ESSAYS. 



ESSAY 11. 



AGE, that lessens the enjoyment of life, 

 increases our desire of living. Tliose dan- 

 gers which, in the vigour of youth, we had 

 learned to despise, assume new terrors as we 

 trow old. Our caution increasing as our 

 years increase, fear becomes at last the pre- 

 vailing passion of the mind ; and the small 

 remainder of lite is taken up in useless efforts 

 to keep off our end, or provide fora continu- 

 ed existence. 



Strange contradiction in our nature, and to 

 which even the wise are liable! If 'I should 

 judge of that part of life which lies before me 

 bv that which I have already seen, the pros- 

 pect is hideous. Experience tells me, that 

 my past enjoyments have brought no real fe- 

 licity ; and sensation assures me, that those 

 1 have felt are stronger than those which are 

 yet to come. Yet experience and sensation 

 in vain persuade ; hope, more powerful than 

 either, dresses out the distant prospect in 

 fancied beauty; some happiness, in long per- 

 spective, still beckons me to pursue ; and, 

 like a losing gamester, every new disap- 

 pointment increases my ardour to continue 

 the game. 



Whence then is this increased love of life, 

 which grows upon us with our years; whence 

 comes it, that we thus make greater efforts to 

 preserve our existence, at a period when it 

 becomes scarce worth keeping? Is it that 

 nature, attentive to the preservation of man- 

 kind, increases our wishes to live, while she 

 lessens our enjoyments; and, as she robs the 

 senses of every pleasure, equips imagination 

 in the spoils ? Life would be insupportable 

 to an old man, who, loaded with infirmities, 

 feared death no more than when in the vigour 

 of manhood ; the numberless calamities of 

 decaying nature; and the consciousness of 

 surviving every pleasure, would at once in- 

 duce him, with his own hand, to terminate 

 the scene of misery; but happily tiie con- 



tempt of death forsakes him at a time when it 

 could only be prejudicial; and life requires 

 an imaginary value, in proportion as its real 

 value is no more. 



Our attachment to every object around us 

 increases, in general, from the length of our 

 acquaintance with it. ' 1 would not choose,' 

 says a French philosopher, ' to see an old 

 post pulled up with which I had been long 

 acquainted.' A mind long habituated to a 

 certain set of objects, insensibly becomes 

 fond of seeing them ; visits them from habit, 

 and parts from them with reluctance : from 

 hence proceeds the avarice of the old in 

 every kind of possession; they love the world 

 and all that it produces; they love life and 

 all its advantages; not because it gives them 

 pleasure, but because they have known it 

 long. 



Chinvang the Chaste, ascending the throne 

 of China, commanded that all who were un- 

 justly detained in prison, during the preced- 

 ing reigns, should be set free. Among the 

 number who came to thank their deliverer 

 on this occasion, there appeared a majestic 

 old man, who, falling at the emperor's feet, 

 addressed him as follows: 'Great father of 

 China, behold a wretch, now eighty-five years 

 old, who was shut up in a dungeon at the age 

 of twenty-two. I was imprisoned, though a 

 stranger to crime, or without being even con- 

 fronted by my accusers. I have now lived in 

 I solitudeand darkness for more than fifty years, 

 ! and am grown familiar with distress. As yet 

 j dazzled with the splendour of that sun to 

 which you have restored me, I have been 

 wandering the streets to find out some inentf 

 that would assist, or relieve, or remember me; 

 but my friends, my family, and relations, arc 

 all dead, and I am forgotten. Permit me 

 then, O Chinvang, to wear out the wretched 

 remains of my life in former prison ; the walls 

 of iuy dungeon are to me more pleasing than 

 6 C* 



