dour must acknowledge that in proportion as grey hairs are entitled to reverence when they are a crown to virtue, sense, and decorum, so they do excite horror and pity when worn in conjunction with folly, levity, and vice. Can we blame the scorn with which the young behold those who have not availed themselves of the opportunities afforded by a long life to adorn their declining years with some redeeming excellences of greater worth than the attractive qualities of which time has bereaved them? Or can we doubt that age would always command consideration if it more generally deserved it? All those qualities which are beloved in youth and esteemed in manhood, all the virtues and accomplishments which adorn the morning and noon of life, tend also to render its evening placid, cheerful, and honourable; and a person who should have devoted his whole life to a continual preparation for old age, would be found to have reaped the most entire advantage of each progressive stage of existence.

If it be granted that the anticipation of grey hairs ought to occupy a portion even of our youthful thoughts, it will not be denied that they are the still more immediate concern of manhood. Yet, strange to say, the nearer old age advances,

the less we can bear to look it in the face. While it is at a distance, we banish the thoughts of it from our minds; but when we can no longer shut our eyes to its near approach, it fills us with dismay; and few will deny with how much dissatisfaction they have discovered their first grey hairs. Yet it is not the mere external alteration, the decline of youthful spirits, the change from vigour to feebleness of body, the faded cheek, or the encroaching wrinkle, that could render age contemptible, if the mind did not, unhappily, sympathize with the body in its decay. We should care very little whether our neighbour were strong or weak, handsome or ugly, clear-sighted or purblind; in fact the progress of age would be but little noticed, if the understanding did not, at the same time, become contracted, the reign of prejudice more despotic, and the temper less attuned to cheerfulness.

"Multa ferunt anni venientes commoda secum:

Multa recedentes adiniunt."

* Hor. Ep. ad Pis.

Le progrès des années apporte à l'homme de grands avantages;

leur déclin les lui ravit.

Traduc. Campenon et Dépres.

Unless it can be shewn by what means such mental decline may be prevented, the aged must be contented to owe to compassion that kindness which no longer springs from esteem. Neglect, at best, will be their portion, and all care for the respectability of their latter years is confessedly vain. Observe, my young friend, that every muscle and sinew of your frame encreases in strength while it is constantly exerted, but becomes feeble for want of proper exercise. The long disuse of any limb will deprive it of its strength for ever. Power, if not exerted, soon ceases to exist. This is true in morals and in politics as well as in physics; but it is eminently so as it regards the powers of the human understanding. In these there is no such thing as rest; you cannot attain to a certain point of improvement, and remain there? No, you must either advance or recede; and the retrograde motion is, unfortunately, the easier, and by far the most rapid, of the two. Does not this fact furnish us with a clue to the causes of the great mental imperfection so common in advanced life, and which may often be perceived long before the bodily powers begin to decay, or the faculties to sink under extreme old age? Many persons have never taken pains to

improve to the utmost the various powers of body and mind bestowed on them for their use and enjoyment; and, of those who have done so in their youth, very few consider it necessary to continue the pursuit of excellence after that brief season of improvement is past. Men are apt to think they have done enough, and rest contented with a certain portion of early cultivation, either suffering their understanding to fall into disuse, or applying all the vigour of their intellect solely to the care of their worldly estate. If they had filled their minds with half the pains they take for the filling of their purses, and, while careful to amass riches for the use of their old age, were equally solicitous to collect information, to cultivate liberal feelings, to enlarge their stock of ideas, and swell the catalogue of their good deeds, how dignified, how happy, how enviable were the situation of those whom time has crowned with grey hairs! It were then needless to exhort young men to treat age with reverence, since all must behold it with respect and affection, and all must wish to persevere in that course of life which alone can lead to so honourable a result.

To what pitch of improvement the human mind is capable of being carried is uncertain, and its

advancement varies, of course, according to its original vigour. But there can be no doubt that all of us might, by our own efforts, continue to improve during those years, in the course of which we commonly suffer our talents to decline. If we observe those whom circumstances have obliged to persevere in some pursuits with unremitting diligence; painters, for instance, or musical composers, we shall not find that their master-pieces were produced at the age of five and twenty, but that they have gone on increasing in excellence to the end of a long life. Many a grey headed statesman, lawyer, or mathematician, is enjoying an honourable and vigorous old age, not having had it in his power, happily for him, to command that leisure which, if he made no worse use of it, would have caused him to sink into a mere indolent, common-place, card-playing old gentleman. "Non est, quod quenquam propter canos aut rugas putes diu vixisse; non ille diu vixit, sed diu fuit *."

Let not my female readers suppose that the subject under consideration concerns them less than the other sex. On the contrary, if one cannot

* Seneca de brevitate vitæ.