But there is no method of inspiring good humour and good sense so effectual, as that of forming a taste for polite letters and polite arts at an early age. Whatever pleases habitually, equally, and innocently, cannot fail to sweeten the temper. Books, besides that they are usually addressed to the taste, and on that account possess a beneficial influence on the temper, abound with maxims and with precepts of sovereign efficacy in the improvement of the heart, the temper, and the understanding. Drawing and music, seriously and attentively pursued, are peculiarly efficacious in refining, exalting, and sweetening the disposition. Every thing, indeed, which addresses itself to the finer faculties of the human constitution, has, in some degree, this valuable effect; and she, who has been early taught to value the beauties of the mind, will find its graces expanding to their highest perfection, at the very age in which the blossoms of personal beauty wither and decay. If, as we grow old, we grow wiser and better, surely we shall have no reason to repine, since our real happiness is always proportioned to our wisdom and our goodness; and we can scarcely avoid growing wiser and better by age, if our minds have been early improved with learning, and duly tinctured with virtue and religion. Time and experience naturally lead to improvement; and, if our hearts are rightly disposed, we shall find, in the conscious improvement of our minds and morals, one of the sweetest pleasures of which our nature is capable. However unseasonable the excessive dread of approaching Old Age, in either sex, it is certainly more excusable, on many accounts, in women than in men. In men it is a mark of weakness, want of principle, and want of sense. Yet how many do we daily see with wrinkled brows, bloodless cheeks, tottering legs, and hoary locks, decorating their walking skeletons with every cosmetic art, and haunting every scene of vice and vanity, with all the wantonness of a stripling of eighteen. There is a natural dignity, authority, and beauty, in Old Age honourably sup ported, which such men resign for that absurd affectation of truth, which can only render them wretched and ridiculous. To consider the advanced periods of life as of no value, argues a great defect of religious principle. They constitute the proper season for the pleasures of devotion and of practical piety. They furnish a most desirable opportunity for advancing our nature to all attainable perfection, and fulfilling the purposes of our existence by benevolence and beneficence. They enable us to aspire after, and to obtain, that beauty which shall not pass away, and that youth which shall be immortal. Is pleasure's fairest flower Found in youth's dawn, or manhood's noontide hour? MISS VARDILL. For the natural evils of Old Age, relief is to be sought from the physician rather than from the moralist. But philosophy can assuage the pain which it cannot cure. It will suggest reflections, and operate like b balsam on the wounds of the mind. It will teach us to bear the evils that it cannot remove, and, by calling forth our powers of resistance, enable us to alleviate the load. Y 4 All, however, are not capable of appreciating the benefits of philosophy. Few, but those whose under standings have been cultivated, and affections refined by liberal education, are able to understand or profit by the wise precepts of an Epictetus or a Cicero. still greater efficacy than the philosophy of these, or Of any other writers, religion steps in, to infuse an ingredient into the bitter cup of life, which never fails to sweeten it, and which is adapted to the taste of every human creature. Religion, indeed, is able of itself most effectually to dissipate the clouds, and to diffuse a sunshine on the evening of life. But to those who are conversant in literature, the celebrated treatise of Cicero may be collaterally recommended as affording solid consolation. Many moral treatises, however just and pleasing they may appear on the perusal, are of little use in the conduct of life, and terminate in speculative amusement. But the Treatise on Old Age prescribes rules, and suggests ideas, which, if permitted to influence practice, must render that period of life truly pleasing and honourable. Every old man, who wishes to be wise and happy, and consequently an object of respect, should turn it over, as Horace advises the student to peruse the Greek volumes, by day and night. Nor can an ignorance of the Latin language be pleaded in excuse for the omission, since the elegant translation of Melmoth has preserved all the meaning of the original, together with a great share of its grace and spirit. The indigent and uninstructed cannot enjoy the additional benefit of pagan wisdom; but they have the comfort to know that evangelical philosophy is fully adequate to the cure of mental disease, and at the same time requires neither extraordinary abilities, nor opportunities of learned leisure, nor the toil of study. An attendance upon the offices of religion, and on the duties of charity, whilst it fills up the vacant hours of superannuated life with that cheerfulness which ever attends laudable employment, tends to inspire ideas of patience and resignation. A devotional taste or spirit will afford the most lively enjoyments. The turbulent pleasures of youth may be succeeded by a religious fervour, by a flame which is capable of warming the cold blood of Age, and of affording satisfactions allied to those of more youthful passions, but exempt from their danger or criminality. Thus may the dignity of Age be supported; and upon that dignity greatly depends its happiness. It is that alone which can repel the insolence of youth, too often instigated by the levity of thoughtless health, to forget the reverence which, among the ancients, was thought due to the hoary head. It is really lamentable to observe, in many families, the aged parent slighted and neglected, and, like an old-fashioned piece of furniture, or useless lumber, thrown aside with contempt. Such treatment is disgustingly unnatural; but it is not easily to be avoided where there is no personal merit, no authority derived from superior wisdom to compensate the want of attractive qualities. Tenderness and affection may be patient and assiduous; but who would not rather command the attention of respect, than excite the aid of pity? For the sake, however, of domestic happiness, it should be remembered, that the authoritative air of wisdom must be tempered with sweetness of manners; for it will be found that the reverence which does not exclude love, is the most desirable, and the most permanent. It has always been the practice of those who are desirous to believe themselves made venerable by length of time, to censure the new comers into life, for want of respect to gray hairs and sage experiencefor hardy confidence in their own understandings-for hasty conclusions upon partial views-for disregard of counsels which their fathers and grandsires are ready to 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_rashness of passion and the blindness of ignorance. Every old man complains of the growing depravity of the world, of the petulance and insolence of the rising generation. He recounts the decency and regularity of former times, 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 confusion has broken in upon the world, and thrown down all the boundaries of civility and re verence. The querulousness and indignation which thus so often disfigure the last scene of life, naturally lead to one important conclusion, which is, 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 defeat their influence by their own misconduct, and make use of all these advantages with very little skill, if they cannot ensure to themselves an appearance of respect, and ward off open mockery and declared contempt. The general story of mankind will evince, that lawful and settled authority is very seldom resisted, when it is well employed. Gross corruption, or evident imbecility, is necessary to the suppression of that reverence with which the majority of mankind look upon their governors, and on those whom they see surrounded by splendour, and fortified by power. For though men are drawn by their passions into forgetfulness of invisible rewards and punishments, yet they are easily kept obedient to those who have temporal dominions in their hands, till their veneration is dissipated by such wickedness and folly as can neither be defended nor concealed. It may, therefore, very reasonably be suspected, that the old draw upon themselves the greatest part of those insults which they so much lament, and that Age is rarely despised but when it is contemptible. If men imagine that excess of debauchery can be made reverend by time, that knowledge is the consequence of long life, however idly or thoughtlessly 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 |