440 WISDOM OF THE ANCIENTS. 



promising youths, who, like sons of the morning, elate with empty 

 hopes and glittering outsidcs, attempt things beyond their strength : 

 challenge the bravest heroes ; provoke them to the combat ; and 

 proving unequal, die in their high attempts. 



The death of such youths seldom fails to meet with infinite pity ; 

 as no mortal calamity is more moving and afflicting, than to see the 

 flower of virtue cropped before its time. Nay, the prime of life en 

 joyed to the full, or even to a degree of envy, does not assuage or 

 moderate the grief occasioned by the untimely death of such hopeful 

 youths ; but lamentations and bewailings fly, like mournful birds, 

 about their tombs, for a long while after ; especially jpon all fresh 

 occasions, new commotions, and the beginning of great actions, the 

 passionate desire of them is renewed, as by the sun s morning rays. 



XIII. THE FABLE OF TYTHONUS. 



EXPLAINED OF PREDOMINANT PASSIONS. 



IT is elegantly fabled by Tythonus, that being exceedingly beloved 

 by Aurora, she petitioned Jupiter that he might prove immortal, 

 thereby to secure herself the everlasting enjoyment of his company ; 

 but through female inadvertence she forgot to add, that he might 

 never grow old; so that, though he proved immortal, he became 

 miserably worn and consumed with age, insomuch that Jupiter, out of 

 pity, at length transformed him to a grasshopper. 



EXPLANATION. This fable seems to contain an ingenious de 

 scription of pleasure ; which at first, as it were in the morning of the 

 day, is so welcome, that men \.ny to have it everlasting, but forget 

 that satiety and weariness of it &quot;will, like old age, overtake them, 

 though they think not of it ; so that a length, when their appetite for 

 pleasurable actions is gone, their desires and affections often continue ; 

 whence we commonly find that aged persons delight themselves with 

 the discourse and remembrance of the things agreeable to them in 

 their better days. This is very remarkable in men of a loose, and 

 men of a military life; the former whereof are always talking over 

 their amours, and the latter the exploits of their youth ; like grass 

 hoppers, that show their vigour only by their chirping. 



XIV. THE FABLE OF NARCISSUS. 



EXPLAINED OF SELF-LOVE. 



NARCISSUS is said to have been extremely beautiful and comely, 

 but intoleraWy proud and disdainful ; so that, pleased with himself, 

 and scorning the world, he led a solitary life in the woods ; hunting 



