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And if our bodies thence refreshment finds,
Then must we also exercise our minds.
If with continual oil we not supply
Our lamp, the light for want of it will die.
Tho' bodies may be tir'd with exercise,
No weariness the mind could e'er surprise.
Cæcilius, the comedian, when of Age
He represents the follies on the stage,
They're credulous, forgetful, dissolute;
Neither those crimes to Age he doth impute,
But to old men, to whom those crimes belong.
Lust, petulence, rashness, are in youth more strong
Than Age, and yet young men those vices hate 115
Who virtuous are, discreet, and temperate :
And so what we call dotage seldom breeds
In bodies but where Nature sow'd the seeds.
There are five daughters and four gallant sons
In whom the blood of noble Appius runs,
With a most num'rous family beside,
Whom he alone, tho' old and blind, did guide
Yet his clear-sighted mind was still intent,
And to his bus'ness, like a bow, stood bent:
By children, servants, neighbours, so esteem'd, 125
He not a master but a monarch seem'd.
All his relations his admirers were;

His sons paid rev'rence, and his servants fear:
The order and the ancient discipline

Of Romans did in all his actions fhine.

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Authority kept up, old Age secures,
Whose dignity as long as life endures.
Something of youth I in old Age approve,,
But more the marks of Age in youth I love.
Who this observes may in his body find
Decrepit Age, but never in his mind.
The seven volumes of my own reports,
Wherein are all the pleadings of our courts ;
All noble monuments of Greece are come
Unto my hands, with those of ancient Rome.
The Pontifical and the Civil law

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I study still, and thence orations draw :
And, to confirm my memory, at night
What I hear, see, or do, by day, I still recite.
These exercises for my thoughts I find;

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These labours are the chariots of my mind.
To serve my friends the senate I frequent,
And there what I before digested vent;
Which only from my strength of mind proceeds,
Not any outward force of body needs;
Which if I could not do, I should delight
On what I would to ruminate at night.
Who in such practices their minds engage,
Nor fear nor think of their approaching Age,
Which by degrees invisibly doth creep,
Nor do we seem to die but fall asleep.

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THE THIRD PART.

Now must I draw my forces 'gainst that host
Of pleasures which th sea of Age are lost.
O thou most high transcendent gift of Age!
Youth from its folly thus to disengage,
And now receive from me that most divine
Oration of that noble Tarentine*,
Which at Tarentum I long since did hear,
When I attended the great Fabius there.
Ye Gods! was it man's nature, or his fate,
Betray'd him with sweet pleasure's poison'd bait?
Which he, with all designs of art or pow'r,
Doth with unbridled appetite devour :
And as all poisons seek the noblest part,
Pleasure possesses first the head and heart;
Intoxicating both by them, she finds,
And burns the sacred temples of our minds.
Furies, which reason's divine chains had bound,
(That being broken) all the world confound;
Lust, Murder, Treason, Avarice, and hell
Itself broke loose, in Reason's palace dwell :
Truth, Honour, Justice, Temperance, are fled,
All her attendants into darkness led.
But why all this discourse? when pleasure's rage
Hath conquer'd reason, we must treat with Age.
Age undermines, and will in time surprise
Her strongest forts, and cut off all supplies

*Archytas, much praised by Horace.

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25

And, join'd in league with strong Necessity,
Pleasure must fly, or else by famine die.
Flaminius, whom a consulship had grac'd,
(Then Censor) from the Senate I displac'd:
When he in Gaul, a Consul, made a feast,
A beauteous courtezan did him request
To see the cutting off a pris'ner's head;
This crime I could not leave unpunished,
Since by a private villany he stain'd

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35

That public honour which at Rome he gain'd.
Then to our Age (when not to pleasures bent)
This seems an honour, not disparagement.
We not all pleasures like the Stoics hate,
But love and seek those which are moderate.
(Tho' divine Plato thus of Pleasures thought,
They us with hooks and baits like fishes caught.)
When Questor, to the gods in public halls

I was the first who set up festivals:
Not with high tastes our appetites did force,
But fill'd with conversation and discourse;
Which feasts Convivial Meetings we did name;
Not like the ancient Greeks, who to their shame
Call'd it a Compotation, not a feast,
Declaring the worst part of it the best.
Those entertainments I did then frequent
Sometimes with youthful heat and merriment:
But now I thank my Age, which gives me ease
From those excesses; yet myself I please

40

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50

With cheerful talk to entertain my guests,
(Discourses are to Age continual feasts)
The love of meat and wine they recompence,
And cheer the wind as much as those the sense.
I'm not more pleas'd with gravity among

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70

The ag'd, than to be youthful with the young; 60
Nor 'gainst all pleasures proclaim open war,
To which, in Age, some natʼral motions are:
And still at my Sabinum I delight
To treat my neighbours till the depth of night.
But we the sense of gust and pleasure want,
Which youth at full possesses; this I grant:
But Age seeks not the things which youth requires,
And no man needs that which he not desires,
When Sophocles was ask'd if he deny'd,
Himself the use of pleasures? he reply'd,
"I humbly thank th' immortal gods, who me
"From that fierce tyrant's insolence set free."
But they whom pressing appetites constrain
Grieve when they cannot their desires obtain.
Young men the use of pleasure understand,
As of an object new, and near at hand;
Tho' this stands more remote from Age's sight,
Yet they behold it not without delight:
As ancient soldiers, from their duties eas'd, Ex
With sense of honour and rewards are pleas'd; 80
So from ambitious hopes and lusts releast,'
Delighted with itself our Age doth rest.

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