not permit me to leave untranscribed this very curious and original piece of composition. Probably thou hast never seen, and art never likely to see either the "Descriptive Catalogue" or the "Poetical Sketches" of this insane and erratic genius, I will therefore end the chapter with the Mad Song from the latter, premising only Dificultosa provincia es la que emprendo, y à muchos parecerà escusada; mas para la entèreza desta historia, ha parecido no omitir aquesta parte.* The wild winds weep, And the night is a-cold; And my griefs unfold: Lo to the vault Of paved heaven, With sorrow fraught My notes are driven : Make weep the eyes of day; Like a fiend in a cloud After night I do croud And with night will go; I turn my back to the east, CHAPTER CLXXXII. AN IMPROVEMENT IN THE FORM OF THE before, instead of being preposterously placed behind, it would have been evidently better, for as much as the shin-bone could not then have been so easily broken. I have no better authority for this than a magazine extract. But there have been men of science silly enough to entertain opinions quite as absurd, and presumptuous enough to think themselves wiser than their Maker. Supposing the said Dr. Moreton has not been unfairly dealt with in this statement, it would have been a most appropriate reward for his sagacity, if some one of the thousand and one wonder-working Saints of the Pope's Calendar had reversed his own calves for him, placed them in front, conformably to his own notion of the fitness of things, and then left him to regulate their motions as well as he could. The Gastrocnemius and the Solaus would have found themselves in a new and curious relation to the Rectus femoris and the two Vasti, and the anatomical reformer would have learned feelingly to understand the term of antagonising muscles in a manner peculiar to himself. The use to which this notable philosopher would have made the calf of the leg serve, reminds me of a circumstance that occurred in our friend's practice. An old man hard upon threescore and ten broke his shin one day by stumbling over a chair; and although a hale person who seemed likely to attain a great age by virtue of a vigorous constitution, which had never been impaired through ill habits or excesses of any kind, the hurt that had been thought little of at first became so serious in its consequences, that a mortification was feared. Daniel Dove was not one of those practitioners who would let a THE DOCTOR'S CURE OF A BROKEN SHIN patient die under their superintendence AND INVENTION OF A SHIN-SHIELD. Res fisci est, ubicunque natat. Whatsoever swims upon any water, belongs to this exchequer. JEREMY TAYLOR. Preface to the Duct. Dub. SOME Dr. Moreton is said to have advanced this extraordinary opinion in a treatise upon the beauty of the human structure, that had the calf of the leg been providentially set LUIS MUÑOZ, VIDA DEL P. L. DE GRANADA. secundum artem, rather than incur the risque of being censured for trying in desperate cases any method not in the regular course of practice and recollecting what he had heard when a boy, that a man whose leg and life were in danger from just such an accident had been saved by applying yeast to the wound, he tried the application. The dangerous symptoms were presently removed by it; a kindly process was induced, the wound healed, and the man became whole again. CHAPTER CLXXXIII. Dove was then a young man; and so many years have elapsed since old Joseph VIEWS OF OLD AGE. MONTAIGNE, DANIEL Todhunter was gathered to his fathers, that it would now require an antiquarian's patience to make out the letters of his name upon his mouldering headstone. All remembrance of him (except among his descendants, if any there now be) will doubtless have passed away, unless he should be recollected in Doncaster by the means which Dr. Dove devised for securing him against another such accident. The Doctor knew that the same remedy was not to be relied on a second time, when there would be less ability left in the system to second its effect. He knew that in old age the tendency of Nature is to dissolution, and that accidents which are trifling in youth, or middle age, become fatal at a time when Death is ready to enter at any breach, and Life to steal out through the first flaw in its poor crazy tenement. So, having warned Todhunter of this, and told him that he was likely to enjoy many years of life, if he kept a whole skin on his shins, he persuaded him to wear spatterdashes, quilted in front and protected there with whalebone, charging him to look upon them as the most necessary part of his clothing, and to let them be the last things which he doffed at night, and the first which he donned in the morning. The old man followed this advice; lived to the great age of eighty-five, enjoyed his faculties to the last; and then died so easily, that it might truly be said he fell asleep. My friend loved to talk of this case; for Joseph Todhunter had borne so excellent a character through life, and was so cheerful and so happy, as well as so venerable an old man, that it was a satisfaction for the Doctor to think he had been the means of prolonging his days. CORNEILLE, LANGUET, PASQUIER, DR. JOHN- But the holy place of life, the chapel of ease MASSINGER. MONTAIGNE takes an uncomfortable view of old age. Il me semble, he says, qu'en la vieillesse, nos ames sont subjectes à des maladies et imperfections plus importunes qu'en la jeunesse. Je le disois estant jeune, lors on me donnoit de mon menton par le nez ; je le dis encore à cette heure, que mon poil gris me donne le credit. Nous appellons sagesse la difficulté de nos humeurs, le desgoust des choses presentes: mais à la verité, nous ne quittons pas tant les vices, comme nous les changeons; et, à mon opinion, en pis. Outre une sotte et caduque fierté, un babil ennuyeux, ces humeures espineuses et inassociables, et la superstition, et un soin ridicule des richesses, lors que l'usage en est perdu, j'y trouve plus d'envie, d'injustice, et de malignité. Elle nous attache plus de rides en l'esprit qu'au visage: et ne se void point d'ames ou fort rares, qui en vieillissant ne sentent l'aigre, et le moisi. Take this extract, my worthy friends who are not skilled in French, or know no more of it than a Governess may have taught you, in the English of John Florio, Reader of the Italian tongue unto the Sovereign Majesty of Anna, Queen of England, Scotland, &c., and one of the gentlemen of her Royal privy chamber; the same Florio whom some commentators, upon very insufficient grounds, have supposed to have been designed by Shakespeare in the Holofernes of Love's Labour's Lost. "Methinks our souls in age are subject unto more importunate diseases and imperfections than they are in youth. I said so being young, when my beardless chin was upbraided me, and I say it again, now that my gray beard gives me authority. We entitle wisdom, the frowardness of our humours, and the distaste of present things; as we change them; and in mine opinion for the worse. Besides a silly and ruinous pride, cumbersome tattle, wayward and unsociable humours, superstition, and a ridiculous carking for wealth, when the use of it is well nigh lost. I find the more envy, injustice, and malignity in it. It sets more wrinkles in our minds than in our foreheads; nor are there any spirits, or very rare ones, which in growing old taste not sourly and mustily." but in truth we abandon not vices so much made better by age; for it is very rarely so. They become indeed more cautious, and learn to conceal their faults and their evil inclinations; so that if you have known any old man in whom you think some probity were still remaining, be assured that he must have been excellently virtuous in his youth." Erras si credis homines fieri ætate meliores; id nam est rarissimum. Fiunt quidem cautiores, et vitia animi, ac pravos suos affectus occultare discunt: quod si quem senem novisti in quo aliquid probitatis superesse judices, crede eum in adolescentiâ fuisse optimum. In the same spirit, recollecting perhaps this very passage of the delightful old Gascon, one of our own poets says, Old age doth give by too long space, Our souls as many wrinkles as our face; and the same thing, no doubt in imitation of Je vieillis, ou du moins, ils se le persuadent; The opinion proceeded not in the poet Daniel from perverted philosophy, or sourness of natural disposition, for all his affections were kindly, and he was a tenderhearted, wise, good man. But he wrote this in the evening of his days, when he had Languet spoke of its effects upon others. Old Estienne Pasquier, in that uncomfortable portion of his Jeux Poëtiques which he entitles Vieillesse Rechignée, writes as a self-observer, and his picture is not more favourable. Je ne nourry dans moy qu'une humeur noire, Que je ne fay meshuy que tousser et cracher, That now the world loathes me and I loathe it ; When it shall please the Lord to summon me. est, octogenarius, et senio confractus, et heri partendosi dal porto, tengon gli occhi in teret nudiustercius, ymmo plerisque revolutionibus | ra, e par loro che la nave stia ferma, e la annorum temporibus, corporis statera recur- riva si parta; e pur è il contrario; che il vatus, singulto, tussito, sterto, ossito, sternuto, porto, e medesimamente il tempo, e i piaceri balbutio, catharizo, mussico, paraleso, garga- restano nel suo stato, e noi con la nave della riso, cretico, tremo, sudo, titillo, digitis sæpe mortalità fuggendo n' andiamo, l' un dopo l' geliso, et insuper (quod deterius est) cor meum | altro, per quel procelloso mare che ogni cosa affligitur, et caput excutitur, languet spiritus, assorbe et devora; ne mai piu pigliar terra fetet anhelitus, caligant oculi et facillant* ar- ci è concesso; anzi sempre da contrarii venti ticuli, nares confluunt, crines defluunt, tremunt combattuti, al fine in qualche scoglio la nave tactus et deperit actus, dentes putrescunt et rompemo. aures surdescunt; de facili ad iram provocor, difficili revocor, cito credo, tarde discedo. The effects of age are described in language not less characteristic by the Conte Baldessar Castiglione in his Cortegiano. He is explaining wherefore the old man is always laudator temporis acti; and thus he accounts for the universal propensity;- Gli anni fuggendo se ne portan seco molte commodità, e tra l'altre levano dal sangue gran parte de gli spiriti vitali; onde la complession si muta, e divengon debili gli organi, per i quali l'anima opera le sue virtù. Però de i cori nostri in quel tempo, come allo autunno le fogli de gli arbori, caggiono i soavi fiori di contento; e nel loco de i sereni et chiari pensieri, entra la nubilosa e turbida tristitia di mille calamità compagnata, di modo che non solamente il corpo, ma l' animo anchora è in- | fermo; ne de i passati piaceri reserva altro che una tenace memoria, e la imagine di quel caro tempo della tenera eta, nella quale quando ci troviamo, ci pare che sempre il cielo, e la terra, e ogni cosa faccia festa, e rida imtorno à gli occhi nostri e nel pensiero, come in un delitioso et vago giardino, fiorisca la dolce primavera d' allegrezza: onde forse saria utile, quando gia nella fredda stagione comincia il sole della nostra vita, spogliandoci de quei piaceri, andarsene verso l'occaso, perdere insieme con essi anchor la lor memoria, e trovar (come disse Temistocle) un' arte, che a scordar insegnasse ; perche tanto sono fallaci i sensi del corpo nostro, che spesso ingannano anchora il giudicio della mente. Però parmi che i vecchi siano alla condition di quelli, che *Facillant is here evidently the same as vacillant. For the real meaning of facillo the reader is referred to Du Cange in v. or to Martinius' Lexicon. Take this passage, gentle reader, as Master Thomas Hoby has translated it to my hand. "Years wearing away carry also with them many commodities, and among others take away from the blood a great part of the lively spirits; that altereth the complection, and the instruments wax feeble whereby the soul worketh his effects. Therefore the sweet flowers of delight vade* away in that season out of our hearts, as the leaves fall from the trees after harvest; and instead of open and clear thoughts, there entereth cloudy and troublous heaviness, accompanied with a thousand heart griefs: so that not only the blood, but the mind is also feeble, neither of the former pleasures retaineth it any thing else but a fast memory, and the print of the beloved time of tender age, which when we have upon us, the heaven, the earth and each thing to our seeming rejoiceth and laugheth always about our eyes, and in thought (as in a savoury and pleasant garden) flourisheth the sweet spring time of mirth: So that, peradventure, it were not unprofitable when now, in the cold season, the sun of our life, taking away from us our delights, beginneth to draw toward the West, to lose therewithall the mindfulness of them, and to find out as Themistocles saith, an art to teach us to forget; for the senses of our body are so deceivable, that they beguile many times also the judgement of the mind. Therefore, methinks, old men be like unto them that sailing in a vessel out of an haven, behold the ground with their eyes, and the vessel to their seeming standeth still, and the shore goeth; and yet is it clean contrary, for the haven, and likewise the time and pleasures, continue still in their estate, and we with the vessel of mortality flying away, go one after another through the tempestuous sea that swalloweth up and devoureth all things, neither is it granted us at any time to come on shore again; but, always beaten with contrary winds, at the end we break our vessel at some rock." "Why Sir," said Dr. Johnson, a man grows better humoured as he grows older. He improves by experience. When young he thinks himself of great consequence, and every thing of importance. As he advances in life, he learns to think himself of no consequence, and little things of little importance, and so he becomes more patient and better pleased." This was the observation of a wise and good man, who felt in himself, as he grew old, the effect of Christian principles upon a kind heart and a vigorous understanding. One of a very different stamp came to the same conclusion before him; Crescit ætate pulchritudo animorum, says Antonio Perez, quantum minuitur eorundem corporum venustas. One more of these dark pictures. "The heart," says Lord Chesterfield, "never grows better by age; I fear rather worse; always harder. A young liar will be an old one; and a young knave will only be a greater knave as he grows older. But should a had young heart, accompanied with a good head, (which by the way very seldom is the case) really reform, in a more advanced age, from a consciousness of its folly, as well as of its guilt, such a conversion would only be thought prudential and political, but never sincere." effect of time was to sear away asperities of character, Till the smooth temper of their age should be Like the high leaves upon the Holly Tree, yet he expressed an opinion closely agreeing with this of Lord Chesterfield. "A man, he said, "commonly grew wicked as he grew older, at least he but changed the vices of youth, head-strong passion and wild temerity, for treacherous caution and desire to circumvent." These he can only have meant of wicked men. But what follows seems to imply a mournful conviction that the tendency of society is to foster our evil propensities, and counteract our better ones; "I am always," he said, "on the young people's side, when there is a dispute between them and the old ones; for you have at least a charm for virtue, till age has withered its very root." Alas, this is true of the irreligious and worldly minded, and it is generally true because they composed the majority of our corrupt contemporaries. But Johnson knew that good men became better as they grew older, because his philosophy was that of the Gospel. Something of a philosopher Lord Chesterfield was, and had he lived in the days of Trajan or Hadrian, might have done honour to the school of Epicurus. But if he had not in the pride of his poor philosophy, shut both his understanding and his heart against the truths of revealed religion, in how different a light would the evening of his life have closed. Une raison essentielle, says the Epicurean Saint Evremond, qui nous oblige à nous retirer quand nous sommes vieux, c'est qu'il faut prevenir le ridicule où l'age nous fait tomber presque toujours. And in another place he says, certes le plus honnête-homme dont personne n'a besoin, a de la peine à s'exempter du ridicule en vieillissant. This was the opinion of a courtier, a sensualist, and a Frenchman. I cannot more appositely conclude this chapter than by a quotation ascribed, whether truly or not, to St. Bernard. Maledictum It is remarkable that Johnson, though, as caput canum et cor vanum, caput tremulum et has just been seen, he felt in himself and cor emulum, canities in vertice et pernicies in saw in other good men, that the naturalmente: facies rugosa et lingua nugosa, cutis |