, as of Saul and Jonathan, that " in death 
 they were not divided." 
 
 Another instance of a similar disunion between Old Friends 
 occurred between Burke and Fox. On the Bill for the Go- 
 vernment of Canada being discussed in the House of Com- 
 mons, the subject of the French Revolution was introduced 
 by Burke. Fox vindicated it somewhat in the style of the 
 Vindicide Gallicce of Macintosh. Burke, on this, replied " hither- 
 to Mr. Fox and myself have often differed upon slight mat- 
 ters, without a loss of friendship on either side ; but there is 
 something in this cursed French Revolution which envenoms 
 z 2 
 
172 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 every thing." Fox, upon this, whispered, " There is no Tos£< 
 of friendship hetween us," But Burke, instead of being soften- 
 ed by this concihatory remark, exclaimed, " There is ! I know 
 the price of my conduct ; our friendship is at an end." 
 
 The quarrel of Brutus and Cassius, as described by Shak- 
 speare, affords scope for very high merit in acting ; their recon- 
 cihation never fails to dehght an audience. In like manner, 
 after the existence of some differences between Curran and 
 Lord Avonmore, arising out of^the Irish Union, which Curran 
 opposed and Lord Avonmore supported, Curran, in a speech 
 addressed to Lord Avonmore and other Judges, evinces that 
 the reminiscences of ancient friendship had entirely expelled 
 the spirit of dissension which for a time had influenced his heart. 
 
 " And this soothing hope I draw from the dearest and ten- 
 derest recollections of my life, from the remembrance of those 
 attic nights and those refections of the gods which we have 
 spent wdth those admired and respected and beloved compa- 
 nions who have gone before us ; — over whose ashes the most 
 precious tears of Ireland have been shed ;. yes, m,y good lord, 
 I see you do not forget them j I see their sacred forms pass- 
 ing in sad review before your memory ; I see your pained and 
 softened fancy recalling those happy meetings, when the 
 innocent enjoyment of social mirth expanded into the nobler 
 warmth of social virtue, and the horizon of the board became 
 enlarged into the horizon of man ; — when the swelling heart 
 conceived and communicated the pure and generous purpose, 
 — when my slenderer and younger taper imbibed its borrow- 
 ed light from the more matured and redundant fountain of 
 your's. Yes, my lord, we can remember those nights without 
 any other regret than that they can never more return, for 
 
 We spent them not in toys, or lust, or wine : 
 But search of deep philosophy, 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 173 
 
 Wit, eloquence and poesy ; 
 
 Arts which I lov'd, for they, my friend, were thine ! 
 
 Besides friends, Dr. Young, in. his Night Thoughts, has 
 
 provided for old men, what they could scarcely think of 
 
 demanding, a new kind of intellectual and moral Seraglio : 
 
 Lorenzo ! when wast thou at church before ? 
 
 Thou think'st the service long : but is it just ? 
 
 Though just, unwelcome ; thou hadst rather tread 
 
 Unhallow'd ground; the Muse, to win thine ear, 
 
 Must take an air less solemn. She complies. 
 
 Good conscience ! at the sound the world retires ; 
 
 Verse disaffects it, and Lorenzo smiles ; 
 
 Yet has she her Seraglio full of charms ; 
 
 And such as Age shall heighten, not impair. 
 
 Art thou dejected ? Is thy mind o'ercast ? 
 
 Amid hev fair-ones., thou the fairest choose, 
 
 To chase thy gloom. — " Go, fix some weighty truth ; 
 
 Chain down some passion ; do some generous good ; 
 
 Teach ignorance to see, or grief to smile ; 
 
 Correct thy friend ; befriend thy greatest foe ; 
 
 Or with warm heart, and confidence divine, 
 
 Spring up, and lay strong hold on hira who made thee" — 
 
 Thy gloom is scatter'd, sprightly spirits flow ; 
 
 Though wither'd is thy vine, and harp unstrung. 
 
 We have a curious instance, in the author of the celebrated 
 poem just cited, of an attempt to make fifty years such a 
 ground of merit or compassion, as to contribute to form a 
 title to court favor. This modest petition, which would give 
 a value to years not calculated in Cicero de Senectute, occurs 
 in a letter from the Poet to the Countess of Suffolk. In 
 his Satires, Young writes, that " Courts can give nothing 
 to the wise and good," and he intreats "indulgent God" to 
 allow him, at a distance from the atmosphere of courts, to 
 range the Sylvan scene, where " on every thorn delightful 
 wisdom grows." But, in his letter to the countess, he intreats 
 
174 THK AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 her to use her influence ^Yith the King, in order to procure 
 his majesty's '' gracious favor" in any way his " goodness" 
 might suggest. He desires the countess to put forward his 
 petition upon the following grounds ; abilities, good manners, 
 service, age, want, sufferings, and zeal for His Majesty. He 
 descants on these grounds respectively. With regard to age, 
 he does not make out that " his days are dwindled to the 
 shortest span," like our poor friend whom we have before 
 noticed ; but, he says, " As for age, I am turned oijifty.'" 
 
 It is time to adduce a few examples of distinguished indi- 
 viduals in illustration of the subject of this chapter. Dryden 
 pubhshed his Fables in the same year in which he died, A. D. 
 1700. He was then upwards of sixty-eight years of age. He 
 adverts to this subject in his preface. He says, " I have the ex- 
 cuse of an old gentleman, who, mounting on horseback before 
 some ladies, when I was present, got up somewhat heavily, 
 but desired of the fair spectators, that they would count four- 
 score and eight before they judged him. By the mercy of 
 God, I am already come within twenty years of this number ; 
 a cripple in my limbs, but what decays are in my mind the 
 reader must determine. I think myself as vigorous as ever 
 in the faculties of my soul, except only my memory, which is 
 not impaired to any great degree ; and if I lose not more of 
 it, I have no great reason to complain. What judgment I 
 had increases rather than diminishes ; and thoughts, such as 
 they are, come crowding in so fast upon me, that my only 
 difficulty is to choose or to reject, to run them into verse, or 
 to give them the other harmony of prose ; I have so long 
 studied and practised both, that they are grown into a habit, 
 and become familiar to me. In that, though I may lawfully 
 plead some part of the old gentleman's excuse, yet I will re- 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 175 
 
 serve it till I think I have greater need, and ask no grains of 
 allowance for the faults of this my present work, but those 
 which are given of course to human frailty." One of the 
 pieces in the collection to which the preface is prefixed, Cymon 
 and Iphigenia, he commences in the following gallant strain : — 
 
 Old as I am, for ladies' love unfit, 
 
 I'he power of beauty I remember yet. 
 
 Which once inflamed my soul, and still inspires my wit. 
 
 Stronger instances of the power of beauty upon older men of 
 great eminence might be cited. A German literary character 
 recently died of love for Fanny Elsler at the age of fourscore ; 
 he described the tortures of his passion to Metternich, who 
 was his intimate friend, but a singular person to choose for 
 embosoming himself upon such a subject. There is a tender 
 letter written by Jeremy Bentham, at the age of eighty. 
 
 " I am alive: more than two months advanced in my 80th 
 year, more lively than when you presented me, in ceremony, 
 with the flower in the green lane. Since that day, not a sin- 
 gle one has passed, (not to speak of nights,) in which you 
 have not engrossed mofe of my thoughts than I could have 
 wished. Yet, take me for all in all, I am more lively now 
 than then ; walking, though only for a few minutes, and for 
 health sake, more briskly than most young men whom you 
 see not unfrequently running. In the enclosed scrap there 
 are a few lines, which I think you will read with pleasure. I 
 have still the pianoforte, harpsichord, on which you played at 
 Bowood : as an instrument, though no longer useful, it is still 
 curious, as an article of furniture, not unhandsome ; as a legacy 
 will you accept it ? I have a ring, with some of my snow-white 
 hair in it, and my profile, which every body says is like. At 
 
176 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 my death, you will have such another : should you come to 
 want, it will be worth a good sovereign to you. You will not 
 I hope, be ashamed of me : The last letter, I received, from 
 Spanish America, (it was in the present year,) I was styled 
 Legislador del Mundo, and petitioned for a code of laws ; It 
 was from the man to whom that charge was committed by the 
 legislature of his country, Guatemala. Every minute of my 
 life has been long counted : and now I am plagued with re- 
 morse at the minutes which I have suffered you to steal from 
 me. In proportion as lam afriend to mankind, (if such I am, as I 
 endeavour to be,) you, if within my reach, would be an enemy. 
 I have, for some years past, had a plan for building a harem 
 in my garden, upon the Panopticon principle. The premier- 
 ship waits your acceptance : A few years hence, when I am a 
 little more at leisure than at present, will be the time for 
 executing it. For these many years I have been invisible to 
 all men, (not to speak of women,) but for special reasons. I 
 have lost absolutely all smell, as much as possible all taste, 
 and swarm with petty infirmities. But it seems as if they 
 ensured me against serious ones. I am, still am I gay, emi- 
 nently so, and ' the cause of gaiety in other men.' Oh, what 
 an old fool am I, after all, not to leave off, since I can, till 
 the paper will hold no more. This you have done at sixty, 
 and at half six miles distance. What would you have done 
 present and at sixteen?" 
 
 The earliest period at which the manuscript of the Paradise 
 Lost was seen, was in 1665, when Milton was 59. The allu- 
 sions to his loss of sight and to the " evil days" of the Re- 
 storation shew that the Poem was written late in life. Locke 
 published his Essay on the Human Understanding and his 
 letters on Toleration in 1G90-92, when he was about 60 vears 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 177 
 
 of age. The Canterhurij Tales were the last composition of 
 Chaucer, ^Yhen he was upwards of 60. 
 
 Lord Chesterfield, in his latter days, suffered much from 
 bodily infirmities, in 'some measure occasioned by the excesses 
 of youth. It is gratifying, however, to collect from his cor- 
 respondence, that literary taste and acquisitions can make the 
 dowr.-hill journey of life enjoyable, even where it may be de- 
 barred the pleasures of conversation and society. 
 
 "All mineral waters, and the whole materia medica, lose 
 their efficacy upon my shattered carcase; and the enemy 
 within is too hard for them. I bear it all with patience, and 
 without melancholy, because I must bear it, whether I will 
 or no. Physical ills are the taxes laid upon this wretched 
 life ; some are taxed higher, and some lower, but all pay 
 something. My philosophy teaches me to reflect, how much 
 higher, rather than how much lower, I might have been 
 taxed. How gentle are my physical ills, compared with the 
 exquisite torments of gout and stone ! The faculties of my 
 mind are, thank God ! not yet much impaired ; and they 
 comfort me in my worst moments, and amuse me in the best. 
 I read with more pleasure than ever ; perhaps, because it is 
 the only pleasure I have left. For since I am struck out of 
 living company by my deafness, I have recourse to the dead, 
 whom alone I can hear ; and I have assigned them their 
 hours of audience. Solid folios are the people of business, 
 with whom I converse in the morning : Quartos are the 
 easier mixed company, with whom I sit after dinner : And I 
 pass my evenings in the light and often frivolous chit-chat 
 of small octavos and duodecimos. This, upon the whole, 
 hinders me from wishing for death, while other considerations 
 hinder me from fearing it." 
 2 A 
 
178 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 The letter which contains the extract just cited, was written 
 to Mr. DayroUes. The letters of Lord Chesterfield which 
 are most celebrated, were written to an illegitimate son who 
 married whilst abroad, without his father's knowledge, and 
 who died in 1768, five years before his father, at Dresden. 
 His widow pubHshed the letters without permission. Lord 
 Chesterfield left his disposable property to his nearest rela- 
 tion, a nephew. This nephew was addicted to horse-racing : 
 In consequence of which Lord Chesterfield introduced a clause 
 into his will, forfeiting the property to the Dean and Chapter of 
 Westminster, if his devisee slept a single night at Newmarket." 
 He selected the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, because 
 he thought that they had over-reached himself in some afi'air 
 of a lease or purchase, and therefore judged that they would 
 look sharply after the forfeiture. 
 
 Lord Chesterfield's liveliness in old age may be collected 
 from his masquerade letters to the Countess of Sufi'olk. It 
 may be premised that when he was a younger man, in 1728, we 
 find him in gallant correspondence with her Ladyship. The 
 Countess, in her letters to various correspondents, complains 
 of giddiness and face-ache. Lord Chesterfield replies from the 
 Hague — "To show you how desirous I am to contribute as 
 much as I can to your perfect recovery, if you can find means 
 to give me that ofi"ending head, and that provoking face you 
 complain so much of, I will most wilHngly send you mine 
 in return by the first courier ; and though you say they are 
 of no use to the present owner, I assure you they would be 
 of singular use to me. The head would do my master's busi- 
 ness, and the face would do my own, and I would find em- 
 ployment enough for them both, not to give them time to 
 ache." 
 
THE AGES OP HUMAN LIFE. 179 
 
 We read, in a masquerade letter written by Lord Chester- 
 field, in the character of his footman, to Lady Sufi'olk, when 
 he was 73, and the Countess five years older. " My Lord 
 was very much fatigued with his journey, not being (as I 
 heard him say) what he was thirty years ago — I believe he 
 might have said fifty. However, he is pretty well for him ; 
 but often complains that he feels a sensible decay both of 
 body and mind, and, between you and I, I think not without 
 reason ; for I, who see him every day, can, notwithstanding, 
 observe a considerable alteration in him, and by no means for 
 the better." In an answer to this letter, written by Horace 
 Walpole, in the character of Lady Sufi'olk' s maid, we have — 
 "And my lady says, and so says Mister Rusil, our butler, 
 that your lord may be ashamed of himself — so he may — to 
 say he grows old ; for he niver was spritlier in his born days." 
 In another letter from Lord Chesterfield under disguise of 
 the footman we have — " Now madam, it is time to give you 
 some account of my lord, for whom you shew so friendly 
 a regard. He is as weU as can he expected in his condition ; 
 as is usually said of ladies in childbed, or in great affliction 
 for the death of somebody they did not care for. Now I 
 heard his lordship say very lately at table, that he was seven- 
 ty-three complete, with a shattered carcase, as he w^as pleased 
 to call it. To say the truth, I believe my lord did live a little 
 too freely formerly. But I can assure your ladyship that he 
 is now very regular, and even more so, I believe, than I am. 
 But he is still very cheerful ; and, as an instance of it, a gen- 
 tleman having said at table that the women dressed their 
 heads here three or four stories high — *' Yes," said my lord, 
 " and I believe every story is inhabited, like the lodging 
 houses here ; for I observe a great deal of scratching ;" I 
 2 A 2 
 
180 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 thought this comical enough to tell your ladyshi}), and to 
 confess the truth, I repeated it as my own to some of my 
 brethren of the cloth, and they relished it wonderfully," 
 
 Ben Jonson, writing subsequently to Lord Bacon's fall, after 
 describing the effects of his eloquence and the fear of all his 
 auditors lest he should conclude, observes — " In his adversity 
 I ever prayed God to give him strength ; for greatness he 
 could not want." Lord Bacon it has been before mentioned 
 lived to the age of sixty-six, and I do not know that any decay 
 of his faculties from the joint effects of age and misfortune is 
 intimated any where except in the following scurrilous lines, 
 which are a curious specimen of the v/it of the day. They 
 were written on the occasion of Lord Bacon publishing his 
 apothegms. 
 
 When learned Bacon wrote essays, 
 He did deserve, and hath the praise, 
 But now he writes his apothegms. 
 Surely he doses, or he dreams. 
 One said, St. Albans now is grown unable, 
 And is in the high-road way to Dunce-table. (Dunstable, 
 
 next stage from St. Albans.') 
 
 Till within a very short period of his death Lord Bacon was 
 engaged in making philosophical experiments. This appears 
 from the following letter, the last thing he ever wrote, and the 
 last notice of any kind we have of him before his death, which 
 occurred within a few days after, at Lord Arundel's house, 
 where the letter was written. 
 
 My very good Lord, 
 
 I was likely to have had the fortune of Caius 
 Plinius the elder, who lost his life by trying an experiment 
 about the burning of the mount Vesuvius : for I was also desir- 
 ous to try an experiment or two, touching the conservation and 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 181 
 
 induration of bodies. As for the experiment itself, it succeeded 
 excellently well; but in the journey, between London and 
 Highgate, I was taken with such a fit of casting, as I knew 
 not whether it were the stone, or some surfeit, or cold, or in- 
 deed a touch of them all three. But when I came to your 
 lordship's house, I was not able to go back, and therefore 
 was forced to take up my lodging here, where your house- 
 keeper is very careful and diligent about me, which I assure 
 myself your lordship will not only pardon towards him, but 
 think better of him for it. For indeed your lordship's house 
 was happy to me, and I kiss your noble hands for the welcome 
 which I am sure you give me to it, &c. 
 
 I know how unfit it is for me to write to your lordship 
 with any other hand than my own ; but by my troth my 
 fingers are so disjointed with this fit of sickness, that I can- 
 not steadily hold a pen." 
 
 Lord Mansfield presided as Chief Justice in the Court of 
 King's Bench till he was 76, as Sir M. Hale had done till 
 he was 66, nor were their high judicial reputations at all 
 impaired by the eiFects of age. Sir Edward Coke had been 
 removed from his office of Chief Justice by the tyranny of 
 Charles L But we find him in his 77th year, in his place in 
 the third Parliament of that King, taking a leading part in 
 the preparation of that second Charter of English liberties 
 the Petition of Rights. It was Sir E. Coke that originally 
 proposed that second Magna Charta. The following is an 
 extract of his speech on the occasion : 
 
 " We sit now in Parliament, and therefore must take his 
 Majesty's word, no otherwise than in a parliamentary way, 
 that is, of a matter agreed on by both houses — his Majesty 
 sitting on his throne in his robes, with his crown on his head. 
 
182 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 and sceptre in his hand, and in full parliament ; and his royal 
 assent being entered upon record, in perpeluam rei memoriam. 
 This was the royal word of a King in parliament, and not a 
 word delivered in a chamber, and out of the mouth of a 
 secretary at the second hand ; therefore I motion, that the 
 House of Commons more majorum, should draw up a Petition, 
 de droict, to his Majesty ; which being confirmed by both 
 houses, and assented unto by his Majesty, will be as firm an 
 act as any. Not that I distrust the King, but that I cannot 
 take his trust but in a parliamentary way." 
 
 Lord Somers had the chief management of the business of 
 the Union with Scotland in 1707, when he was near 60, the 
 age at which he relinquished ofifice. At the critical period of 
 Queen Anne's death in 1714, two years before his own death, 
 he came to the Privy Council, and contributed to prevent any 
 attempt being made to disturb the succession of the House 
 of Hanover. 
 
 Sir John Maynard was an excellent specimen of our vete- 
 ran lawyers. He had fought the arduous battle of constitu- 
 tional liberty through a great part of the reigns of the Stuarts. 
 On his introduction to king William after the Revolution, that 
 prince observed to him that he had survived all the great 
 lawyers of his time : He answered that, " if his Majesty had 
 not come to England, he should have survived the law itself." 
 He is made, by Hurd, one of the speakers, together with Lord 
 Somers and Bishop Burnet, in a dialogue on the constitution ; 
 in the course of the dialogue he frequently adverts to his 
 advanced age. This Dialogue by Bishop Hurd has attracted 
 much notice, and the more so, on account of the liberal sen- 
 timents with which it originally abounded, and which were 
 composed before his elevation to the mitre, having been ex- 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 183 
 
 punged or pared down in subsequent editions : Porson made 
 a careful collection of the different editions. 
 
 Lord Chatham exercised the extraordinary powers of his 
 eloquence almost to his last moments. He died in 1778, 
 when advanced in his 70th year. The picture painted by 
 Copley, the father of Lord Lyndhurst, of his illness in the 
 House of Lords, represents what occurred only four days be- 
 fore his death. He had made a vigorous speech on the same 
 evening, but observed, in the course of it, that he was making 
 an effort almost beyond the powers of his constitution. He was 
 rising again to reply, when after two or three unsuccessful 
 efforts to stand, he fainted and fell on his seat. 
 
 Horace Walpole,who upon this subject cannot claim implicit 
 credit, represents, that Lord Chatham used to assume the ap- 
 pearances of age and infirmity for effect, even beyond what was 
 occasioned by his advanced years. " The winter was unusually 
 warm., yet he was dressed in an old coat and waistcoat of 
 beaver laced with gold ; over that a red surtout, the right arm 
 lined with fur, and appendant with many black ribbons, to 
 indicate his inability of drawing it over his right arm, which 
 hung in a crape sling, btit which, in the warmth of speaking^ 
 he drew out with unlucky activity, and brandished as usual. 
 On his legs were riding stockings. In short, no aspiring cardi- 
 nal ever coughed for the tiara with more specious debility." 
 
 It was not long before his death that Lord Chatham rose 
 even beyond himself in a speech on the employment of Indi- 
 ans in the war against the Americans. It may be said of 
 Lord Chatham's speeches, as was said by ^schines of Demos- 
 thenes' oration against himself; — how much more powerful 
 would you have thought it, if you could have heard him ! A 
 line or two of the commencement and conclusion will probably 
 
184 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 satisfy the reader, that, as dehvered by Lord Chatham, the 
 speech must have produced an electrical effect : 
 
 " I am astonished ! Shocked to hear such principles confess- 
 ed — to hear them avowed in this house or in this country." 
 After invoking the " holy prelates of our religion to do away 
 these iniquities from among us. Let them perform a lustra- 
 tion ; let them purify this house, and this country, from this 
 sin." He concludes — "My Lords, I am old and weak and at 
 present unable to say more ; but my feelings and indignation 
 were too strong to have said less, I could not have slept this 
 night in my bed, nor reposed my head on my pillow, without 
 giving this vent to my eternal abhorrence of such preposterous 
 and enormous principles." 
 
 Frederick the Great died at the age of 75, after a reign 
 of 46 years, and having been subjected to extreme fatigues, 
 and anxieties of body and mind both before and after he 
 began to reign. Mirabeau says that " he was one of the most 
 perfect moulds that nature ever formed." His body was 
 not in later life altogether equal to the energies of his mind. 
 On quitting Berlin upon his last campaign, he addressed his 
 officers in these terms. " My infirmities will prevent my mak- 
 ing the campaign as I should have done during the vigor of 
 my age. I shall, in marches, make use of a carriage ; but 
 on the day of battle, you will be sure of seeing me on horse- 
 back among you as formerly." He, indeed, used rouge on 
 reviews and other public occasions, being probably dissatis- 
 fied that he should appear older in his person than he was 
 in his mind and spirits. His death was much accelerated by 
 his neglect of the regimen which Zimmerman and other 
 physicians prescribed ; persisting to the last, in eating to ex- 
 cess bonilli-beef a la Russe, Polenta, and eel-pies, like a 
 
THE AGES OP HUMAN LIFE. 185 
 
 young man or an ostrich. Nevertheless he transacted his cus- 
 tomary pubhc business, and had passages read to him from 
 the classical authors till the day of his death. 
 
 As regards merely martial vigor and exertion, it has been 
 displayed on various occasions to a later period of life. The 
 Duke of Schomberg who was killed at the Boyne in bringing 
 up a Regiment that had fallen into confusion, and whose 
 death is the subject of a well known engraving, was 82. He 
 used to court the society of the younger officers, observing 
 that when young he conversed with old men to gain experi- 
 ence, and, when old, with young men, to keep up his spirits. 
 
 Turenne, (the god-like Turenne, as Pope calls him) was 
 killed whilst reconnoitering on the eve of an intended battle, 
 by a cannon ball, in the 64th year of his age. The opinion 
 entertained by his army of his martial spirit may be collected, 
 among a multitude of anecdotes, from the cry of the sol- 
 diers, when the General who succeeded called a Council of war. 
 — ** Lachez la Pie, (the name of Turenne's horse) elle nous con- 
 duira." The Great Conde said, that his successor had, by his 
 want of abihty, made a better funeral oration upon Turenne 
 than had been done by 'Flechier. The French Funeral ora- 
 tions, it may be observed, contain some of the finest specimens 
 of modern eloquence : Bourdalone, Bossuet, Flechier, and 
 Massillon attained the highest reputation in this line. Fle- 
 chier has been compared to Isocrates, and Bossuet to Demos- 
 thenes. Of Turenne's age Flechier says, " II a rendu tous les 
 services qu'on peut attendre d'un esprit ferme et agissant, 
 quand il se trouve dans un corps robuste et bien constitue. II 
 a eu dans la jeunesse toute la prudence d'un age avance ; et 
 dans un age avance, toute la vigeur de la jeunesse — ses 
 jours ont ete pleins, selon les termes de 1' Ecriture; et 
 2 B 
 
186 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 comme il ne perdit pas ses jeunes annees dans la mollesse et 
 dans la volupte, il n'a pas ete contraint de passer les dernieres 
 dans I'oisivite etla foiblesse." 
 
 Samuel must have been an old man, when without any 
 assistance, he " hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal." 
 His age thus appears : The reason for the Israelites wanting a 
 king was that Samuel could not go his circuits regularly as 
 a judge on account of his age, but sent his sons, who took 
 bribes ; now, Samuel never met Saul again, after the human 
 sacrifice, until the Witch of Endor, as it is said, " brought him 
 up" very much as he himself observed to his " disquiet." The 
 Witch said " an old man cometh up," and Saul immediately 
 knew him. Hewing in pieces, in those days, must have required 
 considerable bodily strength, if Samuel did what is related in 
 the book of Judges of a Levite with regard to his concubine, 
 whom he hewed flesh and bone into twelve pieces, and sent 
 a piece to each of the tribes of Israel. 
 
 It is remarkable that four of the most distinguished leaders 
 of the American revolution, Washington, Franklin, Jefferson 
 and Adams, lived to be old men, and appear to have retained 
 their faculties and enjoyments to the end of their lives. 
 Washington died in his 67th year in December 1799. In 1783 
 he made his memorable resignation of his miHtary command, 
 addressing the Senate in terms strikingly contrasted with 
 those of Cromwell on entering the House of Commons, after he 
 had finished his campaigns. " Having now finished the 
 work assigned me, I retire from the great theatre of action, 
 and bidding an affectionate farewell to this august body, un- 
 der whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my com- 
 mission, and take my leave of all the employments of public 
 life." He was however called to the office of President of the 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 187 
 
 United States from 1788 to 1796. The evening of his life 
 was chiefly occupied in the pursuits of agriculture at his 
 country-house, called Mount Vernon. 
 
 Franklin died in 1790 having attained the age of 84 years 
 and three months. He had been engaged in public functions 
 for 50 years, and was the Plenipotentiary sent by the United 
 States to France in 1776, when he was upwards of 70. He 
 remained in the vicinity of Paris during all the critical period 
 which terminated with the peace between England and America 
 in 1 785. The last five years of his life he spent in Philadelphia ; 
 for three of those years he held the office of President of that 
 state. His memory showed no symptoms of decay, and he 
 took a part almost to the last, in public transactions of a poli- 
 tical, or philosophical nature. He died, with great piety 
 and gratitude to God ; as a proof of his pious sentiments, it 
 may be mentioned that he brought forward a motion, which 
 was unsuccessful, that the deliberations of the legislature 
 should always be preceded by prayers. He was to the time of 
 his death engaged in several humane undertakings, particularly 
 with regard to prisons, and slavery ; like Jefferson he disbe- 
 lieved the divine origin* of the Christian rehgion, but never 
 took any pains to propagate liis opinions on the subject. 
 
 Jefferson, who was the individual that drew the Declaration 
 of Independence, lived to be invited to the fiftieth anniversary 
 of the establishment of American Independence in June 1826. 
 He and Adams differed in their representations as to some 
 historical circumstances coimected with the union, forty- seven 
 years after the event : On that occasion he observes, that 
 Adams was then 88 and himself 80, so that either of their 
 memories might be liable to impeachment, but that he had the 
 possession of notes which he took at the time. Jefferson was 
 2 B 2 
 
183 THE AGES OP HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 61 years in the public service. He held the office of President 
 after he was sixty years of age. Among his letters, after he 
 was seventy, we find one to Adams in which he mentions that 
 there were not above half a dozen persons living besides them- 
 selves who had signed the Declaration of Independence. In 
 the course of the same letter, he says, after observing that 
 France was a den of Robbers and England a nest of Pirates — 
 " But whither would senile garrulity be leading me } Into 
 politics of which I have taken final leave. I think little of 
 them and say less. I have given up newspapers in exchange 
 for Tacitus and Thacydides, for Newton and Euclid, and I 
 find myself much happier. I live in the midst of my grand- 
 children, one of whom has lately promoted me to be a great- 
 grandfather." The pleasure of being a great-grandfather will 
 be clearly admitted to be peculiar to old age. 
 
 According to the law of America, Functionaries holding 
 high judicial offices are obliged to vacate them on attaining the 
 age of sixty. This happened to Chancellor Kent, one of the 
 most eminent of American Jurists — on his retirement from 
 the highest judicial station in America on account of his age, 
 he assumed the duties of a Professor of Law. His lectures or 
 commentaries, which have been published, would afford as 
 good an answer as that given by Sophocles, when his rela- 
 tives instituted a process to take from him the management of 
 his afikirs on account of his old age : That Poet read the 
 Judges some lines from his unfinished jEdipus Coloneus, 
 
 We should exceed the limits of this work, were we to describe 
 the favorable incidents in the old age of distinguished indivi- 
 duals of our own country, following the example of Cicero, 
 with regard to the Greeks and Romans, in the treatise De 
 Senectute. I will in conclusion of this subject only refer to 
 
THE AGES OP HUMAN LIFE. 189 
 
 the lives of two Englishmen who have, perhaps, acquired 
 more fame than any of our countrymen in foreign embassies. 
 Sir H. Wotton and Sir W. Temple. 
 
 Sir H. Wotton's life is written by Isaac Walton, the cele- 
 brated Angler. At the age of 57 he was made Provost of 
 Eton ; he lived to the age of 72. There is a well known let- 
 ter of his to Milton, giving the poet directions for travelhng, 
 And praising his Comus, which had been just published. He 
 occupied himself in writing a life of Luther, till King Charles 
 induced him to lay it aside, and undertake a history of Eng- 
 land. There is a curious circumstance in Wotton's life which 
 may, perhaps, be adducible as an instance of the partial fai- 
 lure of memory in old people. His epitaph, composed by 
 himself, may, at this day, be seen in the Chapel of Eton Col- 
 lege. It is this. 
 
 Hie jacet 
 Hujus sententise primus auctor. 
 Disputandi pruritus est ecclesiarum scabies. 
 Nomen alias quaere. 
 
 It appears that, contrary to his assertion, he was not the 
 first author of the sentiment by which he was desirous of 
 being known to posterity. Isaac Walton's observations on the 
 matter are amusing. " Grant that in his various reading he 
 had met with this or a like sentence, yet reason mixed with 
 charity should persuade all readers to believe, that Sir H. 
 Wotton's mind was then so fixed on that part of the commu- 
 nion of saints which is above, that an holy lethargy did sur- 
 prize his memory." Sir H. Wotton was rather unfortunate 
 in his apothegms. His definition of an Ambassador, " A per- 
 son sent to lie abroad for the benefit of his country," was well 
 nigh closing abruptly his diplomatic career, soon after it had 
 
190 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 commenced. But he appears to have spent the last years of 
 his life most agreeably. — " Eton College," Walton says, " was 
 to Sir H. Wotton hke a quiet harbour to a seafaring man." 
 He does not fail to notice the Provost's propensity iov fishing : 
 It was another of SirH. Wotton's apothegms, that " he 
 would rather live five May months, than forty Decembers." 
 
 Sir W. Temple terminated his diplomatic career at the age 
 of 47, after which he addicted himself to literary pursuits 
 and gardening. His compositions during this period still 
 rank among the most approved models of English composition, 
 holding a middle place between Tillotson and Addison in re- 
 gard to ornament, and following with both of them, the sim- 
 ple style of writing. He had a peculiar talent of preserving 
 with his readers the ease and interest of familiar conversation. 
 It is well known that Swift, when a young man, was an inmate 
 at Sir W. Temple's house, and had a legacy of £100, from 
 him ; he had also the charge of Sir W. Temple's posthumous 
 papers. In gardening, in literature, in neutrality under the 
 various circumstances connected with the revolution. Temple 
 and Evelyn much resembled each other ; their country resi- 
 dences w^ere both in Surrey, and not far distant, and yet 
 there are no traces of any acquaintance between them . After 
 twenty years of active public service. Sir W. Temple enjoyed 
 nineteen years of literary retirement, stedfastly refusing all 
 temptations of office. His will contains the following 
 clause — " I desire that my heart may be interred six feet 
 under ground on the south-east side of the stone dial in my 
 little garden at Moor Park." 
 
 It may be observed that several instances of persons wish- 
 ing to be buried in their own grounds have occurred within 
 memory — Baskerville the printer and Hollis the munifi- 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 191 
 
 cent publisher were so buried — Home Tooke's wishes in this 
 respect were not complied with ; though he had composed an 
 epitaph, in which he styles himself " late proprietor, and now 
 occupier of this spot." Home Tooke died at 77, holding his 
 literary and philosophical parties till the last : Like Evelyn, he 
 paid great attention to the rearing of fruit at Wimbledon, where 
 he retired after a life of political agitation, including a trial for 
 high treason. 
 
 This chapter may be properly concluded by adverting to 
 those contemplations which are so becoming in old age, and 
 which inaptitude for active pm'suits, and the experience of the 
 vanity of the principal objects of human competition enable 
 the aged to pursue more willingly and steadily. It has been 
 said, indeed, by Dr. Young, in his Night Thoughts, that the 
 first suspicion even which mankind have of their real character 
 and fit appellation does not occur before the age of 30. 
 
 <• 
 
 At thirty man suspects himself a /oo/; 
 Knows it diX forty. 
 
 Swift, in his Puppet-show, agrees that the suspicion of the 
 man of thirty is well bounded ; this poem presents another 
 version of " All the world's a stage." 
 
 The life of man to represent 
 
 And turn it all to ridicule, 
 Wit did a Puppet-show invent, 
 
 Where the chief actor is a Fool. 
 
 Barrow thus expresses himself on this subject. 
 
 •' As a ship which hath long been tost and weather-beaten, 
 which is shattered in its timber, and hath lost much of its rig- 
 ging, should do nothing in that case but work towards the 
 port, there to find its safety and ease ; so should a man, who 
 
192 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 having passed many storms and agitations of the world, is 
 grievously battered and torn with age, strive only to die well, 
 and get safe into the harbour of eternal rest." 
 
 Poetry has shed a pleasing light on this state of contempla- 
 tive exclusion, under the imaginary pictures of hermits and 
 hermitages. — A person indeed, who, in the present day, 
 should turn hermit, would probably find his friends removing 
 him from his hermitage to some cell of still closer confine- 
 ment. So a hair-shirt which was worn by Cardinal Wolsey, 
 and many old religious persons in former times would, in the 
 present day, be sometimes exchanged for a straight waist- 
 coat. 
 
 But every elderly person will have strong inducements to 
 build a hermitage in his own breast, to which he may occasi- 
 onally retire from the world. On the subject of hermitages 
 Milton thus concludes his II Penseroso. 
 
 And may at last my weary age 
 Find out a peaceful hermitage. 
 The hairy gown and mossy cell, 
 Where I may sit, and rightly spell 
 Of every star that heaven doth shew. 
 And every herb that sips the dew, 
 Till old experience doth attain, 
 To something like prophetic strain. 
 
 A hermit's invitation and a view of his dwelling is given by 
 Goldsmith with that simplicity, and picturesque description, 
 heightened by touches of a tender and moral kind, in which 
 he is unrivalled. 
 
 Then turn to-night, and freely share 
 
 Whate'er my cell bestows, 
 My rushy couch and frugal fare, 
 
 My blessing and repose. 
 
THE AGES 0"F HUMAN LIFE. 193 
 
 No flocks that range the valley free 
 
 To slaughter I condemn, 
 Taught by that power that pities me 
 
 I learn to pity them. 
 
 But from the mountain's grassy side 
 
 A guiltless feast I bring ; 
 A scrip with herbs and fruits supplied, 
 
 And water from the spring. 
 
 Far in a wilderness obscure 
 
 The lonely mansion lay ; 
 A refuge to the neighbouring poor, 
 
 And strangers led astray. 
 
 No stores beneath its humble thatch 
 
 Required a master's care ; 
 The wicket opening with a latch 
 
 Received the harmless pair. 
 
 And now, when busy crowds retire 
 
 To take their evening rest. 
 The hermit trimrn'd his little fire. 
 
 And cheer'd his pensive guest ; 
 
 And spread his vegetable store. 
 
 And gaily pressed and smil'd, 
 A nd skill'd in legendary lore. 
 
 The lingering hours beguiled. 
 
 Around in sympathetic mirth 
 
 Its tricks the kitten tries, 
 The cricket chirrups from the hearth 
 
 The crackling faggot flies. 
 
 The following description by Warton is perhaps the most 
 
 complete which our poetry presents : 
 
 Beneath this stony roof reclin'd 
 1 sooth to peace my pensive mind : 
 And while to shed my lowly cave, 
 Embow'ring elms their umbrage wave ; 
 
 •2 c 
 
194 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE- 
 
 And while the maple dish is mine ; 
 The beechen cup, unstain'd with wine ; 
 I scorn the gay licentious crowd, 
 Nor heed the toys that deck the proud. 
 
 Within my limits lone and still, 
 The black-bird pipes in artless trill. 
 Fast by my couch, congenial guest, 
 The wren has wove her mossy nest ; 
 From busy scenes and brighter skies. 
 To lurk with innocence, she flies ; 
 Here hopes in safe repose to dwell, 
 Nor aught suspects the Sylvan cell. 
 
 At morn I take my customed round, 
 To mark how buds yon shrubby mound ; 
 And every opening primrose count 
 'J^hat trimly paints my blooming mount . 
 Or o'er the sculptures, quaint and rude, 
 That grace my gloomy solitude, 
 I teach in winding wreaths to stray 
 Fantastic ivy's gadding spray. 
 
 At eve, within yon studious nook, 
 
 I ope my brass-embossed book, 
 
 Pourtrayed with many a holy deed 
 
 Of martyrs, crown'd with heavenly meed 
 
 Then as my taper waxes dim. 
 
 Chant, ere I sleep, my measur'd hymn ; 
 
 And, at the close, the gleams behold 
 
 Of parting wings bedropt with gold. 
 
 While such pure joys my bliss create. 
 Who but would smile at guilty state ? 
 Who but would wish his holy lot 
 In calm oblivion's humble grot? 
 Who but would cast his pomp away, 
 To take my staff and amice gray ; 
 And to the world's tumultuous stage 
 Prefer the blameless hermitage ? 
 
THE AGES OP HUMAN LIFE. 195 
 
 Beattie wrote a poem called the Hermit ; and he introduces 
 a hermit into his Minstrel. Spenser has also described a her- 
 mitage. We have quoted from Parnell's Hermit in our chap- 
 ter on Infancy and Childhood. So that our Poets have not 
 been wanting in their allurements, under the fanciful pictures 
 of hermits and hermitages — to self-communion, and the con- 
 templation of nature, and nature's omnipotent Architect. 
 
 In ancient times the hermits of real life were not always 
 old ; age had in fact little to do with their fanaticism. It may 
 be interesting to take a view of the first hermits, described 
 by Gibbon in a manner which few writers of ancient or modern 
 history could have rivalled. 
 
 " The monks were divided into two classes : the Coenobites, 
 who lived under a common, and regular, discipline ; and the 
 Anchorets, who indulged their unsocial, independent, fanati- 
 cism. The most devout, or the most ambitious, of the spiri- 
 tual brethren, renounced the convent, as they had renounced 
 the world. The fervent monasteries of Egypt, Palestine, and 
 Syria, were surrounded by a Laura, a distant circle of solitary 
 cells ; and the extravagant penance of the Hermits was sti- 
 mulated by applause "and emulation. They sunk under the 
 painful weight of crosses and chains ; and their emaciated 
 limbs were confined by collars, bracelets, gauntlets, and 
 greaves of massy, and rigid iron. All superfluous incum- 
 brance of dress they contemptuously cast away ; and some 
 savage saints of both sexes have been admired, whose naked 
 bodies were only covered by their long hair. They aspired 
 to reduce themselves to the rude and miserable state in which 
 the human brute is scarcely distinguished above his kindred 
 animals : and a numerous sect of Anchorets derived their 
 name from their humble practice of grazing in the fields of 
 2 c 2 
 
196 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 Mesopotamia with the common herd. They often usurped the 
 den of some wild beasts whom they aiFected to resemble ; 
 they buried themselves in some gloomy cavern which art or 
 nature had scooped out of the rock ; and the marble quarries 
 of Thebais are still inscribed with the monuments of their 
 penance. The most perfect hermits are supposed to have 
 passed many days without food, many nights without sleep, 
 and many years without speaking ; and glorious was the man 
 (I abuse that name) who contrived any cell, or seat, of a pecu- 
 liar construction which might expose him, in the most incon- 
 venient posture, to the inclemency of the seasons. 
 
 " Among these heroes of the monastic life, the name and 
 genius of Simeon Stylites have been immortalized by the sin- 
 gular invention of an aerial penance. At the age of thirteen, 
 the young Syrian deserted the profession of a shepherd, and 
 threw himself into an austere monastery. After a long and 
 painful noviciate, in which Simeon was repeatedly saved from 
 pious suicide, he established his residence on a mountain about 
 thirty or forty miles to the east of Antioch. Within the 
 space of a mandara, or circle of stones, to which he had at- 
 tached himself by a ponderous chain, he ascended a column, 
 which was successively raised from the height of nine, to that 
 of sixty feet, from the ground. In this last, and lofty, sta- 
 tion, the Syrian Anchoret resisted the heat of thirty summers 
 and the cold of as many winters. Habit and exercise 
 instructed him to maintain his dangerous situation without 
 fear or giddiness, and successively to assume the different 
 postures of dtvotion. He sometimes prayed in an erect atti- 
 tude, with his out- stretched arms, in the figure of a cross ; but 
 his most familiar practice was that of bending his meagre ske- 
 leton from the forehead to the feet ; and a curious spectator. 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 197 
 
 after numbering twelve hundred and forty-four repetitions, at 
 length desisted from the endless account. The progress of 
 an ulcer in his thigh might shorten, but it could not disturb, 
 this celestial life, and the patient hermit expired, without 
 descending from his column. I must not conceal a piece of 
 ancient scandal concerning the origin of this ulcer. It has 
 been reported, that the devil, assuming an angelic form, invit- 
 ed him to ascend, like Elijah, into a fiery chariot. The 
 saint too hastily raised his foot, and Satan seized the moment 
 of inflicting this chastisement on his vanity.* 
 
 " A prince who should capriciously inflict such tortures, 
 would be deemed a tyrant ; but it would surpass the power of a 
 tyrant, to impose a long and miserable existence on the reluc- 
 tant victims of his cruelty. This voluntary martyrdom must 
 have gradually destroyed the sensibility both of the mind and 
 body ; nor can it be presumed that the fanatics, who torment 
 themselves, are susceptible of any lively affection for the rest 
 of mankind. A cruel unfeeling temper has distinguished the 
 monks of every age and country : their stern indifference, 
 which is seldom mollified by personal friendship, is inflamed 
 by religious hatred ; ami their merciless zeal has strenously 
 administered the holy ofiice of the Inquisition." 
 
 But the hermits of imagination are always represented as 
 very old — this will be apparent from Gil Bias's account of the 
 two gaol-birds who set up for hermits : — 
 
 " En meme temps nous decouvrimes et gagnames une 
 allee d'arbres assez touffus, qui nous conduisit au pied 
 
 * Whoever wishes to observe the utmost limits of human presump- 
 tion, will find them in the lives of persons, who leaving to the partakers 
 of amusements they call prophane, the adoration of the Supreme Being, for 
 their elected selves have challenged his familiarity. Numerous examples 
 of this kind of impudence occur in the lives of Wesley and Wilberforce. 
 
198 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 d'une montagne oii nous trouvames un Ermitage. C'etoit 
 une grande et profonde grotte que le temps avoit percee 
 dans la montagne ; et la main des hommes y avoit ajout^ 
 un avant-corps de logis beiti de rocailles et de coquillages, et 
 tout couvert de gazon. Les environs etoient parsemes de mille 
 sortes de fleurs qui parfuraoient I'air ; et Ton voyoit aupres de 
 la grotte une petite ouverture dans la montagne, par oii 
 sortoit avec bruit une source d'eau qui couroit se repandre dans 
 une prairie. II y avoit a I'entree de cette maison solitaire un 
 bon ermite qui paroissoit accable de vieillesse. II s'appuyoit 
 d'une main sur un baton, et de I'autre il tenoit un rosaire a 
 gros grains, de vingt dizaines pour le moins. II avoit la tete 
 enfoncee dans un bonnet de laine brune a longues oreilles ; et 
 sa barbe, plus blanche que la neige, lui descendoit jusqu'a la 
 ceinture. Nous nous approchames de lui. " Mon pere, lui dis- 
 je, vous voulez bien que nous vous deraandions un asile centre 
 I'orage qui nous menace ? — Venez, mes enfants, repondit I'ana- 
 chorete, apres m'avoir regarde avec attention ; cet ermitage 
 vous est ouvert, et vous y pourrez demeurer tant qu'il vous 
 plaira. — Pour votre cheval, ajouta-t-il en nous montrant I'avant- 
 corps de logis, il sera fort bien la. Le cavalier qui m'accompag- 
 noit y fit entrer son cheval, et nous suivimes le vieillard dans la 
 grotte." Nous n'y fumes pas plus tot qu'il tomba une grosse 
 pluie, entremelee d'eclairs et de coups de tonnerre epouvanta- 
 bles. L'ermite se mita genoux devant une image de saint Paco- 
 me qui etoit collee centre le mur, et nous en fimes autant a son 
 exemple. Cependant le tonnerre cessa : nous nous levames ; 
 mais, comme la pluie continuait, et que la nuit n'etoit pas forte 
 eloignee, le vieillard nous dit : " Mes enfants, je ne vous con- 
 seille pas de vous remettre en chemin par ce temps-la, a moins 
 que vous u'ayez des affaires bien pressantes." Nous repon- 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 199 
 
 dimes, le jeune homme et moi, que nous n'en avions point qui 
 nous defendissent de nous arreter, et que si nous n'appre- 
 hendions pas de rincommoder, nous le prierions de nous laisser 
 passer la nuit dans son ermitage. — " Vous ne m'incommoderez 
 point, repliqua Termite : c'estvous seuls qu'il faut plaindre. Vous 
 serez fort mal couches, et je n'ai a vous offrir qu'un repas d'ana- 
 chorete." Apres avoir ainsi parle, le saint homme nous fit asseoir 
 a une petite table ; et, nous presentant quelques ciboules, avec 
 un morceau de pain et une cruche d'eau : " Mes enfants, reprit- 
 il, vous voyez mes repas ordinaires ; mais je veux aujourd'hui 
 faire un exces pour I'amour de vous." A ces mots il alia cher- 
 cher un peu de fromage et deux poignees de noisettes qu'il 
 etala sur la table. Le jeune homme, qui n'avoit pas grand ap- 
 petit, ne fit guere d'honneur a ces mets. " Je m'apercois," lui 
 dit Termite, " que vous etes accoutume a de meilleures tables 
 que la mienne, ou plutot que la sensualite a corrompu votre 
 gout naturel. J'ai ete comme vous dans le monde : les viandes 
 les plus delicates, les ragouts les plus exquis n'etoient pas trop 
 bons pour moi; mais, depuis que je vis dans la solitude, j'ai 
 rendu a mon gout toute sa purete. Je n'aime presentement 
 que les racines, les fruits, le lait, en un mot, ce qui faisoit la 
 nourriture de nos premiers peres " Tandis qu'il parloit de la 
 sorte le jeune homme tomba dans une profonde reverie. L'er- 
 mites'en apercut. '* Mon fils," lui dit-il, ''vous avez Tesprit 
 embarrasse : ne puis-je pas savoir ce qui vous occupe } Ouvrez- 
 raoi votre cceur. Ce n'est point par curiosite que je vous en 
 presse; c'est la seule charite qui m'anime. Je suis dans un 
 age a donner des conseils, et vous etes peut-etre dans une 
 situation a en avoir besoin." — " Oui, moii pere, repondit le 
 cavalier en soupirant : j'en ai besoin sans doute, et je veux 
 suivre les votres, puisque vous avez la bonte de me les ofi'rir. 
 
200 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 Je crois que je ne risque rien a me decouvrir a un homme 
 tel que vous." — " Non, mon fils," dit le vieillard, " vous n'avez 
 rien a craindre ; on me peut faire toutes sortes de con- 
 fidences." Alors le cavalier lui park en ces termes. 
 
 Quand don Alphonse eut aclieve le triste recit de ses mal- 
 heurs, le vieil ermite lui dit : '* Mon fils, vous avez eu bien de 
 I'imprudence de demeurer si longtemps a Tolede. Je regarde 
 d'un autre oeil que vous tout ce que vous m'avez raconte, et 
 votre amour pour Seraphine me paroit une pure folie. Croyez- 
 moi, il faut oublier cette jeune dame, qui ne sauroit etre a vous. 
 C^dez de bonne grace aux obstacles qui vous separent d'elle, 
 et vous livrez a votre etoile, qui, selon toutes les apparences, 
 vous promet bien d'autres aventures, Vous trouverez 
 sans doute quelque jeune personne qui fera sur vous la 
 m^me impression, et dont vous n'aurez pas tue le frere." 
 II alloit ajouter a cela beaucoup d'autres choses pour ex- 
 horter don Alphonse a prendre patience, lorsque nous vimes 
 entrer dans I'ermitage un autre ermite charge d'une besace 
 fort enflee. II revenoit de faire une copieuse quete dans la 
 ville de Cuenca. II paroissoit plusjeune que son compagnon, 
 et il avoit une barbe rousse et fort epaisse. " Soyez le bien- 
 venu, frere Antoine, lui dit la vieil anachorete : quelles nou- 
 velles apportez-vous de le ville ? — D'assez mauvaises, repondit 
 le frere rousseau en lui mettant entre les mains un papier plie 
 en forme de lettre ; ce billet va vous en instruire." Le vieillard 
 I'ouvrit, et, apres I'avoir lu avec toute I'attention qu'il meri- 
 toit, il s'ecria : " Dieu soit loue ! puisque la meche est decou- 
 verte, nous n'avons qu'a prendre notre parti. Changeons de 
 style," poursuivit-il, seigneur don Alphonse, en adressant la 
 parole au jeune cavidier ; "vous voyez un homme en butte 
 commc vous aux cai)riccs dc la fortune. On mc mande de 
 
THE AGES OP HUMAN LIFE. 201 
 
 Cuenca, qui est une ville a une lieue d'ici, qu'on m'a noirci 
 dans I'esprit de la justice, dont tous les suppots doivent des 
 demain se mettre en campagne pour venir dans cet erraitage 
 s'assurer de ma personne. Mais ils ne trouveront point le lievre 
 au gite. Ce n'est pas la premiere fois que je me suis vu 
 dans de pareils embarras ; grace a Dieu, je m'en suis presque 
 toujours tire en homme d'esprit. Je vais me montrer 
 sous une nouvelle forme ; car, tel que vous me voyez, 
 je ne suis rien moins qu'un ermite et qu'un vieillard." 
 En parlant de cette maniere, il se depouilla de la longue 
 robe qu'il portoit, et Ton vit, dessous, un pourpoint de serge 
 noire avec des manches tailladees. Puis il ota son bonnet, 
 d^tacha un cordon qui tenoit sa barbe postiche, et prit tout a 
 coup la figure d'un homme de vingt-huit a trente ans. Le frere 
 Antoine, a son exemple, quitta son habit d'ermite, se defit, de 
 la meme maniere que son compagnon, de sa barbe rousse, et tira 
 d'un vieux cofFre de bois, a demi pourri, une mechante soutanelle 
 dont il se revetit. Mais representez-vous ma surprise lorsque 
 je reconnus dans le vieil anachorete le seigneur don Raphael, 
 et dans le frere Antoine mon tres-cheret tres-fidele valet 
 Ambroise de Lamela. "Vive* Dieu! m'ecriai-je aussitot, je 
 suis ici, a ce que je vois, en pays de connoissance." — " Cela est 
 vrai, seigneur Gil Bias, me dit don Raphael en riant ; vous 
 retrouvez deux de vos amis lorsque vous vous y attendiez le 
 moins. Je conviens que vous avez quelque sujet de vous 
 plaindre de nous ; mais oublions le passe, et rendons graces au 
 ciel qui nous rassemble. Ambroise et moi nous vous ofFrons nos 
 services ; ils ne sont point a mepriser. Ne nous croyez point 
 de mechantes gens. Nous n'attaquons, nous n'assassinons per- 
 sonne ; nous ne cherchons seulement qu'a vivre aux depens 
 d'autrui ; et si voler est une action injuste, la necessite en cor- 
 2 D 
 
202 THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 rige I'injustice. Associez-vous avec nous, et vous m^nerez une 
 vie errante. C'est un genre de vie fort agreable quand on sait 
 se conduire prudemraent. Ce n'est pas que, malgre toute notre 
 prudence, renchainement des causes secondes ne soittelquel- 
 quefois qu'il nous arrive de mauvaises aventures. N'importe, 
 nous en trouvons les bonnes meilleures. Nous sommes ac- 
 coutumes a la variete des temps, aux alternatives de la fortune," 
 " Seigneur cavalier, poursuivit le faux ermite en parlant a 
 don Alphonse, nous vous faisons la meme proposition, et je ne 
 crois pas que vous deviez la rejeter, dans la situation ou vous 
 paroissez etre ; car, sans parler de I'affaire qui vous oblige a 
 vous cacher, vous n'avez pas sans doute beaucoup d' argent ? — 
 Non, vraiment, dit don Alphonse ; et cela, je I'avoue, aug- 
 mente mes chagrins. — Eh bien ! reprit don Raphael, ne nous 
 quittez done point : vous ne sauriez mieux faire que de vous 
 joindre a nous. Rien ne vous manquera,et nous rendrons inutiles 
 toutesles recherches de vos ennemis. Nous connoissons presque 
 toute I'Espagne, pour I'avoir parcourue ; nous savons ou sont les 
 bois, les montagnes, tous les endroits propres a servir d'asile 
 centre les brutalites de la justice." Don Alphonse les remer- 
 cia de leur bonne volonte ; et, se trouvant efFectivement sans 
 argent, sans ressource, il se resolut a les accompagner. Je m'y 
 determinai aussi, parce que je ne voulus point quitter ce jeune 
 homme, pour qui je me sentis naitre beaucoup d'inclination. 
 Nous convinmes tous quatre d'aller ensemble, et de ne nous 
 point separer. II fut mis en deliberation si nous partirions a 
 I'heure meme, ou si nous donnerions auparavant quelques 
 atteintes a une outre pleine d'un excellent vin que le frere 
 Antoine avoit apportee de la ville de Cuenca le jour prece- 
 dent: mais Raphael, comme celui qui avoit le plus d'experience, 
 representa qu'il falloit, avant toutes choses, penser a notre 
 
THE AGES OF HUMAN LIFE. 203 
 
 stirete ; qu'il etoit d'avis que nous marchassions toute la nuit 
 pour gagner un bois fort epais qui etoit entre Villardesa et 
 Almodabar ; que nous ferions halte en cet endroit, oil, nous 
 voyant sans inquietude, nous passerions la journee a nous re- 
 poser. Cet avis fut approuve. Alors les faux ermites firent 
 deux paquets de toutes les hardes et provisions qu'ils avoient, 
 et les mirent en equilibre sur le cheval de don Alphonse. Cela 
 se fit avec une extreme diligence. Apres quoi nous nous 
 ^loignames de Termitage, laissant en proie a la justice les deux 
 robes d'ermite, avec la barbe blanche et la barbe rousse, deux 
 grabats, une table, un mauvais coffre, deux vieilles chaises de 
 paille, et I'image de saint Pacome. 
 
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