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an unknown, grave. How often have I since exclaimed, with a heart-felt pang, Alas! why have we not in England such burial-places as that of Pere la Chaise ?

ESSAY VI.

ON GREY HAIRS.

"Sed in omni oratione, mementote, eam me laudare senectutem, quæ fundamentis adolescentiæ constituta sit: ex quo id efficitur (quod ego magno quondam cum assensu omnium dixi) Miseram esse senectutem, quæ se oratione defenderet. Non cani, non rugæ repentè auctoritatem afferre possunt, sed honestè acta superior ætas fructus capit auctoritatis extremos."

Cic. de Senectute, c. xviii.

"Mais souvenez-vous toujours, que je ne loue que la vieillesse qui s'appuie sur les fondemens jetés dans la jeunesse. D'où il s'ensuit, comme j'ai dit autrefois, au grand applaudissement de tout le monde, qu'elle est malheureuse quand elle allègue ses droits. Les rides, et les cheveux blancs, n'emportent pas l'autorité d'emblée; c'est le fruit de toute la vie, qu'on recueille dans l'arrière saison."

Traduction de M. Barett.

"GREY HAIRS!" Methinks I hear some juvenile reader exclaim, "it is too soon for me to begin to think about grey hairs." Yet pause for a moment, my young friend: to decline meditating on grey hairs until they appear more imme

diately to concern you, would be like neglecting to cultivate the fruits of the earth until the snow begins to fall; it will then be too late to begin : for as it is on the various operations of spring, summer, and autumn, that our provisions for the winter depends; so on the pursuits of childhood, youth, and manhood, all our expectations of good or evil, for the winter of life, must be founded. These seasons must infallibly tend, according to the manner in which we employ them, either to accelerate the weakness and exasperate the sufferings of age, or to adorn the decline of life with ease and honour, and invest its termination with peace. "On ne recueille dans un âge avancé, que ce qu'on a semé les premières années de la vie *." If it be inquired of me, in reply, whether it is judicious to cloud the brightest portion of life by anticipating the burden of thought which years, if granted to us, will bring with them, and preparing for old age, which we may, perhaps, never reach; I answer, that should you never attain to old age, there will be the greater need of having so employed your youth as to be duly prepared for it. Nor will so grave a contemplation damp

* Massillon.

the enjoyment of your earliest and happiest days; it will, on the contrary, promote their cheerfulness, by giving a steady aim to all your pursuits; and rapidly as your grey hairs are assuredly approaching, a young imagination is not likely to consider them so close at hand as to be overmuch impressed by the serious thoughts which such a subject may inspire.

Let us, then, bestow a few minutes on a topic which can never be unseasonable, and reflect on grey hairs, as they concern us in childhood, in youth, and in mature age.

During the years of childhood we lay the foundation of all that is to occupy those of youth; the bodily powers must be fostered and strengthened by judicious management, while alternate freedom and restraint habituate the mind, by degrees, to labour and reflection. It would involve us in unnecessary repetitions to prove that this careful cultivation is a positive and essential preparation for the coming of grey hairs. "A sound mind in a sound body" is not likely to be the result of a neglected childhood, nor without it can we anticipate a happy and respected old age.

Impressions received in childhood often endure when those of a later date fade from the memory;

many of us may find, amid the reminiscences belonging to our earliest days, some beloved and revered image, in whose features tenderness and goodness beam through wrinkles and grey hairs, which time cannot obliterate, and experience only teaches us to remember with encreased affection and pious reverence. Happy are those on whose memory so sacred an impression dwells: the cares and pleasures of the world may for a time supercede, but never can displace it; it will revive in the hour of solitude, in the day of trial; it will be their safeguard in temptation, their comfort in sorrow; they have imbibed, even in childhood, a lesson, and a solace, for their own grey hairs.

In the important and valuable season of youth the omissions of childhood may yet be supplied, the defects of early habit remedied, and all its good propensities confirmed; a store of new ideas and valuable information may be acquired, and pursuits adopted, which may give a direction to those of the whole life. Young persons are continually exhorted to treat old age with respect and reverence, and we may hope that the generality of them are predisposed to do so; yet the free exercise of reason ought to be permitted on this occasion, as it is inculcated on others; and can

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