DE SENECTUTB. 59 



pass the latter part of his life with honor and decency, 

 must, when he is young, consider that he shall one 

 day be old ; and remember, when he is old, that he 

 has once been young. In youth he must lay up 

 knowledge for his support, when his power of action 

 shall forsake him ; and in age forbear to animadvert 

 with rigor on faults which experience only can cor- 

 rect." Spectator, contains the following words on the 

 topic under consideration : " As to all the rational 

 and worthy pleasures of our being, the conscience of 

 a good fame, the contemplation of another life, the 

 respect and commerce of honest men our capacities 

 for such enjoyments are enlarged by years. While 

 health endures, the latter part of life, in the eye of 

 reason, is certainly the more eligible. The memory 

 of a well spent youth gives a peaceable, unmixed, and 

 elegant pleasure to the mind; and those who are so 

 unfortunate as not to be able to look back on youth 

 with satisfaction, may give themselves no little conso- 

 lation that they are under no temptation to repeat 

 their follies, and that they at present despise them." 

 The consciousness of a life well spent, and the recol- 

 lection of charitable and noble deeds, render existence 

 more than tolerable they make it delightful ! All 

 men can not be Scipios nor Alexanders ; and few such 

 are long happy. A life passed in peace and comfort 

 is more desirable than one inflamed by the storming 

 of cities by land and sea, and in the ephemeral dis- 

 play of conducting triumphs. Plato, in his eighty -first 

 year, died with pen in hand, while expressing the 

 beauties of philosophy. Isocrates wrote brilliantly in 

 his ninety-fourth year, declaring that he had no reason 

 to whine over the infirmities of age. 



It is not becoming to regret the departure of what 



