Fumbling and driveling as he draws his breath;
In brief, the shape and meffenger of death.
E. of Dorfet in the Mirror for Magiftrates. For age with fhame of youths fond deeds ftruck blind, Doth oft abhor to bear the fame in mind.
It is as proper to our age,
To caft beyond our felves in our opinions;
As it is common for the younger fort
Have their ingratitude in them hereditary:
Their blood is cak'd, 'tis cold, it feldom flows;
'Tis lack of kindly warmth, they are not kind;
And nature, as it grows again tow'rd earth,
Is fashion'd for the journey, dull and heavy.
Shakespear's Timon.
Kind keepers of my weak decaying age,
Let dying Mortimer here reft himself.
Ev'n like a man new haled from the rack,
So fare my limbs with long imprisonment:
And these grey locks, the purfuivants of death,
Neftor-like aged in an age of care,
Argue the end of Edmund Mortimer.
Thefe eyes, like lamps, whofe wafting oil is spent,
Wax dim, as drawing to their exigent.
Weak shoulders over-born with burth'ning grief,
And pithlefs arms, like to a wither'd vine
That droops his fapless branches to the ground:
Yet are these feet, whofe ftrengthlefs ftay is numb,.
Unable to fupport this lump of clay,
Swift-winged with defire to get a grave;
As witting, I no other comfort have.
Shakespear's First Part of K. Henry VI.
On a grey head, age was authority
Against a buffoon, and a man had then
A certain rev'rence paid unto his years,
That had none due unto his life: fo much
The fanctity of fome prevail'd, for others.
But now we all are fall'n; youth from their fear,
And age, from that which bred it, good example.
Johnfon's Every Man in his Humour.
1. The other are confiderations,
When we come to have grey heads, and weak hams, Moift eyes, and fhrunk members: We'll think on 'em Then; then we'll pray and faft.
2. Ay, and deftine only that time of age To goodness, which our want of ability Will not let us employ in evil?
1. Why then 'tis time enough.
2. Yes, as if a man should fleep all the term, And think t' effect his bufinefs, the last day.
Johnson's Silent Woman. What, dost thou stand on this, that he is old? Thy beauty hath the more to work upon; Thy pleasures want fhall be fupply'd with gold; Cold age doats moft, when heat of youth is gone: Enticing words prevail with fuch a one. Alluring fhews moft deep impreffion strikes, For age is prone to credit what it likes.
Good feeble king, he could not do much harm,
But age muft needs have fomething that is warm:
Small drops, God knows, do quench that heatless fire,
When all the strength is only in defire.
Drayton's Mary the French Queen to D. of Suffolk.
Have we no brain?
Youth thinks that age, age knows that youth is vain.
Marfton's Fawn. I'm reading, fir, of a short treatise here,
That's call'd the vanity of luft: has your grace feen it? He fays here, that an old man's loofe defire
Is like the glow-worm's light, the apes fo wonder'd at, Which when they gather'd sticks, and laid upon't, And blew, and blew, turn'd tail, and went out prefently:
And in another place, he calls their loves
Faint fmells of dying flow'rs, carry no comforts;
They're doting, ftinking foggs, fo thick and muddy,
Reafon, with all his beams, cannot beat through 'em.
Beaumont and Fletcher's Humorous Lieutenant.
His fnowy age, O old Andronicus,
His filver hairs, and golden head are fit
For the management of ftate affairs!
He has been long betroth'd to the best mistress
In the world, experience; he's politick
And wife; and his age gives him a fufficient
Title to rule and govern:
And therefore 'twas enacted by fage Lycurgus,
That men fhould receive honour, and refpect,
Not for their riches, power, but their age;
Knowing the fhadow of an aged perfon,
Creates more terror, and ftrikes a greater
Fear on men, than a youth's fharpeft fteel: hence
At Rome the fenate did confift of ancient men ;
Among the famous Lacedemonians,
The magiftrates, were ftil'd old and ancient men :
And therefore 'twas, great Alexander
Gave none but aged men commiffions
To be grandees and officers in his
Army; which to all it's beholders feem'd
A grave and rev'rend fenate of fome well
Regulated commonwealth and though that
Hoary age be not fo vig'rous, in ftrength
Of body and agility; yet 't has
A ftronger and a nimbler brain and as
In tedious voyages, fhips loofe that outward
Spendor which they had when they first launch'd off
From hore, yet then they chiefly gain,
By being laded with richer wares; fo
Ancient men repair all youth's decays, by
The poffeffions of a richer brain and
Golden head, with which they're laded, after
They're paft the tropicks of youth's hot brav'ry.
What fools are therefore those who think that aged
Men are too unactive for fov'reignty ?
Such do refemble thofe, who fay the pilot's
Idle, because, when others climb the mafts,
Pump out the water, which the too covetous
Ship would otherwife retain, he fits at
Eafe and quietly at the ftern, although
His task's the hardest.
I know not what this old man is like, unless
Our hill of Sicily the flaming Etna;
Whole parch'd bowels ftill in flames confuming,
Fills all the valley with flame and pitchy fuming;
Yet on his top congealed fnow doth lie,
As if there were not fire nor Phœbus nigh.
Why fhould we count this ftrange? When even fo
This old man's heart's all fire, his head all (now ?
Sicelides
Chearful his age, not tedious or fevere ;
Like those who being dull, would grave appear;
Whofe quiet made them the foul of mirth defpife,
And being fullen, hope men think them wife.
Sir W. Davenant to the Countess of Carlife.
Cæcilius vainly faid, each day we spend
Discovers fomething, which must needs offend;
But fometimes age may pleafant things behold
And nothing that offends: He fhould have told
This not to age, but youth; who oftner fee
What not alone offends, but hurts, than we:
That, I in him, which he in age condemn'd,
That us it renders odious, and contemn'd.
Hęknew not virtue if he thought this truth;
Fory outh delights in age, and age in youth.
What to the old can greater pleasure be,
Than hopeful and ingenious youth to fee?
When they with rev'rence follow where we lead,
And in ftrait paths by our directions tread ;
And ev'n my conversation here I fee,
As well receiv'd by you, as yours by me.
When I reflect on age I find there are
Four causes, which its mifery declare.
First, 'cause our bodies ftrength it much impairs ;
'That it takes off our minds from great affairs:
Next, that our fenfe of pleasure it deprives :
Laft, that approaching death attends our lives.
In age to wifh for youth, is full as vain,
As for a youth to turn a child again.
We happier are than they, who but defir'd,
To poffefs that, which we long fince acquir'd:
So age a mature mellownefs doth fet
On the green promifes of youthful heat.
Age like ripe apples, on earth's bofom drops,
While force our youth, like fruits untimely crops:
The sparkling flame of our warm blood expires,
As when huge ftreams are pour'd on raging fires;
But age unforc'd falls by her own confent,
As coals to afhes when the fpirit's fpent.
Th'art yet in thy green May, twenty-feven fummers
Set in our calends; but when forty winters more
Shall round thy forehead with a field of fnow,
And when thy comely veins fhall cease to flow,
When those majeftick eyes fhall float in rheums,
When giant nature her owníelf confumes,
When thy fwift pulfes fhall but flowly pant,
When thou art all a volume of my want,
That like a tale-spent fire thou shalt fink,
Then, John, upon this leffon thou wilt think;
He dies a happy old man, whofe fweet youth
Was a continu'd facrifice to truth
Davenport's King John and Matilda.
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