Numb. 5C. Saturday, Sept. 8, 1750.

Crtdebant hoc grande nesas, et mortt plandum,

Sijuxenit <vttulo rum affurrextrat, atque

Barbate cuicunqut putr, licet iffa videret

PIura demi sraga, et major el glandis acervot. J*r.

And had not men the hoary head rever'd,
And boys paid rev'rence when a man appeared,
Both must have died, though richer {kins they wore,
And saw more heaps of acorns in their store. Creech.

1HAVE always thought it the business of thofe who turn their speculations upon the living world, to commend the virtues, as well as to expofe the faults of their contemporaries, and to consute a false as well as to support a just accufation; not only because it is peculiarly the business of a monitor to keep his own reputation untainted, lest thofe who can once charge him with partiality, should indulge themselves asterwards in disbelieving him at pleasure; but because he may find real crimes sufficient to give sull employment to caution or repentance, without distracting the mind by needless scruples and vain solicitudes.

There are certain fixed and stated reproaches that one part of mankind has in all ages thrown upon another, which are regularly transmitted through continued successions, and which he that has once sufsered them is certain to use with the fame undistinguishing vehemence, when he has changed his station, and gained the prescriptive right of inflicting •n others, what he had formerly endured himself. 6 To

To these heredirary imputations, of which no man sees the justice, till it becomes his interest to see it, vers little regard is to be shewn; since it does not appear that they are produced by ratiocination or enquiry, but received implicitly, or caught by a kind of instantaneous contagion, and supported rather by willingness to credit than ability to prove them.

It has been always the practice of thofe who are desirous to believe themselves made venerable by length of timei to censure the new comers into life, for want of respect to grey hairs and sage experience, for heady confidence in their own understandings, for hasty conclusions Upon partial views, fdr disregard of counsels, which their sathers and grandsires are ready t© afford them, and a rebellious impatience of that subordination to which youth is condemned by nature, as necessary to its security from evils into which it would be otherwise precipitated, by the mshnese of passion, and the blindness of ignorance.

ID

Every old man complains ofthe growing depravity os the world, of the petulance and insolence of the rising generation. He recounts the decency and regularity of former time?, and celebrates the discipline and sobriety of the age in which his youth was passed; a happy age which is now no more to be expected, since consusion has bro'cen in upon the world, and thrown down all the boundaries of civility and reverence.

It is not sufficiently considered how much he assumes who dares to claim the privilege of complaining: for as every man has, in his own opinion, a full share of the miseries of lise, he is inclined 60

consider consider all clamorous uneasiness, as a proof of impatience rather than of affliction, and to ask, What merit has this man to show, by which he has acquired a right to repine at the distributions of nature-? Or, why does he imagine that exemptions should be granted him from the general condition of man? We find ourselves excited rather to captiousness than pity, and instead of being in haste to sooth his complaints by sympathy and tenderness, we, enquire, whether the pain be proportionate to the lamentation; and whether; supposing the affliction real, it is not the effect of vice and folly, rather than calamity.

The queruloushess and indignation which is observed so often to disfigure the last scene of lise, na-^ turally leads us to enquiries like these* For surely it will be thought at the first view of things, that if age be thus contemned and ridiculed, insulted and neglected, the crime must at least be equal on either part. They who have had opportunities of establishing their authority over minds ductile and unresisting, they who have been the protectors of helplessness, and the instructors of ignorance, and who yet retain in their own hands the power of wealth, and the dignity of command, must deseat their influence by their own misconduct, and make use of all these advantages with very little skill, if they cannot secure to themselves an appearance of respect, and ward off open mockery, and declared contempt.

The general story of mankind will evince, that lawsul and settled authority is very seldom resisted when it is well employed. Grofs corruption, or cyident imbecility, is necessary to the suppression of

Vol. V. Y than chat reverence with which the majority of mankind look, upon their governors, on thofe whom they see furrounded by splendour, and fortified by power. For though men arc drawn by their passions into forgetsulness of invisible rewards and punishments, yet they are easily kept obedient to thole who have temporal dominion in their hands, till their veneration is dissipated by such wickedness and folly as can neither be desended nor concealed.

It may, therefore, very reasonably be suspected that the old draw upon themselves the greatest part of thofe insults, which they so much lament, and thac age is rarely despised but when it is contemptible. Ii men imagine that excess of debauchery can be made reverend by time, that knowledge is the coniequence of long lise however idly and thoughtlefsly employed, that priority of birth will supply the want of steadiness or honesty, can it raise much wonder that their hopes are disappointed, and that they see their posterity rather willing to trust their own eyes in their progress into lise, than enlist themselves under guides who have lost their way?

There are, indeed, many truths which time necessarily and certainl y- teaches, and which might, by thofe who have learned them from experience, be communicated to their successors at a cheaper rate: but dictates, though liber.dly enough bestowed, are generally without eftect, the teacher gains sew profelytes by instruction which his own behaviour contradicts; and young men miss the benefit of counsel, because they are not very ready to believe that thofe who sall below them in practice, can much excel them in theory. Thus the progress of knowledge is retarded, 5 "th« the world is kept long in the fame state, and every new race is to gain the prudence of their predecessors by committing and redressing the fame miscarriages.

To secure to the old that influence which they are -willing to claim, and which might so much contribute to the improvement of the arts of lise, it is absolutely necessary that they give themselves up to the duties of declining years; and contentedly resign to youth its levity, its pleasures, its frolicks, and its fopperies. It is a hopeless endeavour to unite the contrarieties of spring and winter; it is unjust to claim the privileges of age, and retain the playthings of childhood. The young always form magnificent 'ideas of the wisdom and gravity of men, whom they consider as placed at a distance from them in the ranks of existence, and naturally look on thofe whom they find trifling with long beards, with contempt and indignation, like that which women seel at the effeminacy of men. If dotards will contend with boys in thofe persormances in which boys must always excel them; is they will dress crippled limbs in em* broidery, endeavour at gaiety with faultering voices; and darken assemblies of pleasure with the ghastliness of disease, they may well expect thofe who find their diversions obstructed will hoot them away; and that is they descend to competition with youth, they must bear the insolence of sucesssul rivals.

Lujijiisatis, edijiisatis atque bibisti:
Terns us abire tibi est.

You've had your share of mirth, of meat and drink:
'Tis time to quit the scene—'tis time to think.

EtPHINSTON.

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