408 . HISTORY OF 



parched; a young man s body is erect and straight, an old 

 man s bowing and crooked ; a young man s limbs are 

 steady, an old man s weak and trembling ; the humours in 

 a young man are cholerick, and his blood inclined to heat, 

 in an old man phlegmatic and melancholic, and his blood 

 inclined to coldness ; a young man ready for the act of 

 Venus, an old man slow unto it; in a young man the 

 juices of his body are more roscid, in an old man more 

 crude and waterish ; the spirit in a youug man plentiful 

 and boiling, in an old man scarce and jejune ; a young 

 man s spirit is dense and vigorous, an old man s eager and 

 rare; a young man hath his senses quick and entire, an 

 old man dull and decayed ; a young man s teeth are strong 

 and entire, an old man s weak, worn, and fallen out ; a 

 young man s hair is coloured, an old man s (of what colour 

 soever it were) gray ; a young man hath hair, an old man 

 baldness ; a young man s pulse is stronger and quicker, an 

 old man s more confused and slower ; the diseases of young 

 men are more acute and curable, of old men longer, and 

 hard to cure ; a young man s wounds soon close, an old 

 man s later ; a young man s cheeks are of a fresh colour, 

 an old man s pale, or with a black blood : a young man is 

 less troubled with rheums, an old man more. Neither do 

 we know in what things old men do improve, as touching 

 their body, save only sometimes in fatness ; whereof the 

 reason is soon given, because old men s bodies do neither 

 perspire well, nor assimilate well. Now fatness is nothing 

 else but an exuberance of nourishment above that which is 

 voided by excrement, or which is perfectly assimilated. 

 Also some old men improve in the appetite of feeding, by 

 reason of the acid humours, though old men digest worst. 

 And all these things which we have said, physicians neg 

 ligently enough will refer to the diminution of the natural 

 heat and radical moisture, which are things of no worth 

 for use. This is certain, dryness in the coming on of years 

 doth forego coldness ; and bodies, when they come to the 

 top and strength of heat, do decline in dryness, and after 

 that follows coldness. 



3. Now we are to consider the affections of the mind. I 

 remember when I was a young man, at Poictiers in France, 

 I conversed familiarly with a certain Frenchman, a witty 

 young man, but something talkative, who afterwards grew 

 to be a very eminent man ; he was wont to inveigh against 

 the manners of old men, and would say, that if their minds 

 could be seen as their bodies are, they would appear no less 

 deformed. Besides, being in love with his own wit, he 



