reflections concerning old age; the infirmities whereof we are now beginning to feel, or at least are advancing fast toward them; and I am desirous of rendering the burden as easy as possible both to you and to myself. I am well convinced, indeed, that as you have hitherto borne its weight, so you will continue to support its increasing pressure, with the same good sense and composure of mind which you have so happily discovered on every other important occasion. However, having resolved to publish some reflections on the subject, I determined to address them to you, who have a peculiar claim to this pledge of my affection; and it is a present to which we may both of us have recourse with equal advantage. For myself, at least, the considerations I now lay before you have had so happy an effect on my own mind as not only to reconcile me to all the inconveniences of old age, but to render it even an agreeable state to me.

Can we sufficiently, then, express our sense of the obligations we owe to Philosophy, who thus instructs her disciples how to pass through every successive period of human life, with equal satisfaction and complacency? The advantages to be derived from her precepts in other important situations is a topic on which I have frequently had occasion to expatiate; and shall often perhaps resume; but, in the papers I now send you, my purpose is to consider those advantages with respect only to our declining years. To have put these reflections into the mouth of an imaginary character, like the Tithonus of Aristo, would have made but little impression on the reader; in order, therefore, to give them the greater force, I have represented them as delivered by the venerable Cato. To this end I have introduced Scipio and Lælius, as expressing to him their admiration of the wonderful ease with which he supported his old age; and this gives him occasion to enter into a full explanation of his ideas on the subject. If you should think that he discovers, in this conversation, a richer vein of literature than appears in his own compositions, you must impute it to the acquaintance he afterward made with the Greek authors, whose language and philosophy, it is well known, he passionately studied in the latter end of his long life. I have only to add that, in

delivering the sentiments of Cato, I desire to be understood as fully declaring my own.

Scipio. I have frequently, Cato, joined with our friend Lælius, in admiring that consummate wisdom and virtue, which on all occasions so eminently distinguishes your character; but, particularly, in that singular ease and cheerfulness with which you seem to bear up, under those years, which are pressing on you. I could never observe that they are attended with the least inconvenience to you, whereas the generality of men, at your time of life, usually complain of old age as the heaviest and most insupportable of burdens.

Cato. There is nothing, my friends, in the circumstance you have remarked, that can justly, I think, deserve your admiration. Those, indeed, who have no internal resource of happiness will find themselves uneasy in every stage of human life; but to him who is accustomed to derive all his felicity from within himself, no state will appear as a real evil, into which he is conducted by the common and regular course of Nature. Now this is peculiarly the case with respect to old age; yet such is the inconsistency of human folly that the very period which at a distance is every man's warmest wish to attain no sooner arrives, than it is equally the object of his lamentations. It is usual with men at this season of life to complain that old age has stolen on them by surprise, and much sooner than they expected; but if they were deceived by their own false calculations, must not the blame rest wholly on themselves? for, in the first place, old age surely does not gain by swifter and more imperceptible steps on manhood than manhood advances on youth; and, in the next, in what respect would age have sat less heavily on them had its progress been much slower, and, instead of making its visit at fourscore years, it had not reached them till four hundred? for the years that are elapsed, how numerous soever they may have been, can by no means console a weak and frivolous mind under the usual consequences of long life. If I have any claim, therefore, to that wisdom which you tell me, my friends, you have often admired in my character (and which I can only wish indeed were worthy of the opinion you entertain of it, and the appellation the world has conferred on me), it consists wholly in this: that I follow Nature as the surest guide, and resign myself, with an implicit obedience, to all her sacred ordinances. Now it can not be supposed that Nature, after having wisely distributed to all the preceding periods of life their peculiar and proper enjoyments, should have neglected, like an indolent poet, the last act of the human drama, and left it destitute of suitable advantages. Nevertheless, it was impossible but that in the life of man, as in the fruits of the earth, there should be a certain point of maturity, beyond which the marks of decay must necessarily appear; and to this unavoidable condition of his present being every wise and good man will submit with a contented and cheerful acquiescence; for to entertain desires repugnant to the universal law of our existencewhat is it, my friends, but to wage war, like the impious giants, with the gods themselves?

Lalius. You will confer, then, a very acceptable service on both of us, Cato (for I will venture to answer for my friend Scipio as well as for myself), if you will mark out to us by what means we may most effectually be enabled to support the load of incumbent years; for although we are at present far distant from old age, we have reason, however, to expect, at least to hope, that it is a period we shall live to attain.

Cato. Most willingly, Lælius, I yield to your request, especially as you assure me that my compliance will be equally agreeable to both of you.

Scipio. Yes, my venerable friend; like travellers who mean to take the same long journey you have gone before us, we should be glad (if it be not imposing too much trouble on you) that you would give us some account of the advanced stage at which you are now arrived.

Cato. I am ready, Scipio, to the best of my power, to give you the information you desire. And, indeed, I am the more qualified for the task you assign me, as I have always (agreeably to the old proverb) associated much with men of my own years. This has given me frequent opportunities of being acquainted with their grievances; and I particularly remember to have often heard Caius